Applying to university in the UK has always been a significant milestone – one that can feel equal parts exciting and overwhelming. With thousands of courses available and fierce competition for places at top institutions like the G5 Universities, applicants often seek every possible advantage to make informed decisions. One very valuable, yet often underused resource in this process is university application data.
Over the past decade, universities, government bodies, and independent organisations have made increasing amounts of admissions data publicly accessible. This includes applicant numbers, success rates, A-Level grade profiles, admissions test results and even demographic breakdowns.
When used properly, this information can transform an applicant’s understanding of how competitive a course is, what academic levels are typical among successful candidates, and how their own profile compares.
However, it may not be immediately obvious where to get this data and how to use it. In this guide, we’ll answer the top questions about university data, including what sort of data is available, where it comes from and how it can be used.
What University Data Is Available?
University data, particularly admissions data, comes in many forms, spanning raw numerical information, contextual figures, demographic statistics and performance benchmarks. Let’s look at the key types of data that you will be able to find:
Application Statistics
While not every university provides detailed reports on their admissions cycles each year, many of the top ones do, including Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College London, LSE and UCL. These reports feature a wide array of data, including overall statistics for applications, offers and acceptances at the university. The key details you should look for in these reports include:
Applicants
The total number of people who applied to a university in a given admissions cycle. Applicant numbers fluctuate year by year depending on broader trends, course reputation, media coverage, and demographic shifts.
Offers
The number of applicants who were given an offer, conditional or unconditional. This indicates how selective the university tends to be, but it must be considered alongside applicant numbers.
Acceptances
The number of applicants who ultimately accepted an offer and took up a place at the university. Not everyone who receives an offer will end up getting their place, whether it’s because they don’t meet the final grade requirement of the offer or because they chose to accept a different offer instead. This figure also reflects the strength of demand: highly sought-after courses will likely see most offer holders accepting their place.
Offer Rates
This is the percentage of applicants who receive an offer. For example, a course with 2,000 applicants and 300 offers has an offer rate of 15%. This is calculated like so:
Offers/Applications = Offer Rate
Acceptance Rates
This is calculated the same way as Offer Rates, except replacing the number of offers with the number of acceptances:
Acceptances/Applications = Acceptance Rate
These success rates may not be reported by the universities themselves, but they are very simple to calculate if all three of the other figures are available.
These figures can be found for both the university as a whole, as well as for specific degrees, departments or, at Oxford or Cambridge, colleges.
Interview Rates
Some subjects, like Medicine and Dentistry, as well as certain universities, like Oxford and Cambridge, will host interviews before any applicant can be given an offer. However, they won’t interview every applicant that applies, so you will have a percentage of students who are shortlisted each year: the interview rates.
This data isn’t as commonly published as the rest of the admissions statistics, but Oxford provides a clear percentage of interviewed students for every course. The results can be as low as 15% to as high as over 95% of applicants, so these will give a good idea of how difficult it is to be shortlisted for a certain degree at the university.
However, this data can also be used to calculate how much your chances of receiving an offer and getting admitted increased. You can do this by performing the same offer/acceptance rate calculations, but replacing the total applicant number with the number of interviewed applicants. Some courses that appeared highly competitive can start to feel less so when you remove any applicants who weren’t interviewed, and we performed all of these calculations in this guide.
Admissions Tests Results
Admissions tests have become a standard part of the application processes for many courses, like medicine and law, as well as certain universities like Oxford and Cambridge. From the UCAT, the LNAT and TMUA/ESAT, these tests help the admissions tutors understand your level of skills in either general or subject-specific academic skills.
In most cases, anyone who takes these tests will receive their own results either right after the test or a few weeks later. However, many of these admissions tests also publish reports that summarise the results of every test taker. These are a great way of understanding how you did compared to the rest of the cohort, or learning the average scores for these tests, so you can aim for a result higher than this.
These results can change based on certain factors, like test difficulty or delivery, but they do display general trends for each test. Just don’t treat them as an exact prediction for how future test sittings will go.
Cohort Data
The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) publishes information on a variety of metrics for each UK university. These include:
- Cohort sizes
- Student-to-staff ratios
- Course completion rates
- Graduate outcomes
Class size data in particular can influence decisions about the type of learning environment you prefer, such as whether you want small, discussion-based seminars or large lecture cohorts. This data also plays a key role in creating university ranking tables, which can themselves be a useful piece of data to consider.
