Oxford Admissions Stats: Success Rates By Subject

Oxford’s application statistics in 2023 do very little to depart from the precedent of previous years. Offer rates continue their slight but steady increase since 2021, but this rate of increase is not matched by acceptance rates, which decreased by 2% in 2021 and have remained at a similar level since.  

By Shortlisting Rate

By Offer Rate

By Acceptance Rate

The three tables above list the top ten most competitive courses at Oxford in terms of getting through to interviews, receiving an offer, and being accepted onto the course (i.e. meeting the terms of the offer and beginning the degree course).  

Mathematics and Statistics is the most competitive course across the board, with Computer Science and Economics and Management variously taking second and third places.  

Particularly when it comes to Computer Science and Economics, this is a common theme across UK university application statistics in recent years. Computer science is also the most competitive course at Cambridge University.  

One theme to notice is that there is consistency across the different figures, with three subjects appearing in the top ten for all three metrics (shortlisting rate, offer rate, and acceptance rate). This means that, generally speaking, the subjects for which shortlisting is more ruthless are also those which are more competitive when it comes to receiving an offer and being accepted onto the course.  

Another trend is that most of the top ten most competitive subjects are sciences. Of the twelve subjects featured across the tables, three are humanities, two are joint sciences with humanities, and the remaining seven are sciences.  

By Shortlisting Rate

By Offer Rate

By Acceptance Rate

Again, there is a lot of consistency in the lists for each metric here, with seven of the subjects appearing in all three of the lists. In an opposite trend to the more competitive courses, almost all of the least competitive courses are arts and humanities subjects; only one science subject (Earth Sciences) appears in the lists, and only in terms of shortlisting rate rather than offer or acceptance rates.  

This tells us that, in general terms, humanities subjects appear to be less competitive than sciences at Oxford.  

The far higher shortlisting rates for the less competitive courses (almost all of which are humanities) also suggests that admissions tutors in arts and humanities departments tend to interview a far higher proportion of applicants. This could be because essay-based humanities courses tend to be more interpretive than hard sciences, making interviews a more decisive or useful element in evaluating the applicant’s potential.  

In terms of specific subjects, Modern Languages (and various of its joint courses) appear most consistently towards the top of all three lists, with Music performing highly in terms of Offer and Acceptance rates in particular.  

This is reflected in the Cambridge 2023 statistics, where Modern and Medieval Languages also topped the list for least competitive courses. Music, Theology, Classis, and AMES also appeared in the Cambridge top ten.  

Whilst Sciences narrowly make up the majority of applications to Oxford, Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences take over when it comes to the number of Shortlisted, Offers, and Acceptances. Combination humanities/sciences degrees (encompassing only three courses: Human Sciences, Physics and Philosophy, and Computer Science and Philosophy) make up a very small percentage of all applicants, consistently measuring between 1.6 and 2 percent of the total for all metrics.  

The first big difference between the Humanities and the Sciences is the Shortlisting Rate – Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences shortlist on average 65% of applicants, whilst the Sciences and combined degrees shortlist 40% and 35% respectively.  

The higher shortlisting percentage amongst humanities could be due to their being more discursive or essay-based topics, making interviews a more fruitful exercise for admissions tutors. It also suggests that perhaps other aspects, such as the admissions test, might be more valuable in the eyes of Science admissions tutors, thereby whitling down shortlisted applicants.  

The offer and acceptance rates for Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences are also consistently just under twice as high as those for Science courses. This is a considerable difference. We see then that Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences are across the board less competitive on average than Science courses.  

The three combination courses demonstrated in the table consist of only 461 applicants, so they should be taken with a grain of salt. However, we can see overwhelmingly that their statistics are at the low end of the spectrum, measuring below both Sciences and Humanities overall throughout.  

Do not, however, take this as a reflection necessarily on all joint honours courses, which we discuss in further detail below.  

Why are offer rates and acceptance rates different? In short, offer rate refers to the percentage of applicants who receive an offer in the January, whilst acceptance rate refers to the percentage of applicants who are accepted onto the course in the summer (almost all of whom, barring exceptional circumstances, begin the course in October).   

