Undergraduate admissions statistics: College choice

Oxford has 30 colleges that admit undergraduate students. They all admit both men and women. Most colleges offer most courses.

Applicants to Oxford do not need to name a college of preference but can choose to do so.

Colleges work co-operatively to try and ensure all applicants for a particular subject, across all colleges, can be compared against one another, in order that the very best people get Oxford places. As a result, around 25% of successful candidates for 2012 entry are at a college other than the college they named as their preference.

This table shows this and breaks it down by application route:

Acceptances by college choice, 2012 entry

Applicants to Oxford do not need to name a college of preference. They have the option of making an open application, and then a computer algorithm assigns them a nominal ‘college of preference’. When considering candidates, tutors do not know whether or not the candidates chose to name a college of preference.

A total of 3,096 candidates submitted open applications for entry 2011.  All colleges received some allocated candidates. The table below shows the number of open applications by course.