Over the past five years, the University of Oxford has quietly begun to abandon the very principle that once defined it: uncompromising adherence to the highest academic standards. A recent Freedom of Information (FOI) Request, filed by the Oxford Standard, has revealed alarming new information concerning the University’s admissions standards: data that reveals that the University of Oxford is no longer as meritocratic as it claims to be.
For context, students hoping to earn a place at the prestigious university are required to attain the highest grades at A-Levels (anywhere from AAA to A*A*A) to even be considered. Or rather, that’s what the University claims. Newly revealed data, however, paints a very different picture––one of radical change in its approach to undergraduate admissions. Just four years ago, for the 2021 admissions cycle, only 2.6% of successful applicants failed to meet the University’s publicly stated entry requirements. That figure reached an alarming 9.9% in 2023, before declining slightly to 6% in 2025 (the most recent admissions cycle).
It’s worth highlighting that fact again: nearly 1 in 10 of the undergraduates admitted in 2023––many of whom will be graduating at the end of this academic year––did not attain the required credentials to earn a spot in their degree program.
Among A-level-qualified admits, the number achieving three A*s fell by nearly 24%, from 1,075 in 2021 to just 818 in 2025. Those achieved AAA, meanwhile, rose by 129%, from 66 to 151, over that same period. This, however, has been accompanied by an alarming surge of those admitted with grades that include at least one B (i.e. grades A*A*B, A*AB, AAB, and lower). In 2021, only 55 such students were accepted (about 1 in 45); by 2023, that number had more than quadrupled to 223 (about 1 in 12). In 2025 (the most recent admissions cycle), 152 students were admitted after earning a B—nearly 1 in 17 of all entrants with A-level qualifications.
Seemingly never without justification, the University pointed to “extenuating circumstances” (e.g. the pandemic) as justification for the relaxed standard. Yet national A-level results told a different story: the proportion of students who achieved a least 3 A grades or better in the 2022-2023 academic year was 16.1% or nearly 36,000 students nationwide. And this isn’t even considering international applicants with other academic qualifications. Clearly the pool of applicants remained strong, despite global disruptions to education. Oxford had no shortage of candidates capable of meeting its published standards––in fact it had a surplus. Instead, it decided to ignore its own standards, and admit blatantly less qualified students.
Over the same time period, the University made no secret of its efforts to diversify its student population, though it conveniently left out their underqualification. As recently as their 2025 Admissions Report, Vice-Chancellor Irene Tracey boasted openly about the results of the University’s Access and Participation Plan (APP) for 2020-2025, highlighting how it resulted in “more students from the least advantaged backgrounds…” In that same report, she detailed how the university’s new APP “provides a renewed focus in attracting and supporting students currently under-represented at Oxford.”
The university provides a vague breakdown of the qualifications of those students admitted in the 2024 admissions cycle, yet a little arithmetic is all that’s required to see the true picture: of the roughly 4,842 UK-domiciled applicants who achieved at least an A*A*A*, only about 1,476 were admitted. Increased diversity may be all well and good for those who prize it above all else, but such virtue signalling must ring hollow for the over 3,000 UK students who were denied despite their extraordinary academic achievement.
Of course, many of the questions lingering concern the use of ethnicity and race in admissions. Unfortunately, much of the ethnic qualification breakdown data was redacted from our FOI request, and so we are unable to draw explicit conclusions regarding the use of race and ethnicity in Oxford’s admissions practices. Yet it is worth noting that the proportion of Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) students rose from 23.6% in 2020 to 30.8% in 2024—a figure celebrated in the 2025 Annual Admissions Report. This is despite the fact that only 23.6% of the English and Welsh population aged 19 to 25 identify as part of BAME community, a figure they also cite in their report. It’s no wonder, therefore, that the University has been accused of ‘social engineering.’ As a recent Telegraph article reported, black students without the required A-levels were more likely to be accepted than white students who similarly missed the requirement.
Given the intense focus on the university since it emerged that (now former) Oxford Union President-Elect George Abaraonye earned ABB on his A-levels, there will no doubt be continued scrutiny about the use of DEI in its admissions process, and the issue of lower standards will certainly be a significant part of the conversation. Not only is the university using race to pick between qualified applicants, but is now employing it as justification for admitting underqualified applicants over the heads of those far more qualified. Given this fact, is it any wonder why the university was recently ranked 4th in the nation?
Oxford is, of course, incapable of admitting every qualified applicant, and that is exactly why their admissions process includes so many stages (admissions tests and interviews). Yet that very fact leads to a particular irony apparent to everyone except (seemingly) the Vice Chancellor. As she said in her annual Oration mere weeks ago: “talent is everywhere but opportunity is not, except at Oxford… opportunity is our story.”
Unfortunately for the University, for its current students, and for prospective scholars around the world, this is simply not the case. As noble as the mission of providing opportunity is, we simply cannot ignore the facts: Oxford, once the home of the best and most deserving in academia, is simply not the meritocratic place it was or claims to be.