Microsoft Forms and student satisfaction polls mark our email inboxes each year as the University-wide drive for tour guides, alumni testimonials, and the best college-branded pens and tote bags begins. From TikTok trends to residential programmes, all these bureaucratic efforts play a part in the race to lure in the best selection of prospective students. But state-school intake continues to fall. Can we be sure that Oxford’s colleges’ efforts to achieve diversity and variation in their student body are working? On top of the responsibility of maintaining regional affiliations, in the dynamic, modern Oxford of 2025 which should be prioritised: the historic or the holistic?
Annually receiving over 23,000 applications for the past five years for around 3,500 places, the concept of outreach at a university like Oxford is not about getting more people to apply, but ensuring that those people are a broad cross section of prospective undergraduates. Concentration of applicants and offer-holders, in one school, one region, or one socioeconomic class, risks losing equally capable applicants from other backgrounds. This balance is easier said than done.
The role of colleges
One reason for this is the various college cultures. Some of the older colleges have maintained connections with certain private schools, usually through alumni grants. Wadham College had a specific scholarship for alumni of Manchester Grammar School (an independent private boys’ school) and Brasenose College maintains a graduate award for alumni of Haberdashers’ Monmouth Schools, although there are additional eligibility criteria, such as teaching at a state school.
On the other hand, colleges like Mansfield College have made a different kind of outreach their brand. The College takes on double the students from areas of low progression to higher education and double the students on Free School Meals.
This contributes to the wide differences between college cultures, which may attract more applicants from one socioeconomic background versus another, as such stark social differences ultimately lead people to approach colleges and their members with certain preconceptions.
Regional outreach
Albeit significant, socioeconomic background is only one category that defines the concept of outreach. Regionally, the Oxford circle is small – the South East and London make up 46% of domestic students, despite holding only 37% of the country AAA+ students. This is where, for outreach, engagement means not only convincing the prospective student that a college is a place they want to be, but also somewhere they can access.
Scotland and Northern Ireland both are significantly underrepresented. Despite making up a combined 9.1% of the UK’s students scoring AAA+, they together represent just 2.7% of applications and 2.3% of admitted students. Of course, students may prefer not to make the long trip to Oxford and attend other excellent universities closer to home. But contrast this with Wales, which has 3.4% of Oxford-admitted students between 2022-2024, and 4.4% of the UK’s AAA+ students. So, what is being done differently?
Firstly, historical connections to the region seem to have retained their strength much more effectively, with Jesus College standing head and shoulders above the rest. Lovingly referred to as ‘Coleg Iesu’, almost 1 in 5 of its applications came from Wales, and in the 2022-2024 period it welcomed 41 of the University’s 259 Welsh undergraduate students. The college has strong connections with the Seren scheme run by the Welsh government, running annual summer schools and publishing a Welsh-language version of their prospectus on their website, which is visited almost as frequently as its English counterpart.
Jesus College also boasts an unusually strong social media presence, reporting 10 million views across social media platforms in the last 12 months. Dr Matt Williams, Access Fellow at the college, is the face of the campaign – making him somewhat of a celebrity. Jesus College’s content goes further than the usual ‘Day in My Life as an Oxford Student’, or moody edits of college buildings set to a trending audio. Williams instead challenges prospective applicants to think critically in preparation for an Oxford interview, with the hope of “nurturing curiosity” and “helping you make informed decisions about your future”.
As for the lack of a set standard for college outreach, “for the most part the collegiate system offers the sort of fizzing laboratory of policy ideas you see in different American states”, Williams told Cherwell. “The obvious downside is to scalability and coherence. But we are able and willing to work across colleges and with UAO [Undergraduate Admissions and Outreach] on bigger projects. Oxford has an unusually ambitious outreach agenda when compared to most UK unis. We are expected to focus on pretty much the entirety of the UK, where many unis have a more local focus. As such, splitting up the UK amongst the colleges does, for the most part, work.”
Jesus College’s efforts clearly work. Nearly double the proportion of UK applicants to Oxford hailed from Wales in comparison to Scotland from 2022-24, who have no regional college counterpart. In terms of turning outreach into applications, the visibility provided by specialised online resources is paramount. “Social media puts us where young people around the country are”, says Williams.
Central programmes
In 2019, the University launched its Oxford for UK programme, which aimed to ensure that potential students from all corners would be encouraged to apply and be supported in the process. It marked a reorganisation of college outreach that both leaned on old ties and looked to forge new ones. Outreach in different regions was dedicated to specific colleges in order to extend reach and bolster regional diversity not just at Oxford, but university in general.
Visit The Queen’s College over the Easter vacation for example, and you would find the North West Science Residential, where year 12 students from Cumbria, Lancashire, Blackburn, and Blackpool have the unique opportunity to taste what a science-related degree at Oxford might be like. Or see St John’s College’s Inspire Programme, which, in addition to partnership with Sussex, Southampton, Ealing, and Harrow, acknowledges the importance of encouraging “all pupils with exceptional promise to aim high, to stretch themselves academically and to be confident in making well-founded applications to a top university like Oxford”.
