Widening Access to Oxford: Statistics and Update from the President

11 May 2021

On the 11th May Oxford University released its annual admissions statistics. We look forward to the release of this data each year as it gives us an opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of our strategy to attract and recruit students from the widest range of social and educational backgrounds. The statistics relate to the University’s undergraduate student population recruited from within the UK, rather than to the full community of students who are recruited from all over the world.

We have been working very hard in recent years to make sure that Trinity reaches and welcomes talented applicants from all backgrounds and I want to reiterate my thanks to the many people across Trinity who are playing an active role, from our Student Ambassadors and our professional Access team to tutors and admissions staff. This is truly a College-wide ambition involving so many members of our community and their work really is making a difference.

Our aim is for Trinity to be recognised as a modern college that welcomes a diverse and widely representative community, in which international, UK state and independent school students all have a place, and students of all backgrounds feel equally valued, supported and able to flourish.

We identified our aspiration to significantly diversify our student intake as a key aim of the College’s five-year strategy and it’s clear that, while there is still further to go, the data show an encouraging positive trajectory.

Between 2016 and 2020 within the total group of UK-domiciled undergraduates admitted to Trinity College:

  • The proportion from state schools rose from 41.1% to 68.4%
  • The proportion identifying as Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) rose from 15.3% to 16.7%
  • The proportion from socio-economically disadvantaged areas (Acorn 4&5) rose from 5.5% to 11.4%
  • The proportion from areas of low progression to higher education (Polar1&2) rose from 4.1% to 16.5%
  • The proportion declaring a disability rose from 9.8% to 11.2%
  • The proportion of women has fluctuated between 44% and 59% during this period and the figure for 2020 is 49.4% 

Trinity College admissions for 2020 saw another 9.9% increase in the number of state school applicants, with no gap in offer rate between state and independent school applicants, which is now 21.8% for both school types. The 2020-21 recruitment cycle (for admission in October 2021), saw a slight decline of 8% in the numbers of applicants from the state sector, though we are confident we can increase the application rate once schools recover from the extreme disruption caused by COVID, and we are able to resume face-to-face activities. 

The University Admissions Statistical report includes information about Oxford’s colleges, aggregated over three-year periods, the most recent being for admissions in years 2018 to 2020. Whilst there remains work to do to meet the University averages for categories of targeted groups, we are making good progress in most areas:

A table shows year on year figures for UK acceptances to Trinity college for UK state students, students for ACORN and POLAR disadvantaged backgrounds, black and ethnic minority students, and female students. The figures are for the cumulative years 2015-17 through 2018-20 and show increases in all categories.

 

Trinity and Oxford Outreach

In order to increase the rate of progress in opening up Oxford to students from all backgrounds, Trinity will continue to offer places to students under the Opportunity Oxford scheme and we hope to participate in the first phase of a new Foundation year programme, Foundation Oxford. Both programmes are designed to offer tailored academic support for up to 250 state school students a year (representing 10% of Oxford’s UK undergraduate intake) who have been offered a place at Oxford but whose school education may have been disrupted or otherwise disadvantaged. 

Trinity continues to play a role in proven University-wide outreach programmes targeting students from under-represented backgrounds at Oxford such as Target Oxbridge and UNIQ, which offer transformational experiences for their participants and in which Trinity is a proud partner.

In addition to working with Target Oxbridge, we are currently developing additional outreach activities to increase and support applications from students with Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic heritage. In addition to students in the North East of England and Oxfordshire, we now also work with students in Milton Keynes as one of our link regions.

Outreach in the Time of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic struck just as we were embedding our work in the North East of England with our new Teacher Engagement and Access Officer Richard Petty. In a period of under a month, we adapted all our programmes for online delivery which has brought great benefits. It has allowed us to significantly extend reach and offer a greater variety of content for different audiences. Digital delivery will continue to form a significant part of our work after the pandemic, but we also look forward to combining this with in-person programmes both in-region and through bringing students to Oxford for residential and day visits.  We deliver work in the North East in collaboration with St. Anne’s and Christ Church College. By working together, we can deliver an extensive programme offering tailored support to teachers, school students of all ages and parents. 

We continue to support our offer holders with welcome events at the College and for those holding offers across the University from the North East of England. This year we delivered both events online, and the feedback we received has encouraged us to offer a combination of in-person and online welcome events in the future. In June 2021 we hope to introduce an additional level of support for first generation and more disadvantaged Year 13 Trinity College offer holders whilst they are still in school and throughout the first year of their studies at the College. This is designed to develop confidence, and build problem-solving and organisational skills to ease the transition to Oxford. 

Expanding our Online Presence and Resources

One of the advantages of working online has been the ability to work directly with parents. More than 300 parents attended online events which provided information on the cost and benefits of going to university, the resources available from the University for prospective applicants, and how parents themselves can support their child’s future choices.

Reaching beyond our link regions, all schools can now access a variety of both subject-specific and generic resources from Trinity’s website. These range from a suite of videos to help applicants prepare for admissions tests and interviews to a new resource called Library Quad, through which our students offer recommended reading and tips for prospective applicants and offer holders. We also recently launched a series of interactive online super-curricular enrichment events called Trinity Talks. These combine academic talks on a wide range of topics with information about higher education; 763 students registered across the series with around 70 students attending individual sessions. 

Working Productively with Teachers

Our teacher CPD programme has been fully adapted for online delivery, which allows us to reach many more teachers and enables teachers to access support and guidance when they most need it at key points during the year.

Next Steps

We are immensely proud of our achievements in recent years. The involvement of so many of our community is significant: this is a ‘whole-College’ enterprise and it is particularly exciting to see students who may themselves have benefited from some of our access activity, in-turn becoming ambassadors and reaching out to the next generation of applicants. We’re not at all complacent: we will continue to evaluate the impact of our work and to track the outcomes. There are so many talented young people who need support to help them evaluate their options, make informed choices, prepare for entry to competitive universities and believe that Oxford – and Trinity – are places where they can thrive. 

With warmest wishes,

Hilary

Dame Hilary Boulding, Trinity College President