About the University

Undergraduate admissions statistics: Ethnic origin

All Oxford colleges are committed to recruiting the best candidates, irrespective of their age, colour, disability, ethnic origin, marital status, nationality, national origin, parental status, race, religion or belief, gender, sexual orientation, social background or educational background.

The University’s race equality policy can be found here:
www.admin.ox.ac.uk/eop/policy/race.shtml

Tutors do not have information on ethnicity during the selection process. 

Context for these figures

These figures only show ethnic origin for UK undergraduate students for the 2011 year of entry.

The percentage of all students (undergraduates and postgraduates) across all years, of all nationalities, who are BME (Black and minority ethnic) is 20%.

Students do not have to name their ethnic origin if they prefer not to. The table below only includes those who did name their ethnic origin.

Applications, acceptances and success rate of UK undergraduate students by known ethnic origin, 2011 entry

  Applications Acceptances Success rate %
No % No %
Bangladeshi 71 0.6 7 0.3 9.9
Chinese 243 2.1 33 1.3 13.6
Indian 479 4.2 69 2.7 14.4
Pakistani 143 1.2 7 0.3 4.9
Other Asian 195 1.7 28 1.1 14.4
Black Caribbean 37 0.3 7 0.3 18.9
Black African 187 1.6 24 0.9 12.8
Black Other 4 0.0 1 0.0 25.0
White & Black Caribbean 73 0.6 21 0.8 28.8
White & Black African 34 0.3 10 0.4 29.4
White & Asian 301 2.6 64 2.5 21.3
Other mixed 177 1.5 43 1.7 24.3
White 9,417 82.1 2,264 87.3 24.0
Other 116 1.0 16 0.6 13.8
Total 11,477 100.0 2,594 100.0 22.6

Contextual statistics for these figures

The national picture for school attainment 

In 2011, around 14% of all white students applying to university gained AAA, and a similar proportion of BME students overall gained AAA. Among Black students, 5% gained AAA.

In numbers: more than 34,000 white students got three As or better at A-level excluding General Studies in 2011, compared to nearly 6,700 BME students, of whom 608 were Black.
[Source: UCAS data]

The national picture for applications to Oxford

Those BME students gaining top grades are more likely to apply to Oxford than their white peers: In 2009, more than 29,000 white students got three As or better at A-level excluding General Studies and around 28.4% of them applied to Oxford; nearly 5,800 BME students got three As or better at A-level excluding General Studies and more than 30% of them applied to Oxford; 452 Black students got three As or better at A-level excluding General Studies, and nearly half of them applied to Oxford.
[Source: UCAS and Oxford University data]

Oxford is attracting a higher proportion of AAA applicants of BME ethnicity than the sector as a whole: of the students who got AAA or better at A-level (excluding General Studies) applying through UCAS in 2009, 16.1% came from ethnic minority backgrounds. The proportion of UK students applying to Oxford from stated BME backgrounds was 17.1% in the same year.
[Source: UCAS and Oxford University data]

Success rate

As the table above shows, some ethnic groups had a lower success rate in entry 2011 than the average.

Statistics show that BME applicants’ success rate is affected in part by subject choice - BME students apply disproportionately for the most oversubscribed courses:

  • Previous analysis of 2009 showed, for example, Oxford’s three most oversubscribed large (over 70 places) courses (Economics & Management, Medicine and Mathematics) accounted for 43% of all BME applicants – compared to just 17% of all white applicants.
  • Oxford’s three most oversubscribed large (over 70 places) courses (Economics & Management, Medicine and Mathematics) accounted for 44% of all Black applicants – compared to just 17% of all white applicants.
  • Subject breakdown:
    28.8% of all Black applicants for 2009 entry applied for Medicine, compared to just 7% of all white applicants.
    10.4% of all Black applicants for 2009 entry applied for Economics & Management, compared to just 3.6% of all white applicants.

 

See also