No one (it is stated in the New Statutes) shall be matriculated unless he is presented by a College, or has been approved as a Non-Collegiate Student; and is qualified in certain ways, such as, by having been approved as a Research Student, or as an Affiliated Student, etc. etc. (see Statute B).

The University may determine by Ordinance the manner of matriculation (see B.1.2).

Dr Venn, in the Introduction to his volume, the Book of Matriculations and Degrees, has an interesting section on the old Matriculation Register. He says that by the statute of 1544 every student was required to matriculate soon after commencing residence, but the names of many students who certainly entered at a College and came into actual residence are not recorded. Sometimes the omission was due to the youth of the student. Again fellow-commoners, and other young men of family, who seldom contemplated taking a degree, often neglected to present themselves to the Registrary–Oliver Cromwell is a signal instance in point; but in the case of those who graduated, there are not a few cases where no matriculation is on record.

In other cases, matriculation was delayed till just before graduation. Lord Byron, for instance (probably from financial reasons), did not matriculate till the same day (4 July 1808) on which he was presented for his M.A. degree.