This is what Cambridge students’ bums look like

When it comes to sex appeal, Cambridge University has never quite matched its reputation for academia.

Gwendoline from Sidney Sussex college reading Arabic.

Thomas from Trinity college is a 2nd year Performance Art student.

So it’ll come as a surprise to see the quality on show in the ancient university’s Rear of the Year contest.

The competition, which you can vote in here, was organised by The Tab’s Cambridge team.

Amber from Trinity Hall college studying Geography.

Dave from Christ’s college studying English

And it shows some of Britain’s finest young minds in all their naked glory.

One cheeky chap wears just a pair of (odd) socks in the book stacks of the university’s 600-year-old library, while rebellious geographer Amber risks a slap on the wrist by ignoring a “Keep off the grass sign”.

Bella from Queens’ college studying Natural Sciences.

Joe from Pembroke college doing Maths.

In the original article, the pics feature totally serious captions revealing unknown facts about each derriere’s owner. Readers learn that Anthropologist Waldrom collects Soviet era calculators, while Arabic-speaking Gwendoline used to be a professional power lifter.

Pam from Lucy Cavendish college, who does Anglo Saxon, Norse and Celtic studies

Sam from Clare Hall college studying Natural Sciences

The winner in each of the male and female categories will be crowned Cambridge’s Rear of the Year, and co-editor Max Toomey said there would be a further bonus.

He said: “The two winners will net a free trip to the Cambridge Museum of Technology, worth a whopping £2. That’s £2 of absolute joy, they have a couple of massive working steam engines, you can stoke a destructor flue and every now and then they put on a puppet show.”

Shelley from Newnham college reading Chinese

Waldron from Corpus Christi college studying Archaeology and Anthropology

One contestant told The Tab: “My bum is in it’s prime, it’s only down hill from here. It was now or never really.”

The 2012 competition – won by Harry from Trinity Hall – led the Daily Mail to whinge (next to full colour reproductions of the pictures): “How unedifying that our brightest and most privileged students should want to display themselves like this.”