What influences a student with an offer to not be eventually accepted? The prime reason for an applicant with an offer not to be accepted is that they have not fulfilled the terms of their offer. This usually means that they did not get sufficient grades in their A-level or equivalent exams.  

It also accounts for applicants who chose to pursue another course and withdrew their application between receiving their offer and attending university (although, this being the University of Oxford, this tends not to be very common).  

Let’s briefly explore the subjects with the largest differences between offer rate and acceptance rate (i.e. with the most applicants who received an offer but did not then begin the degree course). The ‘percentage of offers not accepted’ is the main metric we are using here; it indicates the percentage of applicants offered a place who were not then accepted onto the course. 

The first thing to point out is that the course topping the list, Mathematics and Statistics, only handed out a very small number of offers, so it is a little dangerous to extrapolate or draw too firm a conclusion about the result. We caution against heeding this too much since it is almost double the percentage of all the other courses in the top ten.  

What’s interesting is that there is a mix of sciences and humanities, including combination humanities/sciences courses, in the top ten list. This means we cannot reach a conclusive answer as to either Sciences or Humanities being ‘harder’ to fulfil the terms of the offer.  

One interesting observation is that of the courses we have labelled as combining humanities and sciences (Computer Science and Philosophy, Physics and Philosophy, Human Sciences, and Mathematics and Philosophy), three appear in the top ten, and another (Human Sciences) appears eleventh on the list.  

Whilst these are all courses giving a small number of offers, so we shouldn’t read too much into any one of them independently, taken together this may suggest that students for whom it is advantageous to take a combination of sciences and humanity degrees may find it trickier to fulfil their offers.  

Ultimately, these figures rely on individual applicants being able to fulfil the terms of their offers. So while we think it is useful to have a look at this metric for the course in which you are interested, we recommend focusing more on the grade requirements on the course webpage here and determining whether you personally could fulfil such an offer.  

Subjects with the Largest Number of Offers 

Subjects with the Smallest Number of Offers

Here we have used number of offers as the key metric to determine the largest and smallest course, since it’s largely indicative of how many places are available on the course (although slightly inflated to account for people missing their offers).  

Looking at the averages at the bottom of both tables, we see that the numbers work out very similar for the largest and the smallest courses available at Oxford. This leads us to conclude that your chances of being shortlisted, receiving an offer, or being accepted onto any course at Oxford is impacted by the overall course size.  

One question we are asked a lot is whether applying for single or joint honours is a better strategy for Oxbridge acceptance. In this section, we have compared the joint subjects with their equivalent single-honours subjects (and collated averages across the board) to see if there are any notable differences.  

Each table below compares the joint courses for a certain subject, collates their averages, and then compares them with the single honours version of the subject.  

Classics Joint Courses

For Classics joint courses, there is a mixed bag of results. Shortlisting rates are relatively similar across the board. However, when it comes to Offer and Acceptance rates, Classics and Modern Languages are quite significantly less competitive than Classics single honours, whilst Classics and English is more competitive than Classics single honours.  

English and Joint Courses

English joint honours are similar, if not slightly less competitive, than English single honours, but the individual courses differ from one another. Joint degrees with Classics and Modern Languages have significantly higher shortlisting rates than History and English or the English single honours, but whilst the Offer and Acceptance rate for English and Modern Languages remains higher than the other courses, the Offer and Acceptance rate for Classics and English are similar to the single honours English course.  

History and English, despite being the most popular of the joint courses for applicants, gave out the fewest offers and therefore has a far lower offer and acceptance rate compared to all other English joint and single honours courses.  

History and Joint Courses

The average shortlisting, offer, and acceptance rates for the joint courses are lower than the history single honours courses, making them more competitive on average.  

This being said, one joint course actually has a higher shortlisting rate and acceptance rate compared with History single honours: History and Modern Languages. However, this higher shortlisting rate can be attributed to the admissions tutors’ need to assess language capacity, but the similar Offer and Acceptance rate compared to the single honours course means it isn’t any less competitive than History sole. However, it is still far and away the least competitive of the History joint honours courses.  

History and Economics and History and Politics are both significantly more competitive than History joint honours, so are worth considering seriously before selecting as the course for application.  

Maths Joint Courses

There are two different stories when it comes to Maths joint courses. Although there are differences in shortlisting rates for interview, when it comes to offer and acceptance rates, Mathematics and Computer Science and Mathematics and Philosophy are roughly similar to the single honours Maths course.  