Demographic Data
Every university records demographic data for its applicants based on their UCS applications, but not all of them will publish the data publicly. However, both Oxford and Cambridge make this data very easy to access within their interactive data tables. This data allows us to separate the standard admissions data by the following factors:
- Domicile (UK, EU, international)
- Gender
- Ethnicity
- School type (state, grammar, independent, international)
- Socioeconomic or widening participation indicators
This data helps applicants understand whether certain groups tend to perform differently or have different offer rates, but this must be interpreted sensitively and responsibly.
Applicants A-Level Results
While you won’t be able to access the grade profiles for every individual applicant at a university, you can sometimes get an understanding of how the overall cohort performed in a specific university or course. This will mostly boil down to showing the percentage of successful applicants who achieved each grade profile.
For example, at Cambridge, the majority of successful home applicants achieved grades A*AA (94.7%), and 1,486 students achieved A*A*A* in 2024 (56.9%). This is crucial to know, as the minimum grade requirement for a course is rarely the most common when applying to universities with such high entry standards.
Other data points may be available at certain universities, but these are the general statistics that you should find when doing your research. Next, let’s see where you can find this data.
Secure your place at a top UK university on your first try with UniAdmissions
At UniAdmissions, we have spent over 10 years preparing students for all manner of admissions tests for a variety of universities, as well as the other aspects of their application. Our expert tutors and extensive library of resources will ensure you have the best chance of earning your offer when you apply.
Discover our Full-Blue Programme below and find out how you can enrol and triple your chances of success.
Where To Find University Application Data
When searching for specific pieces of data online, you may find a wide variety of sources stating different figures, but these may not always use figures from official sources or may use out-of-date information. It’s crucial that you look for this data from official first-party or trustworthy third-party sources, so here are the best places to find university application data:
University Reports
As we’ve already said, you’ll find official reports published annually from many of the major universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College London, UCL and LSE. Plenty of other Russell Group universities will also publish some of their admissions statistics, although these may not always be full reports like those released by the G5 Universities.
Oxford, Cambridge and LSE also publish interactive tables online that can be used to find data that isn’t included in the official reports, so be sure to utilise these if you want to find some more niche information. These tables also feature data as far back as ten years ago in some cases, while some admissions reports can be found that date back to before 2000, though these are usually far less in-depth.
These reports are released at different times of the year, depending on the university. For example, Oxford and Cambridge both release their reports around July of each year. These reports feature data for the previous year of entry (e.g. the 2024 entry report was released in July 2025).
University Websites
The official reports we just discussed are usually housed on the university’s official website, but you may be able to find some other pieces of data that aren’t featured in them. For example, Oxford’s interview rates for each course are published on the course pages, not the admissions report. Course entry requirements will also be found here, which are essential to get familiar with before applying.
College Reports
At the University of Oxford, some colleges will publish their own reports for individual subjects. While these reports may feature some overlap with the main report, you can sometimes find unique pieces of information that aren’t featured in the overall report. As a bonus, these are often released several months before the final report, so they can give you a sneak peek into the statistics for certain courses.
HESA (Higher Education Statistics Agency)
As we already mentioned, HESA is an organisation that provides national-level data related to higher education, including:
- Student demographics
- Subject popularity
- Cohort sizes
- Progression and continuation rates
- Graduate employment statistics
This data is certainly useful, especially for universities that don’t publish admissions reports, but it can sometimes contradict data provided by the universities themselves. If you see two conflicting statistics between HESA the the university reports, always go with the university reports, as these are directly from the source of the data.
Admissions Test Operators
Sometimes, universities will publish data about how the results of their applicants in certain admissions tests. However, what is more common is to see data reports from the organisations that run the admissions tests, such as Pearson VUE and UAT-UK.
These reports cover the whole cohort rather than specific universities, so the data is broader and may not reflect your score in comparison to others applying to your course. However, it does show how well you did compared to everyone else who took the test during your sitting.
Ranking Tables
These aren’t the best way to gather data about universities, but they can give you a general sense of certain statistics if you cannot find any other sources. Many of these tables actually use data from HESA, so the information that you’re looking for may be found there as well.
