A favourite destination for pupils leaving Uppingham during the early decades of the twentieth century was Clare College Cambridge, and the college Admissions Registers record several entrants each year between 1909 and 1914. The family tradition established by Moeran's grandfather's generation was, on leaving school, to go to university and study for a career in either the law or the church. Moeran's father and uncle were both Cambridge alumni, and his brother William Graham had graduated with a BA degree from Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 1911. While it may have been Moeran's intention to follow their examples and apply for a place at Cambridge, and despite having claimed to be or to have been a student at Clare College Cambridge at least twice during the next few years, at some point during the summer holidays, he changed his mind – the musical opportunities available in London evidently proved to be too strong to resist. He had left Uppingham having developed into a musician of exceptional talent, and it is possible that his teacher Robert Sterndale Bennett recommended to Moeran and his parents that the young musician proceed to study at the Royal College of Music. The support of Sterndale Bennett and the financial backing of his parents would have ensured that acceptance into the college would have been a formality, and Moeran was enrolled at the college on 26 September 1912. He selected piano as his principal study with theory as secondary, and his father was named as fees guarantor. Amongst the students who entered the college at the same time as Moeran were Marie Goossens and her brother Adolphe, Brazilian violinist Edgardo Guerra and organist and composer Heathcote Statham. It seems to have been decided that while he was in London Moeran would live in Upper Norwood with his great aunt Sarah Graham, who, with her husband, had some thirty years earlier provided Moeran's mother with a home when her grandfather George Smeed died. As a minor living away from the parental home, Moeran would have required the guardianship of a responsible adult relative, and he probably moved into his room at his great-aunt's house in Auckland Road in mid-September.

The Royal College of Music term started in early October and Moeran would have begun his studies with enthusiasm, immersing himself in the musical life of the college and the city.