Outstanding Cambridge Learner Awards: Our Student won

A guide for students and parents — the categories, how winners are identified, and why some subjects are never awarded.

What the awards are

Outstanding Cambridge Learner Awards are a group of awards recognising exceptional learner achievement in Cambridge examinations around the world. They are issued by Cambridge International Education, part of Cambridge University Press & Assessment, and cover Cambridge IGCSE, Cambridge O Level and Cambridge International AS and A Level qualifications.

One point of confusion is worth clearing up immediately: these awards come from Cambridge University Press & Assessment, the examinations organisation. They are not awarded by the University of Cambridge as a place of study, and receiving one is not connected to admission there.

There is no application process. Winners are identified automatically from examination performance, and schools are notified.

The five categories

Top in the World

Awarded to the learner who has gained the highest standard mark in the world for a single subject. Where other learners anywhere in the world achieve exactly the same mark, their achievement is treated as equal and they receive the same award.

Top in Country or Territory

Awarded to the learner with the highest standard mark in their own country or territory for a single subject, with the same rule for equal marks.

High Achievement

Awarded for outstanding results in subjects that are less widely taken and which, under the current criteria, would not qualify for a Top in Country award. It recognises a high A grade rather than an A grade alone, and is calculated on standard marks, so that only genuinely outstanding performance is recognised.

Best Across

Awarded for sustained achievement across a range of subjects. Learners must achieve at least grade A or grade 7 and the highest cumulative total standard marks across a set number of subjects: eight for Cambridge IGCSE or O Level, four for Cambridge International AS Level, and three for Cambridge International A Level. Where a learner has taken more than the required number, only the highest-marked subjects are counted.

Standard marks: the part most people get wrong

This is the single most misunderstood aspect of the awards.

Cambridge awards are calculated on overall standard marks, not on percentage marks or grades. Raw marks are what appears on a completed script. Standard marks are produced by converting the total raw mark against a standard scale to produce a mark out of 100, which allows performance to be compared across different subjects on an equivalent basis and shows where within a grade band a candidate sits.

Two consequences follow. A learner with an apparently perfect percentage is not automatically a winner. And a grade A alone is never sufficient — the award depends on position within the mark range, not on the grade letter.

Cambridge does not disclose standard marks, entry numbers by subject, or learners’ rankings; this information is confidential. Winners are identified on the basis of examination performance by standard mark, which is a matter of record, and results are generated, checked and approved through a defined process subject to quality auditing under ISO 9001 certification.

Why some subjects are never awarded

Parents often ask why a child with an exceptional result received nothing.

Cambridge sets minimum entry thresholds for Top in the World and Top in Country awards, to ensure winners are selected from a sufficiently representative sample. The reasoning is straightforward: where only one learner in a country sat a subject, awarding a prize would misleadingly imply competition. Equally, a Top in the World award cannot be made for a subject with only five entrants worldwide, or where most entrants came from a single country, because the sample is not genuinely global.

There is also a grade threshold. Where the leading learner falls below it, no award is made even if every other criterion has been satisfied.

One further rule catches people out: a learner who receives Top in the World is not also eligible for Top in Country in the same subject.

AS and A Level: how the routes are treated

The awards do not distinguish between candidates entering stand-alone Cambridge International AS Levels and those entering full A Levels, and all routes to an A Level are considered. Candidates entered for AS Level are eligible for AS Level awards; candidates entered for A Level are eligible for A Level awards.

This means a candidate can win at AS Level in one series and win an A Level award in the same syllabus in a later series, where the result includes a carried-forward AS mark.

Which examination series count

Awards recognise performance in the main examination series for each country or territory. Where entry levels in an alternative series are too low, or where that series exists only for re-sit examinations, it is not awarded. Where both series carry equal weight in a country, results are calculated for both June and November.

Ceremonies are held in more than forty countries, typically several months after results are released — so a June result is generally recognised the following winter or spring.

What an award means in practice

For a university application, the award is useful but not transformative. Admissions decisions rest on grades, the personal statement, references and, for competitive courses, admissions tests and interviews. An Outstanding Cambridge Learner Award is a credible external signal of depth in a subject, and it gives a candidate something specific and verifiable to discuss at interview.

Its greater value is usually personal. Examination performance is normally measured against a grade boundary; this measures a student against every other candidate who sat the same paper anywhere in the world.

Awards at Cherwell College Oxford

In February 2026, one of our students Freddie received an Outstanding Cambridge Learner Award for the highest mark in the world in Cambridge International A Level History in the June 2025 examination series — the first Cherwell candidate to achieve this in the subject.

What makes the result worth reading about is not the certificate but the starting point. Freddie arrived at the College having lost confidence in his own ability, and the examination board itself was chosen around his interests rather than assigned to a year group. That is possible at a tutorial college in a way it rarely is elsewhere.

Read his story · Our university destinations