Exeter College has been teaching some of the world’s brightest minds for over 700 years. Among the many well known people who studied at the College are:
- Tariq Ali, writer and filmmaker
- Liaquat Ali Khan, first Prime Minister of Pakistan
- Martin Amis, novelist
- Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, founder of the Whig Party
- Roger Bannister, athlete and neurologist
- Correlli Barnett, historian
- Alan Bennett, writer, playwright and actor
- Sanchia Berg, BBC journalist
- R. D. Blackmore, novelist
- Sydney Brenner, biologist and 2002 Nobel Laureate
- Edward Burne-Jones, artist
- Richard Burton, actor
- Dick Celeste, Governor of Ohio and US Ambassador to India
- Reeta Chakrabarti, BBC journalist
- Ronald Cohen, businessman
- John Ford, playwright
- John Gardner, composer
- Matt Hancock, politician
- Kenneth Hayne, Judge of the High Court of Australia
- Sydney Kentridge, barrister and judge
- Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, former President and Prime Minister of Peru
- John Kufuor, President of Ghana
- Sir John Laws, Lord Justice of Appeal and constitutional theorist
- Charles Lyell, ‘the father of modern geology’
- Helen Marten, artist
- Lady Flora McDonnell, children’s author
- William Morris, designer, writer and activist
- Alfred Noyes, poet
- Joseph Nye, political scientist
- Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, composer
- Sir Philip Pullman, novelist
- Amy Sackville, author
- Will Self, novelist
- Imogen Stubbs, actor
- J. R. R. Tolkien, novelist
- Stansfield Turner, head of the CIA
- David Warren, UK Ambassador to Japan
- Thomas Wood, composer
- Qian Zhongshu, Chinese literary scholar and author
