Which Schools Get The Most Oxbridge Offers?

The Spectator has once again published its annual table showing which schools received the most Oxbridge offers last year. Their figures show how well state schools – grammars, sixth-form colleges and others – compete with independent schools.  

As with the Spectator data from previous years, we thought it would be interesting to take a deeper dive into the data. Of the schools included, 33 are independent (three more than last year), 20 are grammars or partially selective (four fewer), 23 are sixth-form or further-education colleges (two more) and three are comprehensives or academies (one fewer).  

Schools are ranked by the number of offers received, followed by their offer-to-application ratio. We have included the offer rate and last year’s ranking in our table below. It is worth stressing that this is an offer-volume ranking, not a measure of admissions success. A school can rank highly because it submits a large number of applications, while a smaller school can have a considerably higher offer rate but appear much lower down the table. 

 Top Schools for Oxbridge Offers

Source The Oxbridge files: which schools get the most offers? | The Spectator 

*Last year’s list had 80 entries 

Analysis of the top 10 schools for Oxbridge offers: what can we learn from the data? 

Overview: These 10 schools sent 1,637 applications and secured 564 offers - a combined offer rate of 34.5%, notably above the full 79-school average of 31.2%.  

The same pattern seen across the full dataset is even more pronounced here: sixth-form colleges make up four of the top 10 by offer count and account for nearly half the applications (793 of 1,637) but convert at a rate 12-13 percentage points below independents and grammars. Hills Road and Peter Symonds illustrate the effect of scale: large applicant pools generate substantial numbers of offers despite relatively modest conversion rates. 

Offer rates within the top 10 range from 25.4% at Hills Road to 54.5% at St Paul's Girls'. Across the full table, King Edward VI High School for Girls records the highest rate at 71.4%, although this is based on just 21 applicants. 

Movement vs. last year: 

Biggest riser: Woodhouse College (32 places from 9 places, +23 places) - a genuinely sharp jump 

Also up meaningfully: Tiffin School (16 places from 3 places,+13), Peter Symonds (12 places from 5 places,+7), St Paul's Girls' (10 places from 4 places, +6) 

Stable at the very top: Westminster (#1 both years) and Hills Road (#2 both years) 

Only two fell: St Paul's School (4 places from 7 places, -3) and Harris Westminster (7places from 10 places, -3) — both still comfortably in the top 10, so these are minor slips rather than dramatic declines 

One thing worth flagging: Tiffin School's jump from 16th to 3rd is a big move for a state grammar school with "only" 148 applicants. That is a genuinely strong result rather than simply a volume effect, since its offer rate (37.8%) held up well as its raw offer count rose. 

Oxbridge Offers for Independent vs. State-funded Schools 

Independent schools convert at a higher rate (median 33.9% vs 29.4%), even though they send fewer applicants per school on average (84.6 vs 100.6). Among Cambridge's 2025 Home students educated in UK schools or colleges, 72.5% of acceptances came from the maintained sector. 

Part of this difference is likely to reflect selection effects rather than a pure advantage: the independent schools here tend to run small, Oxbridge-focused cohorts, while sixth-form colleges often serve much larger, broader-purpose intakes where Oxbridge is one of many destinations – which alone could drag down their conversion rates.

Volume doesn't guarantee success 
There is a weak negative correlation (-0.38) between applications and offer rate – schools sending more candidates tend to see somewhat lower offer rates, consistent with a fairly fixed number of Oxbridge places. The clearest case is Brampton Manor Academy, which sent the most applicants (292) but has the lowest offer rate in the whole table (16.4%). Compare this with Westminster School, which sent considerably fewer applications (166) but converted at 48.2%.

Note that this is an association, not evidence that submitting more applications causes a lower offer rate. 

Highest and lowest offer rates 

Best: King Edward VI High School for Girls, Birmingham (71.4%, but on a small base of 21 applicants), King's College London Maths School (55.9%), Colyton Grammar (54.8%), St Paul's Girls' (54.5%) 

Offer rates should be interpreted alongside applicant numbers. Rates based on small cohorts can move sharply from year to year, so a 70% rate from 21 applicants is not directly comparable with a 40% rate from 150 applicants. For this reason, offer rate is best treated as a supplementary measure rather than a definitive ranking of school performance. 

Worst: Brampton Manor (16.4%), King Edward VI College Stourbridge (17.0%), Barton Peveril (19.3%), Winstanley College (19.6%) 

Biggest movers vs. 2025 ranking 

Risers: The Latymer School, Edmonton (+33), Loreto College Manchester (+31), Brighton College (+29), Colyton Grammar (+29) 

Fallers: Dr Challoner's Grammar (-43), The Perse School Cambridge (-31 - a striking drop for a former top 5 school), Tonbridge School (-21), Cheltenham Ladies' College (-20) 

16 schools are new entries this year 

Could changes in international applications explain some of the falls? 

The data here cannot establish this. Several independent schools with substantial international cohorts fell sharply in the ranking, including The Perse, Tonbridge, Cheltenham Ladies' College and Abingdon. However, the largest faller, Dr Challoner's Grammar, is state-funded, suggesting that international recruitment cannot provide a general explanation. 

International applicants can have different admissions outcomes from UK-domiciled applicants, so changes in the composition of a school's applicant pool could affect its overall offer rate. But without school-level data on applicants by domicile, this remains a hypothesis rather than a demonstrated cause. 

About Keystone Tutors

If you’re aiming for Oxford or Cambridge, Keystone Tutors has an outstanding track record of supporting students through every element of the highly competitive Oxbridge and top UK university admissions process. From personal statement development and super-curricular learning to admissions test preparation and mock interview support, our expert Oxbridge tutors provide tailored, one-to-one support to help students maximise their chance of success. Our Consultancy team is able to provide assistance with UCAS applications and strategy, to make sure that the applicant has the most impactful application possible.