University of Cape Town

The University of Cape Town (UCT) is a public research university and South Africa's oldest university, tracing its origins to 1829 as the South African College, initially a high school. It grew into a tertiary institution after the 1880s mineral (gold/diamond) boom funded expansion, and was formally granted university status in 1918 following bequests from Alfred Beit, Julius Wernher, and Otto Beit. In 1928 UCT relocated to its present Groote Schuur site at the base of Devil's Peak/Table Mountain, on land donated by Cecil John Rhodes, celebrating its centenary in 1929. UCT enrolls a cosmopolitan community of over 26,000 students and around 5,000 staff from more than 100 countries, organised into six faculties. It has produced five Nobel laureates (medicine, peace, chemistry, literature) and holds the most NRF-rated researchers of any South African university, including 35 A-rated researchers. UCT is consistently ranked as Africa's leading university and among the world's top institutions; its Faculty of Health Sciences (home to the oldest medical school in southern Africa) ranks among the global top 100 for medicine (QS World University Rankings by Subject, 2025), and its Faculty of Law is the oldest law school in South Africa (established 1859).

Faculties & Programmes

Faculty of Commerce: Accounting (College of Accounting), Finance and Tax, Economics (School of Economics), Information Systems/IT (School of IT), Actuarial Science, Marketing, Industrial and Organisational Psychology, Management Studies, Public Governance (Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance), Executive Education (Graduate School of Business)
Faculty of Engineering & the Built Environment: Architecture and Planning, Geomatics, Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Construction Economics and Management (Quantity Surveying, Property Studies), Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Engineering/Mechatronics
Faculty of Health Sciences: Anaesthesia & Perioperative Medicine, Family Community and Emergency Care, Health Sciences Education, Paediatrics & Child Health, Health & Rehabilitation Sciences, Human Biology, Integrative Biomedical Sciences, Medicine, Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Pathology, Psychiatry & Mental Health, Public Health, Radiation Medicine, Surgery (incl. ENT, Plastic/Reconstructive & Maxillo-Facial Surgery), Bioethics
Faculty of Humanities: African Studies and Linguistics, African Feminist Studies, Anthropology, School of Education, English Literary Studies, Centre for Film and Media Studies, Michaelis School of Fine Art, Historical Studies, Knowledge & Information Stewardship, School of Languages and Literatures, South African College of Music, Philosophy, Political Studies, Psychology, Social Work & Social Development, Sociology, Centre for Theatre Dance and Performance Studies, Study of Religions
Faculty of Law: Commercial Law (corporate, tax, labour, maritime, IP law), Public Law (constitutional, administrative, human rights, environmental, international, criminal justice), Private Law (contract, delict, family, succession, customary law); LLB, LLM and doctoral programmes
Faculty of Science: Archaeology, Astronomy, Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Environmental & Geographical Science, Geological Sciences, Mathematics & Applied Mathematics, Molecular & Cell Biology, Oceanography, Physics, School of IT (Computer Science and Information Systems), Statistical Sciences

Bursaries That May Apply Here

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