The University of Oxford receives over 20,000 applications each year, and each of those applicants will need to be considered by a college. Some applicants choose their college, while others are assigned one without preference, but the college is an extremely important factor of the admissions process and Oxford as a whole.
For something so important, there are many factors to consider when selecting a college. However, one often overlooked factor is the application statistics for each college at the university. Some colleges accept more applicants than others, whether it be to college size, higher standards or subject availability.
So, in this guide, we’ll explore the most recent undergraduate Admissions Statistics for every Oxford College. Let’s get started!
Want to skip to the information about a specific college? Select one of the buttons below. Please note that this guide only overs undergraduate admissions, so colleges that only teach postgraduate courses are not included here. Â
What Are Oxford College Acceptance Rates?
Before we can begin, you need to understand what statistics we’ll be looking at and what we mean by success rates. These statistics are based on the data provided by Oxford for the 2023 intake of students at the university. The data only covers undergraduates, so no postgraduate courses are included here.Â
The primary data points we’ll be looking at are the number of applicants, offers and acceptances, as well as the offer and acceptance rates for each college. Offers refer to how many applicants were sent an offer based on their application, while acceptances relate to how many students’ places were fully confirmed. This means that offers will almost always be higher than acceptances, as a certain amount of offer holders won’t end up attending the university for a number of reasons. Â
The offer and acceptance rates for each college show what percentage of applicants got their offer and place. This is calculated as follows:Â
Offer Rate: Number of offers sent/Total number of applicants
Acceptance Rate: Number of admitted applicants/Total number of applicants
We’ve already explored the overall admissions statistics for Oxford in our Oxford Acceptance Rates Guide, but here is the data for the whole university in 2023:
Oxford Acceptance Rates 2023
Applicants: 23,211
Offers: 3,721
Acceptances: 3,219
Offer Rate: 16.0%
Acceptance Rate: 13.9%
With the basics out of the way, let’s look at the most interesting statistics from Oxford’s college admissions.Â
The average Oxford college success rate is low, but we get 57% of our students their offer
If you want the best chance of getting into Oxford, enrol on an Oxbridge Programme to receive industry-leading support for your application. Every one of our students has access to comprehensive resources, one-to-one tuition sessions, intensive courses and much more. Everything has been carefully crafted to give you the best possible chance of gaining your offer.Â
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Oxford College Acceptance Rates: The Key Facts
We’ll examine the stats for all of the colleges soon, but let’s first look at some of the most important and interesting statistics from the university. These will be the figures that many of you are wondering, so let’s break it down:
Easiest Oxford College To Get Into
Regent’s Park College. Regent’s Park College is one of the lesser-known colleges at Oxford, but it’s also the least competitive, as 29.2% of applicants were given an offer and over 25% were ultimately admitted.Â
There seems to be a logical reason for this though, as Regent’s Park also saw the least amount of applicants in 2023: just 137, which was the same amount of applications received by Harris Manchester College.
Hardest Oxford College To Get Into
Magdalen College. Magdalen takes the title of most competitive Oxford college, with an offer rate of 10.1% and an acceptance rate of just 8.26%
As with Regent’s Park, this result may have some link to the amount of applications received, as Magdalen had the most applications of any Oxford college in 2023 (1,210).
Smallest Oxford College
Harris Manchester College. Harris Manchester just missed out on being the least competitive college at Oxford, but it admitted the fewest number of applicants in 2023. Bear in mind that this college is only the smallest in terms of 2023 applicants and does not account of students already in the college.Â
Harris Manchester also takes the title for the highest offer rate in 2023, with 30.7% of applicants receiving an offer.Â
Biggest Oxford College
St Catherine’s College. This college admitted the most students in 2023, 144. This isn’t a lot, so it goes to show just how competitive Oxford really is.Â
Offer Rate/Acceptance Rate Divides
As mentioned, there will almost always be a difference between the offer and acceptance rate, unless every offer holder is actually admitted to their college. This didn’t happen with any college in 2023, but it’s interesting to see which colleges had the biggest and smallest discrepancies between offers and acceptances.Â
Harris Manchester College had the biggest difference by far, with 8%. Looking at the actual figures, Balliol sent 42 offers but only admitted 31 students, making this the largest gap proportionally. Despite this, it was still able to maintain very favourable acceptance rates,Â
New College had the most consistent figures from offer to acceptance. 135 applicants were given offers, and 124 were admitted, making a discrepancy of just 1.1%. Generally, a smaller difference between these two stats is better, as it means you are less likely to not earn your place after receiving your offer, although the factors that could impact this are mostly in your own control (university choice, exam performance).
The average difference across all colleges was 2.16%.
Oxford Open Applications
Although we believe it’s very important to choose your own college based on available information and your own preferences, you should be aware that you don’t actually have to choose a college. You will have to be admitted into a college, but Oxford can make that choice for you should you wish. This is called submitting an Open Application.