Some details you won’t find from HESA or the universities include student satisfaction scores and research quality scores. This data is gathered from other sources, like the National Student Survey (NSS) and Research Excellence Framework, but the tables condense the information down into a more digestible form.
Freedom of Information (FOI) Requests
Under UK law, universities must respond to FOI requests unless the request is unreasonable or the data would risk identifying individuals. FOI responses can include:
- Specific admissions statistics
- Admissions test score ranges
- Offer rates by demographic group
- Departmental or subject breakdowns
Because FOI data can be highly specific, it is often used by applicants seeking precise insights into competitiveness. Anyone can submit their own request by emailing the relevant department at the university, though your request needs to be worded very purposefully in order to get the desired response.
Any existing FOI requests can be viewed on WhatDoTheyKnow, so be sure to check this website out if you can’t find the data you’re looking for anywhere else.
UniAdmissions
The sources we’ve discussed above are all highly reliable sources, but many of them just present the raw data, and this is sometimes not the easiest to interpret.
At UniAdmissions, we have spent a long time reviewing all of this data to create a series of guides that present key facts about the admissions processes at Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College London and more. All of the data we use can be traced back to the aforementioned sources, so we ensure everything we present is as accurate as possible.
You can discover our Acceptance Rate guides below to learn about the university you’re most interested in:
Access "The Big Book Of Oxbridge Applications" For FREE
- Over 40 admissions test practice questions
- 28 example Oxbridge Personal Statements
- Interviews with Oxbridge students and graduates
- Additional downloadable resources
How To Use University Admissions Data
So, we know what data we have and where to find it, but now we need to know what to do with it. The real value of university admissions data lies in how applicants interpret and apply it. Used thoughtfully, the data can empower students to make informed, strategic decisions. Misused, it can distort expectations and lead to unhelpful conclusions.
Here are some of the best ways to use admissions data during your university application preparation:
Understanding Course Competitiveness
Before applying to a university course, you may feel very confident, or you may be unsure of whether you have a realistic chance. Applicant, offer, and interview statistics help applicants gauge the competitiveness of different courses by providing historical context of how well applicants performed in previous admissions cycles.
As an example, a rising trend in applicant numbers may indicate increasing popularity, which could lead to lower success rates if more places aren’t made available.
This shouldn’t be used as a way to discourage applicants or make them avoid competitive courses, but it allows them to make balanced choices when selecting their five UCAS options to ensure they have better odds of earning at least one offer.
Also, this data isn’t predictive and shouldn’t be used as such. Some universities and courses remain fairly consistent each year, but others will see significant spikes or drops for unexpected or unknown reasons.
Understanding the Admissions Test Standards
As we’ve said, admissions test data can be used to compare your results to either the other test takers or the other applicants for your course, should this data be published. This is nice to know for current applicants, but it doesn’t really help their application in a practical way.
However, this data can be extremely useful for the next batch of test takers, as they will now have a point of reference for what a good or average score is. It’s not an exact comparison, as the next test could vary in difficulty, but knowing where the line for an average score is can help motivate applicants to far exceed it through consistent preparation and practice.
Benchmarking A-Level Grades
Applicants will already know the minimum grade requirement for their chosen courses, as well as how likely they are to achieve them. But by understanding what grades the actual student cohort achieved, you can be ready to ramp up your preparation to ensure you get higher grades should you need them.
Bear in mind that higher grades don’t necessarily give you a significantly better chance of success. Those who get into a university like Oxford or Cambridge will have impressed the tutors in their admissions tests and interviews, but their level of skill also means it is more likely that they will achieve A*A*A*.
Although they are essential, grades are one of the least important factors of the Oxbridge application process, as most applicants will have high grades. It’s everything surrounding your grades that will make the difference.
Choosing a College
The college admissions data published by Oxford and Cambridge can help you choose where to apply in the same way that the course data can, but it’s nowhere near as important to consider. Most colleges have roughly the same offer and acceptance rates, with just a few exceptions being higher or lower than average.
When choosing a college, it should come down to personal preference over statistics, as choosing a college strategically doesn’t really work as well as many assume. You may not even be admitted to the college you applied to, especially at Cambridge, which operates the Winter Pool and August Reconsideration Pool each year.