Mathematics and Statistics, however, is the most competitive course across all Oxford subjects last year, and therefore the offer and acceptance rates are far lower than the other single and joint honours courses.  

We can characterise Maths joint courses, then, as being generally no more or less competitive than Maths single honours, with Mathematics and Statistics as an anomaly and very highly competitive indeed.  

Modern Languages (European Languages) Joint Courses

Modern Languages and its joint courses demonstrate high figures across the board, making them very favourable options for applicants. The only general exception to this is History and Modern Languages, which sits below the rest of the joint and single honours courses. All joint courses, however, are more competitive than Modern Languages single honours (which is the least competitive course at Oxford in terms of offer rate).   

Overall, other than History and Modern Languages, combined language courses are more competitive across the board compared with Modern Languages single honours, but are all still very favourable compared to the overall average success rates.  

Philosophy Joint Courses

Philosophy is an interesting case, since one cannot study Philosophy at Oxford as a single honours course (although it forms parts of both the PPE and PPL degree courses). Additionally, it is combined with both humanities and science subjects, meaning there is vast differences in the shortlisting, offer, and success rates.  

In general terms, Philosophy combination courses are more competitive when paired with competitive single-honours subjects (such as Computer Science or Physics), and less competitive when paired with less competitive single-honours subjects (such as Modern Languages).  

We recommend comparing your joint honours course with the specific single honours course in which you are interested to get a better picture.  

Theology/Religion Joint Courses

Theology joint honours courses are more competitive than the Theology and Religion degree, with significantly lower shortlisting rates across the board and big differences in offer and acceptance rates. Philosophy and Theology is the far more competitive subject here, although Religion and Asian and Middle Eastern Studies only received three applications, so it is difficult to draw conclusions from this set of results.  

Asian and Middle Eastern Languages Joint Courses  

In general, combining another course with Asian or Middle Eastern Studies does not impact success rates significantly at all. Again, Religion and Asian and Middle Eastern Studies is a very small applicant pool, so we would caution against drawing too solid a conclusion from the results there.  

Overall Trends

In general terms, combination courses are smaller than the single honours, and can be more demanding in terms of their offer requirements. The results above demonstrate how we are unable to make a single rule about joint honours courses being more competitive than their single honours equivalent.  

In many cases, the joint course success rates are remarkably similar, if not slightly more favourable, than the single honours course, whereas for others, they are a lot more difficult to get into. We therefore recommend applicants check the specific courses before deciding whether to apply to joint honours, rather than avoiding it on principle.  

One theme we can point out is that combination courses where each element is a single honours course in its own right tend to have rates between the two single honours equivalents.  

We see this most strongly in Modern Languages joint honours courses, where each are more competitive than Modern Languages single honours, but similarly or less competitive than the single honours equivalent of the other side of the course. For example, where Modern Languages has an acceptance rate of 47% and Classics an acceptance rate of 32%, Classics and Modern Languages joint honours has an acceptance rate of 43%.  

Therefore, if you are coming from a Modern Languages background and considering adding Classics, then you are lowering your chances, but if you are a Classics applicant considering an additional Modern Language, then you are upping your chances by going for the joint honours course.  

In short, for applicants considering adding Modern Languages to their degree course, check the statistic as it might be a great option for increasing your chances of a successful application! 

Another question we are frequently asked is to what extent sitting an admissions test may or may not impact an applicant’s chances. In the tables below we have split the subjects into those with and without admissions tests to compare their average rates.  

Do note that for courses with a new test this year (CAAH and Biomedical Sciences), we have left them out since last year’s applicants did not sit any admissions test. 

Courses with Admissions Tests

Courses without Admissions Tests

The tables above give us one key finding: Admissions Tests at Oxford do not impact the shortlisting, offer, or acceptance rate in any discernible way. This makes sense since at Oxford Admissions Tests are used across most of the courses, not just the most competitive ones, meaning there is no defining factor that means a course is either given or not given an admissions test.  

Additionally, most course groups at Oxford have the same admissions test, meaning chances are you won’t have the chance to choose between courses within your field of interest based on their having or not having an admissions test.