University College London University College London UCL (legally University College London) is a public research university in London, England, and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It is the largest university in the United Kingdom by total enrolment, and the largest by postgraduate enrolment. Established in 1826 as London University by founders inspired by the radical ideas of Jeremy Bentham, UCL was the first university institution to be established in London, and the first in England to be entirely secular and to admit students regardless of their religion. UCL also makes the contested claims of being the third-oldest university in
University College London in the country and 3rd in London. UCL was one of the first universities in the UK to make use of the A* grade at A-Level (introduced in 2010) for admissions to courses including Economics, European Social and Political Studies, Law, Mathematics, Medicine, Theoretical Physics and Psychology. The university gave offers of admission to 62.9% of its applicants in 2017, and had the 6th lowest offer rate in the Russell Group in 2015. For 2017 entry, the university was one of only a few mainstream universities (along with Cambridge, Imperial College London, LSE, Oxford, St Andrews, and Warwick) to have