The proportion of state school to private school pupils at Trinity is roughly 2:3, though in 2006 it had the lowest state school intake (39%) of any college. On a rolling three-year average Trinity has admitted a smaller proportion of state school pupils (42%) than any other Oxbridge college.[5][6][7] It first admitted women undergraduates in 1978; women had been admitted as graduate students from 1976, and the College appointed its first female fellow in 1977.[8]

Trinity has many notable alumni — including princes, spies, poets and prime ministers (it has educated six British prime ministers and several heads of other nations) — but perhaps its most distinguished is Isaac Newton.