Oxford College Acceptance Rate Guide – What You Need To Know

When choosing a college to apply to at Oxford, there are many factors to consider. However, one that you may not have thought of is the offer and acceptance rates of each college. In this guide, we’ll explain all of the most recent admissions stats from the latest year to help you with your college selection.

Last Updated: 23rd June 2025

Author: Matthew Amalfitano-Stroud

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Oxford College Acceptance Rate Guide – What You Need To Know

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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.

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 2024 intake of students at the university. The data only covers undergraduates, so no postgraduate courses are included here.

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.

The offer and acceptance rates for each college show what percentage of applicants got their offer and place. This is calculated as follows:

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 2024:

Oxford Acceptance Rates 2024

Applicants: 23,061

Offers: 3,793

Acceptances: 3,245

Offer Rate: 16.4%

Acceptance Rate: 14.1%

With the basics out of the way, let’s look at the most interesting statistics from Oxford’s college admissions.

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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 28% of applicants were given an offer and over 25% were ultimately admitted.

There seems to be a logical reason for this, though, as Regent’s Park also saw the least amount of applicants in 2024: just 143.

Hardest Oxford College To Get Into

Magdalen College. Magdalen takes the title of most competitive Oxford college, with an offer rate of 10.3% and an acceptance rate of just 9.1%

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 2024 (1,257).

Smallest Oxford College

Harris Manchester College and Regent’s Park College. In 2024, these two colleges each admitted only 36 applicants. Harris Manchester sent out more offers (47 vs 40), but it was still slightly more difficult to get into than Regent’s Park.

Biggest Oxford College

St Catherine’s College. This college admitted the most students in 2024, with 138 in total. This isn’t actually that many, so it goes to show just how competitive Oxford really is.

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 2024, but it’s interesting to see which colleges had the biggest and smallest discrepancies between offers and acceptances.

Harris Manchester College had the biggest difference by far, at 6%. Looking at the actual figures, St Catherine’s sent 168 offers but only admitted 138 students, making this the largest gap based on the number of students.

Worcester College had the most consistent figures from offer to acceptance. 132 applicants were given offers, and 122 were admitted, making a discrepancy of just 0.8%. 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 (final university choice, exam performance).

The average difference across all colleges was 3.4%.

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 Hughe’s College received the most Open Applications in 2024, with 322 out of its 719 applicants not specifically selecting the college.

Oxford College With Highest Proportion of Open Applications

Although St Hugh’s had the most Open Applications, Regent’s Park College actually had the highest proportion of them. Out of 143 applications, 96 of them were open, which is 67.1% of all applicants at the college in 2024.

Interestingly, those who applied directly to Regent’s Park had a 59.6% offer and acceptance rate, while those who applied with an open application had just a 12.5% offer rate and 8.3% acceptance rate.

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 Trinity, Balliol and New College each received under 15 open applications. Worcester College didn’t consider any open applications in 2024, although it has considered a very small number in previous years.

Oxford College With Lowest Proportion of Open Applications

Unsurprisingly, St John’s College also had the lowest proportion of Open Applications. The college had 1,040 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 Hilda’s Hall accepted the most Open Applicants in 2024. Out of 201 Open Applications, 18 were ultimately admitted into the college.

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 36 admitted students, 8 of them were from Open Applications, making up 22.2% of the cohort.

Oxford College With Least Open Acceptances

St John’s College had just 2 Open Applications, but one of them was admitted to the college.

Oxford College With Lowest Proportion of Open Applications

Of course, St John’s College also had the lowest proportion of Open Acceptances with 0.1%.

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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).

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:

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.

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.

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.

Discover more about Oxford’s admissions process by exploring our comprehensive range of guides. From college selection to interview preparation, we cover it all. For those seeking tailored support, consider our Oxbridge Full-Blue Programmes, offering the most effective and in-depth application assistance available. With a proven 59% success rate, our support more than triples your chances of securing a spot at Oxford. Best of luck with your Oxford application!

Less than 16% of Oxford applicants were offered a place, but we got 59% of our students into Oxbridge.

If you want the best chance of getting into your Oxford college, enrol on an Oxbridge Full-Blue 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.

Discover our Oxbridge Full-Blue Programme by clicking the button below to learn how you can enrol and triple your chances of success.

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Table of Contents

What Are Oxford College Acceptance Rates?

Oxford Acceptance Rates 2024

Oxford College Acceptance Rates: The Key Facts

Easiest Oxford College To Get Into

Hardest Oxford College To Get Into

Smallest Oxford College

Biggest Oxford College

Offer Rate/Acceptance Rate Divides

Oxford Open Applications

Oxford College With Most Open Applications

Oxford College With Highest Proportion of Open Applications

Oxford College With Least Open Applications

Oxford College With Lowest Proportion of Open Applications

Oxford College With Most Open Acceptances

Oxford College With Highest Proportion of Open Acceptances

Oxford College With Least Open Acceptances

Oxford College With Lowest Proportion of Open Applications

Oxford College Acceptance Rates (A-Z)

Balliol College Acceptance Rate

2024

2023

Brasenose College Acceptance Rate

2024

2023

Christ Church Acceptance Rate

2024

2023

Corpus Christi College Acceptance Rate

2024

2023

Exeter College Acceptance Rate

2024

2023

Harris Manchester College Acceptance Rate

2024

2023

Hertford College Acceptance Rate

2024

2023

Jesus College Acceptance Rate

2024

2023

Keble College Acceptance Rate

2024

2023

Lady Margaret College Acceptance Rate

2024

2023

Lincoln College Acceptance Rate

2024

2023

Magdalen College Acceptance Rate

2024

2023

Mansfield College Acceptance Rate

2024

2023

Merton College Acceptance Rate

2024

2023

New College Acceptance Rate

2024

2023

Oriel College Acceptance Rate

2024

2023

Pembroke College Acceptance Rate

2024

2023

Regent's Park College Acceptance Rate

2024

2023

Somerville College Acceptance Rate

2024

2023

St Anne's College Acceptance Rate

2024

2023