The role of college outreach is also crucial in bridging what for many looms as the daunting gap between clicking “submit” on UCAS, and the possibility of an offer. Particularly in areas in which higher education is neither common nor considered accessible to most, schemes, such the Catalyst programme run by St Catherine’s College, play a big role in supporting applicants throughout the process. It operates as a sustained contact programme, providing additional friendly communication to students from disadvantaged backgrounds and reaching 1200 school pupils per year on average. This can be measured by POLAR, which classifies areas based on the proportion of young people participating in higher education, with quantiles 1-5 representing lowest-highest rates. As a result of Catalyst, whilst Catz has only slightly above the average proportion of applicants from POLAR quintile 1 areas, it delivers the second-highest number of accepted offers for these students – behind only Worcester College.
Nor does the importance of such communication diminish even after offers are sent out, as the most recent admissions report reflects. Despite issuing just 15 fewer offers to ACORN 4 and 5 (postcodes with the most socioeconomic disadvantage) students in 2024 than 2021, 85 fewer students were admitted last year, and 95 fewer the year before: a worrying trend potentially reflecting the feeling amongst disadvantaged applicants that Oxford is not somewhere they want to be.
A worrying trend
The intake from both of the lowest two ACORN and POLAR categories has fallen since 2020. Regional data shows the link between this and the most underrepresented areas at Oxford; those with the lowest rates of acceptance relative to offers extended include Scotland, Northern Ireland, and the North West.
The consistent fall in applications from disadvantaged backgrounds has led to more University-wide efforts. In 2010, the UNIQ programme was born. A free summer access residential for state-school students, UNIQ gives prospective applicants a taste of Oxford life, with academic and application skills sessions providing invaluable support that is otherwise inaccessible for those from areas of lower progression to Oxbridge.
But was this enough? 2019 saw the announcement of Opportunity Oxford, with the initial aim of “increasing significantly the number of most promising students from groups who are currently under-represented in Oxford”. The fortnight-long, mandatory residential gives underrepresented students the chance to familiarise themselves with Oxford’s libraries, cafes, and pubs before the arrival of the rest of the University, even fitting in time for practice formals at various colleges.
While some extra weeks to get your head around the concept of Park End may sound appealing, it remains unclear whether this separation of students based on income/background does more harm than good. The programme has been praised by Class Act President, Chloe Pomfret, who told Cherwell it gave her “a sense of belonging, a chance to settle into Oxford, to see that I did deserve my offer” and that it is “one of the best things the university has done to support students from underrepresented backgrounds”.
However, the mandatory nature of the programme has also been described by second-year participating students from 2024’s cohort as “patronising”, with two extra, compulsory weeks of an intense Oxford workload feeling like “a punishment” despite “us being assured by programme staff that we were just as if not even more capable than the rest of our year group”. With 2024 also seeing the lowest intake of state-school students since pre-2019, the current efforts of the University are undoubtedly positive, but recent discontent reaffirms the importance of consistent student input to outreach efforts.
Student-led efforts
Campaigns like Class Act seek to level the playing field, in the meantime. Without the ulterior affiliation of an individual college, it focuses on integration during as well as before study. Pomfret described the campaign to Cherwell as an attempt “to bring people together so they don’t feel alone, providing a safe space to ask questions and share their experiences with other students from similar backgrounds”. Pomfret emphasises not only the importance of the likes of Opportunity Oxford, but consistent support as you begin your degree. “You don’t know where to buy sub fusc, or you’re struggling with the class divide, or you don’t know how to apply for bursaries when you can’t afford your rent, it feels scary and isolating. Having somewhere you can ask these questions makes a world of difference”.
Now considered a society, alongside Oxford’s 93% Club, the passionate outreach action of current students during the already chaotic Oxford term suggests it is a hot-button topic. Encompassing three tiers: the University, the colleges, and the students, it clearly takes a village to accurately portray the many faces of such a large-scale, hyper-represented institution. Each branch differs socially, culturally, and financially – as Pomfret adds, “when a prospective applicant asks me for college recommendations, I ask what matters to them. For example, if they’re estranged or care experienced, I recommend colleges I’ve worked with and seen consistently focus on supporting students from this background.” Given this complexity, it would be wrong to suggest outreach should take just one avenue of holistic or historical: a constantly developing relationship, as the city’s blend of old and new, tradition and modernity is ultimately what sets Oxford apart.
However, data-backed, regional inconsistencies show us that there is certainly more to be done to level the playing field amongst UK admitted students, especially those from Scotland and Northern Ireland. Yes, the individuality of college outreach allows for close, applied work. However, the system relies on all colleges pulling their respective weight at all times and in all departments: unfortunately, a hopeful ideal, as continuous data disparities suggest. Sometimes a tote bag and biro are just not going to cut it…
