Summer Schools

Applications are now closed.  Late applications will not be accepted.

In 2012, we are significantly expanding our summer school programme and will provide this fantastic opportunity to more than 1000 students. We are delighted to welcome Durham University, Imperial College and UCL as new partners, alongside Bristol, Cambridge, Nottingham and St Andrews.

Student applications will open on 10 January 2012 

Funded by the Sutton Trust with the generous support of its partners and host universities, the week long summer schools are designed to give bright students from non-privileged homes a taste of life at a leading university. The aim is to demystify elite universities and to equip students – most of whom will be the first in their families to go on to higher education – with the knowledge and insight to make high quality applications to prestigious universities. Every year we try to reach more schools which rarely send students on the programme, as this is where aspirations towards the elite universities are likely to be particularly low and where advice on how to negotiate admissions arrangements is particularly needed.

Importantly, the summer schools are successful at targeting those they are designed to help. Of the sixth formers who attended last year, all met at least one of the eligibility criteria, whilst 98 percent met at least two and over 70% matched three. Three quarters of the students came from schools with a lower than average attainment rate at A level.

Research from UCAS continues to show that the summer schools are effective in raising the aspirations of young people and supporting them on a route to a highly-selective university course. Tracking data on the 2007 cohort (who started university in the Autumn of 2009) shows that Sutton Trust students were three times as likely to apply to one of the five summer school universities as applicants from the comparator group of students from similar backgrounds and with similar levels of attainment. Significantly, 6 in 10 students have begun their degrees at one of the elite Russell Group universities, and one quarter ended up at one of the five host summer school universities.