University's Annual Admissions Report Released

New College, Oxford is committed to accepting the very brightest students, irrespective of background. We note the University of Oxford’s latest Statistical Report on admissions, which aggregates data on the three years of admissions up to October 2022. This shows, among other things, that New College had the lowest proportion of state-educated students among its UK intake in those years, and one of the lowest proportions of students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. While the College takes the data very seriously, we believe that, as the Report indicates, the admissions process within any given subject should properly be viewed as an ecosystem, not as a competition between colleges. Virtually all subjects now have centralised moderation processes designed to ensure that the best candidates get a place somewhere at Oxford, whether or not that place is at their first-choice college, and Tutors at different colleges work together to ensure that these produce the best outcomes. ‘League tables’ of colleges also fail to account for the different subject balances the various colleges have; New College offers large numbers of places in several subjects where under-investment in the state sector has severely reduced applications from less economically advantaged candidates. Such factors make straightforward college-to-college comparisons less meaningful than they might at first seem.

Nevertheless, the College is not complacent. Beginning in Summer 2022, we undertook a review of all aspects of our undergraduate admissions process, especially as these relate to our goal of opening access to New College and Oxford to the widest possible range of students. The review considered our outreach activity, the admissions process itself, and the support the College offers to on-course students. Among other things, the review:

  • notes the success of our Step-Up programme, generously funded by Old Members, which works closely with partner schools in economically less advantaged areas and in areas with low progression to Higher Education, and which is generating a gratifying number of successful applications to New College;
  • suggests a further investment in outreach activity in particular subjects that are taught across the whole state education system, to ensure that the very best candidates apply to New College; 
  • commits the College to invest in on-course support for students once they arrive, so that students whose education may have been adversely affected by the pandemic or other factors can thrive at New College.

Most importantly, the review commits us to making the fullest and most sensitive use of contextual data during the admissions process, and to continuing our engagement with Opportunity Oxford, the University’s bridging scheme for gifted applicants from relatively disadvantaged backgrounds. We promise that we will always meet our candidates with an awareness of how far they’ve come to get where they are. We believe that this can be done without sacrificing academic standards and our place as one of the most academically successful colleges in Oxford. Our aim, as always, is to seek out those candidates who have the potential to excel on our courses.

The 2022 admissions round (for 2023 entry) yielded our highest-ever proportion of offers to the state sector, as well as our highest-ever proportion of offers to candidates from economically disadvantaged areas of the UK. We look forward to building on this work in future years, and to receiving applications from the very brightest and best young people - whatever their background.


Find out more about Step Up, New College's flagship sustained-contact outreach programme. 

View the 2023 Oxford Admissions Statistical Report

Explore further

Discover more about New College