If you want to be famous, go to Cambridge

University of Cambridge comes out on top of poll for most celebrity alumni

by Kirsty Gray

This article is 15 years old

Monday May 16 2011, 4:34pm

It should have been obvious from one look at the star-studded line-up of alumni who have spoken at the Cambridge Union this year.

But an “alternative league table” has now officially ranked the University in first place for its famous output.

The poll, released by Burger King, has credited Cambridge with 30 celebrity alumni, including the likes of Stephen Fry, Sir Ian McKellen and Rachel Weisz.

Cambridge alumni, Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry, met whilst studying at the Universityhughlaurie.net

Meanwhile, the Other Place ranked second but missed out by a large margin: the survey revealed that Oxford can only boast 15 famous former students.

It seems the Oxonians – Hugh Grant, Richard Curtis and Michael Palin – were no match for the glittering bill of Cantabs.

Brian Cox and the Chemical Brothers saw Manchester University take the bronze while the comedic talents of David Walliams, Matt Lucas and Simon Pegg pushed Bristol into the top ten.

The poll qualified each alumnus as a ‘celebrity’ if they had completed an undergraduate course and were now a household personality currently working in showbusiness.

“It’s inspiring to be at University somewhere where some of the greatest English actors and directors first studied, and acted,” ADC hopeful Jack Parlett told Varsity. “While it’s not exactly a shoe in, it’s encouraging to know who you could be following in the footsteps of.”

This news is only the latest in a recent string of league-table successes for Cambridge. Times Higher Education recently ranked the institution 3rd in a list of 200 top universities judged by their "reputation" according to a panel of 13,000 international academics.

Cambridge was deemed the top-rated UK university with Oxford ranking 6th, above the London School of Economics in 37th place.

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