If you want to learn more about all of the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, be sure to explore our in-depth looks at them here:
Understanding the Learning Environment
Certain data points, like class sizes, student spending and demographic data, can help you gain a clearer picture of how a university operates. These statistics can be helpful in considering factors like how much attention you would get from faculty, how diverse the cohort is and how likely international applicants are to get a place.
Additional research will also be needed, including attending open days if possible, but this data can be a great place to start.
How Not To Use Admissions Data
It’s important to use this data responsibly, so let’s consider some bad use cases:
Using the Data Predictively
It’s fine to use data to guess trends or look for consistent patterns, but it’s not an accurate representation of what will happen next time. Offer rates, interview rates, and applicant numbers change every year, so using last year’s figures as a guarantee of what will happen this year is unreliable and can create false confidence or unnecessary anxiety.
Strategic Applications
Some applicants try to use data to find the least competitive options to boost their chances of getting an offer, but this rarely works in their favour. Beyond the previous issue of it being a poor predictive tool, you also aren’t likely to get a place at a competitive university if you’re applying to the least competitive course for the sake of “getting in”.
Some courses are fairly easy to get into at Oxford or Cambridge, but this is usually down to low demand. The applicants who get their offers still meet the exceptional standards that are expected at these universities, but they just have less competition, so the success rates are higher.
If you’re applying to one of these less competitive subjects without actually having an interest in it, your chances of getting an offer, or even an interview, are incredibly low. Just because demand is low, it doesn’t mean that they’ll accept anyone who applies.
As for colleges, we’ve already seen that strategically applying doesn’t work very well, as the actual chances of success aren’t that varied between colleges.
Over-Interpreting Small Differences
If you start looking at the numbers too much, you may start to cause yourself unnecessary stress from focusing on the small details too much. A course with a 24% offer rate is not meaningfully different from one with a 22% offer rate, and small fluctuations are normal and not indicative of substantial differences in competitiveness.
Overly Focusing On Demographic Data
We can learn a lot about applicant cohorts, including the rates between male and female applicants and the number of successful offer-holders from each domicile per course. This is interesting data, but you shouldn’t take it too seriously.
For example, if a course features a heavy leaning towards male applicants in the acceptances, you may feel that a female applicant should avoid it, as her chances of success will be reduced. However, it’s important to consider all of the data rather than just one metric.
In this case, the proportions of male to female acceptances may be in line with the proportions of male and female applicants, meaning many more male applicants applied to the course in the first place. If the acceptance rates between the male cohort and female cohort are roughly the same, then your chances aren’t actually impacted by gender.
The same can be said for disabilities, race and economic factors, as universities are prohibited from discriminating against applicants over any protected characteristics. The rates will never be perfectly proportional, but no applicant should have a significant advantage or disadvantage for any reason outside of the quality of their application.
The exception to this is international applications, as many universities will have a cap on how many can be accepted. Those from outside the UK have an overall lower chance of success at the top UK universities, but it’s still worth applying, as long as you’re able to put the work in to strengthen your application.
University admissions data in the UK offers applicants a wealth of insights into competitiveness, expectations, trends, and academic standards. When interpreted carefully, it can help students choose appropriate courses, prepare strategically, and understand their chances with far greater clarity.
However, data is most valuable when used as a tool for informed decision-making, not as a deterministic predictor of success or a way to “game” the application process. By balancing data-driven insights with genuine interest in a subject, self-reflection, and personal strengths, applicants can make confident and well-reasoned decisions about their future.
The best way to actually boost your chances of success is to prepare effectively, and UniAdmissions is the best support option for ensuring you do just that. Our Full-Blue Programmes offer everything you need to strengthen your application to Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial and more. Visit our programme pages today to find your course and learn how we can triple your chances of success!
Ensure application success with comprehensive support from UniAdmissions
At UniAdmissions we have developed a highly effective formula for success, based on the expertise of students and graduates from Oxford, Cambridge and more. We consistently triple our students’ chances of success and annually achieve more Oxbridge offers from our cohort than any other school in the UK.
Discover our Full-Blue Programme below and find out how you can enrol and triple your chances of success.
