College popularity: the latest rankings

By Jasmine Davey

Palatinate has obtained the college popularity rankings for academic year 2025/26, through a Freedom of Information request to Durham University. 

Students are currently allocated their colleges based off a preference form, in which they rank all 16 undergraduate colleges. However, ranking a college as your ‘first choice’ does not guarantee you a space. 

This year’s popularity rankings reveal that University College, commonly dubbed ‘Castle’, is once again the most popular choice, with 20% of students ranking it as their first preference This is no change to previous years; Castle has now been top of the list for at least 8 years running, since Palatinate first collected the data in 2017.  

Collingwood remained the second most popular college, receiving 16% of first choice selections. This makes it the post popular college on the Hill. 

Bailey colleges are generally more popular than Hill colleges, with the 5 Bailey Colleges making the top 10. Of all the Bailey colleges, St John’s was least popular, being ranked first choice by only 4% of incoming freshers. 

St Aidan’s, Trevelyan, and Van Mildert remain in the bottom 3 spaces, each receiving 1% of first choice selections. In previous years, St Aidan’s has attributed their low ranking to the daunting prospect of the Aidan’s steps, as well as the possibility of having a shared room. 

Given the large variety between colleges, only a small proportion of students are allocated their ‘first choice’ college. This is because those colleges which receive a high proportion of first choice selections often do not have the space to accommodate everyone. For instance, Palatinate previously reported that Castle received 4410 first choice selections in 2024 for only 250 bed spaces. While this results in disappointment for many students, the phrase ‘you learn to love your college either way’ rings true for many. 

Image credit: Jasmine Davey