Open Applications will be assigned a college based on various factors like availability and suitability, but after that, these applicants are treated the same as every other applicant. Even so, let’s look at some statistics regarding Open Applications:
Oxford College With Most Open Applications
St Hugh’s College received the most Open Applications in 2023, with 290 out of its 734 applicants not specifically selecting the college.Â
Oxford College With Highest Proportion of Open Applications
Although St Hugh’s had the most Open Applications, Regent’s Park College actually had the higher proportion of them. Out of 137 applications, 99 of them were open, which is 72.3% of all applicants at the college in 2023.Â
Oxford College With Least Open Applications
Meanwhile, St John’s College had the least amount of open applications, with only 2 being considered. This is common for many of the more popular colleges, as both Balliol and Worcester also considered under 10 open applications each.Â
Oxford College With Lowest Proportion of Open Applications
Unsurprisingly, St John’s College also had the lowest proportion of Open Applications. The college had 1,080 applicants, so only 2 of those being open gave a percentage of just 0.2%.
Oxford College With Most Open Acceptances
Of all the colleges at Oxford, St Edmund Hall accepted the most Open Applicants in 2023. Out of 282 Open Applications, 20 were ultimately admitted into the college.Â
Oxford College With Highest Proportion of Open Acceptances
As with Open Applications, Regent’s Park College also had the highest proportion of Open Acceptances within its final cohort. Out of 35 admitted students, 7 of them were from Open Applications – 20% of the group. This also gave these open applicants the highest acceptance rate at 5.1%.Â
Oxford College With Least Open Acceptances
St John’s College had just 2 Open Applications, but neither of them were admitted to the college, making this college the only one to have 0 Open Acceptances. Just above this were Magdalen, Brasenose, Worcester and Trinity, who each admitted just one Open Applicant.
Oxford College With Lowest Proportion of Open Applications
Of course, St John’s College also had the lowest proportion of Open Acceptances with 0%. However, out of the colleges that admitted 1 Open Applicant, Worcester had the lowest proportion at just 0.8% of students submitting Open Applications.Â
That covers all of the key figures that you may be interested to know about. Now it’s time to look at each college individually to see how their success rates stack up.Â
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Oxford College Acceptance Rates (A-Z)
Here are the undergraduate acceptance rates for every college at Oxford:
Balliol College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 1,022
Offers: 130
Acceptances: 116
Offer Rate: 12.7%
Acceptance Rate: 11.4%
Brasenose College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 1,045
Offers: 126
Acceptances: 112
Offer Rate: 12.1%
Acceptance Rate: 11.4%
Christ Church Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 1,006
Offers: 154
Acceptances: 132
Offer Rate: 15.3%
Acceptance Rate: 13.1%
Corpus Christi College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 437
Offers: 79
Acceptances: 67
Offer Rate: 18.1%
Acceptance Rate: 15.3%
Exeter College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 697
Offers: 114
Acceptances: 100
Offer Rate: 16.4%
Acceptance Rate: 14.6%
Harris Manchester College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 137
Offers: 42
Acceptances: 31
Offer Rate: 30.7%
Acceptance Rate: 22.6%
Hertford College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 820
Offers: 130
Acceptances: 113
Offer Rate: 15.9%
Acceptance Rate: 13.8%
Jesus College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 767
Offers: 123
Acceptances: 107
Offer Rate: 16.0%
Acceptance Rate: 14.0%
Keble College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 1,189
Offers: 137
Acceptances: 118
Offer Rate: 11.5%
Acceptance Rate: 9.9%
Lady Margaret College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 660
Offers: 128
Acceptances: 119
Offer Rate: 19.4%
Acceptance Rate: 18.0%
Lincoln College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 620
Offers: 103
Acceptances: 91
Offer Rate: 16.6%
Acceptance Rate: 14.7%
Magdalen College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 1,210
Offers: 122
Acceptances: 100
Offer Rate: 10.1%
Acceptance Rate: 8.3%
Mansfield College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 412
Offers: 89
Acceptances: 75
Offer Rate: 21.6%
Acceptance Rate: 18.2%
Merton College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 633
Offers: 108
Acceptances: 92
Offer Rate: 17.1%
Acceptance Rate: 14.5%
New College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 1,051
Offers: 135
Acceptances: 124
Offer Rate: 12.8%
Acceptance Rate: 11.8%
Oriel College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 531
Offers: 105
Acceptances: 91
Offer Rate: 19.8%
Acceptance Rate: 17.1%
Pembroke College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 738
Offers: 125
Acceptances: 102
Offer Rate: 16.9%
Acceptance Rate: 13.8%
Regent's Park College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 137
Offers: 40
Acceptances: 35
Offer Rate: 29.2%
Acceptance Rate: 25.6%
Somerville College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 708
Offers: 136
Acceptances: 116
Offer Rate: 19.2%
Acceptance Rate: 16.4%
St Anne's College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 691
Offers: 139
Acceptances: 123
Offer Rate: 20.1%
Acceptance Rate: 17.8%
St Catherine's College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 925
Offers: 170
Acceptances: 144
Offer Rate: 18.4%
Acceptance Rate: 15.6%
St Edmund Hall Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 662
Offers: 121
Acceptances: 105
