Oxford University has announced it will change its admissions process, replacing specialised entrance exams with standardised online exams.
Evelyn Pike is an Oxbridge admissions expert at the consultancy William Clarence Education. Here she explains why Oxford has overhauled the system, and why this speaks to a wider fight for students across universities.
Record numbers of 18-year-olds are applying to university. Last year, applications were upwards of around 600,000, which was slightly higher than the year before, and the numbers continue to increase. This is despite the fact the cost has never been higher – the average student can expect to graduate with £60,000 of debt. (Although we do know degrees generally still correlate with stronger employment outcomes.)
Not every group is rising. Mature applicant numbers are lower and EU applicant numbers have dropped post-Brexit. Outside the EU, the rates of international students are changing all the time. There is a big influx from some markets and a drop from others, depending on what is happening globally, and that picture is constantly shifting. For example, applications from the US are up, while applications from Russia are down. At the same time, we are seeing more applications from India and Nigeria, which again depend heavily on the visa policy in those countries.
At Oxford University – still considered one of the best universities in the world, ranking number one globally for the 10th year in a row according to Times Higher Education – applications are rising. (Last year, those applying for early deadline university courses such as medicine, dentistry and other Oxbridge courses hit a record high; up 7.4 per cent.) Though, acceptance rates still remain very low, usually somewhere between 10 and 15 per cent. This has remained pretty consistent over the years. There was a dip in applications about three years ago, partly thanks to Covid, but that has since stabilised and returned to expected levels.
Who’s getting in? UK applicants are still the largest group by a long way, and EU numbers are only growing smaller. One positive change is that the proportion of undergraduates from state schools has increased significantly over the past 10 years (from 60.5 per cent in 2018 to 67.6 per cent in 2023). Representation of black and minority ethnic students has also increased, which is encouraging (from 23.6 per cent in 2020 to 30.8 per cent in 2024).
But the biggest change I’m seeing at the moment is that more universities are adopting admissions tests to meet the high demand of students. Oxford and Cambridge have used them for a long time, but now we are seeing them increasingly, for example, at LSE, Imperial and UCL. These universities are looking for better ways to differentiate between very high-achieving candidates; that’s how high competition for places is becoming.
The competition has become so intense that additional guidance has become part of the landscape. Competitive applications often require external support, for both state and independent school students. The demand for this support is very high and only getting higher; it’s really boomed in the last decade.
Consultancies like ours did exist 20 years ago, but on a much smaller scale. The growth comes from the internationalisation of students and a wider range of degree courses. As a consultancy, we are positioned more towards privately educated students who can afford our support. Our consultancy really specialises in consistent and tailored support, where a student works with one consultant throughout the process; supporting interview preparation and advising them on crafting personal statements.
Many people, particularly older people, may not realise how much more competitive it is now compared to when they applied. Many people who successfully gained places over 10 years ago would not get in today.
Competition has increased dramatically. It’s no longer just about getting the right grades. Russell Groups in particular have upped their entry requirements – degrees that would previously have accepted AAB would now require A*AA.
A good example of this is Bristol, where in 2003 their typical Law offer would have been AAB/ABB with no LNAT needed (the law admissions test). If you look now, you’ll see it’s A*AA with exceptional performance in the LNAT as a requirement.
Studying at top universities has become extremely desirable globally. Oxbridge remain the most famous, but institutions like LSE, UCL, Imperial and King’s have huge international appeal. We also see high demand for Manchester, Leeds and Bristol. The Russell Group remains very popular. Outside that, Bath and Loughborough are consistently in high demand thanks to their high graduate employment outcomes and student satisfaction.
International student places are often capped, which makes competition for those places particularly fierce. Even though competition for UK students may be slightly less intense, the overall volume of high-achieving applicants has increased. It is no longer unusual for students to have four A*s – that’s because more students take four A levels to stand out, and there has also been improvements in access to quality of tutoring and resources. There has also arguably been some grade inflation since Covid. In my personal experience, students are also more strategic than they were even 10 years ago – choosing desirable subjects for STEM degrees. In the past, they might have chosen subjects they enjoyed more or that offered more breadth. That has created a need for another layer of differentiation, which admissions tests provide.
Highly motivated students handle it well; others struggle. Subjects like medicine, law, engineering, computer science and economics are enduringly popular and highly competitive, particularly among international students. Some students might actually flourish more in subjects like history or art, but the pressure to pursue certain degrees is so strong that they end up working very hard to do a course that isn’t right for them.
I always try to advocate for student well-being, because this process is stressful. Medicine is particularly difficult to get into; the admissions tests, the increasing level of experience needed and the final interviews place enormous pressure on students. Balancing all of that alongside A Levels, IBs or other qualifications is a lot of stress for students.
The good news is universities are continuing to try and widen their applicant pools. Oxford has announced it is replacing some specialised subject entrance exams with a more general online exam, currently used by Cambridge and Imperial University.
This shift makes the process smoother but also reflects an attempt to encourage students who might not previously have had the educational background needed for some of the older subject-specific admissions tests. Take the Modern Languages Aptitude Test, for example, which is being dropped. This is a subject-specific exam taken by all hoping to study modern languages. That test often required students to have studied Latin or to have a deep understanding of how Romance languages work. Not every school can offer Latin, and that test tends to reflect how immersed a student already is in linguistic nuance, which is far more likely if they come from a more privileged educational background.
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The danger is that people interpret this as Oxford making things easier or dumbing things down, but I am really hesitant to frame it that way.
The newer more general tests – such as Test for Mathematics University Admissions or the Tara (thinking skills for a range of disciplines), are extremely challenging and not something you can simply breeze through.
Like the Oxford interviews, they are designed to push students intellectually. They often involve broad, open-ended questions that test how a student thinks, rather than what they already know.
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