Offer Rate: 18.3%
Acceptance Rate: 15.9%
St Hilda's College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 653
Offers: 143
Acceptances: 119
Offer Rate: 21.9%
Acceptance Rate: 18.2%
St Hugh's College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 734
Offers: 136
Acceptances: 110
Offer Rate: 18.5%
Acceptance Rate: 15.0%
St John's College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 1,080
Offers: 148
Acceptances: 124
Offer Rate: 13.7%
Acceptance Rate: 11.5%
St Peter's College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 610
Offers: 119
Acceptances: 103
Offer Rate: 19.5%
Acceptance Rate: 16.9%
The Queen's College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 659
Offers: 111
Acceptances: 98
Offer Rate: 16.8%
Acceptance Rate: 14.9%
Trinity College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 690
Offers: 95
Acceptances: 86
Offer Rate: 13.8%
Acceptance Rate: 12.5%
university College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 873
Offers: 134
Acceptances: 116
Offer Rate: 15.4%
Acceptance Rate: 13.3%
Wadham College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 786
Offers: 138
Acceptances: 120
Offer Rate: 17.6%
Acceptance Rate: 15.3%
Worcester College Acceptance Rate
Applicants: 1,017
Offers: 129
Acceptances: 118
Offer Rate: 12.7%
Acceptance Rate: 11.6%
These are the undergraduate success rates for every college at Oxford. Now you have this information, let’s consider how you should use to to choose your Oxford college.Â
How To Choose You Oxford College
Now that we’ve seen the statistics, you need to consider how you should use them in your college decision-making process.Â
We’ve provided a lot of statistical information in this guide, but your college selection shouldn’t be solely based on it. Understanding the admissions statistics is important for understanding how challenging these applications are, but using it to apply strategically will rarely help you secure your place.Â
By ‘applying strategically’, we’re talking about applying to the least popular colleges in order to have a better chance of earning your offer. This is because colleges have a limited number of places for each course. If a course is more popular, like Law or Medicine, you’ll be competing against more applicants when compared to more niche subjects (you can view the number of applicants for each major subject in our Oxford Acceptance Rates Guide).Â
It’s still useful to know this information, as you may wish to attend a smaller college anyway. But if this information shouldn’t influence your decision too much, what’s more important to consider? Here are some of the top things we think you should consider when choosing your college:Â
- Subject Availability: Not every college at Oxford teaches every course, so ensure the colleges you're considering offer what you want to study. As well as this, some colleges are known for having strengths in certain areas, though all colleges will offer a world-class standard of teaching.
- Location: While all of the colleges at Oxford are located in the city, some are more central than others. Although most colleges are located in close promximity to one another, there are some that are located further in the outskirts of the city, like Wolfson and St Hilda's. The colleges in the centre are far more convenient for getting to classes, but the more remote colleges have their perks, as they're generally more quiet and have bigger grounds.
- Accommodation: Accommodation is important to consider in two ways. Firstly, you'll want to see the style of rooms on offer, as some will be offer more modern rooms while others will provide older rooms with a lot of character but potentially less modern comforts. As well as this, you also need to be aware of how long the college will provide you with accommodation, as some do not guarantee rooms for the entirety of your study.
- Atmosphere: Oxford is an incredibly diverse university, though the colleges tend to develop stereotypes surrounding the type of people that attend them. These aren't all true, but it's certainly true that some colleges have reputations for being more conservative or more liberal. look into what people say about these colleges and see if it aligns with your own personality.
- Food: All colleges provide great food for students if all dietary requirements, but some colleges are renowned for the quality of their catering. You'll see various colleges claim to have the best food in the university, so have a look at some of the menus or comments from students to see if the food on offer suits your tastes.
We detail a lot of this information for all 39 Oxford colleges in our dedicated Oxford Colleges Guide, so be sure to check it out if you want to learn more about all the colleges Oxford has to offer.Â
That concludes our guide to Oxford College Acceptance Rates. We hope that you now have a better understanding of the odds you have of being admitted to each college and are ready to start researching where you want to study.Â
Remember that, while the statistics are important for managing expectations, your college selection should be based on personal preference. The college you pick plays a huge part in your Oxford experience, so you want to ensure you pick a college that you’ll feel at home at.Â
Less than 16% of Oxford applicants were offered a place, but we got 57% of our students into Oxbridge.
If you want the best chance of getting into your Oxford college, enrol on an Oxbridge Programme to receive industry-leading support for your application. Each of our students have access to comprehensive resources, one-to-one tuition sessions, intensive courses and much more, all designed to give them the best possible chance of success.Â
Discover our Oxbridge Programme by clicking the button below to learn how you can enrol and triple your chances of success.
