The best and worst schools in your area for getting into Oxbridge

Certain schools in Liverpool and Wirral have a better track record of pupils getting into an Oxbridge university than others.

According to statistics from the 2019 to 2020 term academic year, The Blue Coat has set the record for sending students to Oxford or Cambridge University. With the best record out of any state-run school or college in Merseyside, a total of 17 of the school’s pupils progressed to one of the country’s top two universities.

The newly released data from the Department for Education shows that just over one in 10 pupils (10.8%), will make into Oxbridge education, which is a larger percentage than at any other state-funded secondary school or college in our region. Liverpool College has the next best record with 4.0% of pupils (four in total) going to Oxbridge.

That’s followed by Upton Hall School FCJ in Wirral at 3.5% of pupils (there in total), and Wirral Grammar School for Girls with 3.5% (five pupils). The Blue Coat School also had the highest number of pupils make it into Oxbridge in the North West overall.

That’s followed by Wirral Grammar School for Girls with five pupils, Calday Grange Grammar School also with five, Liverpool College with four, and Carmel College with four. While nationally, The Henrietta Barnett School in Barnet sent the largest proportion of its 2019/20 cohort to Oxbridge out of any state-run secondary school or college in England.

You can search this table to see how your school or prospective school compares in terms of the number of students it sends to Oxbridge:

Some 28.2% of pupils made it into the country’s top two universities. King's College London Maths School in Lambeth had the next best ratio at 25.0%, followed by Queen Elizabeth's School, Barnet at 24.3%.

Hills Road Sixth Form College in Cambridgeshire sent the highest number of any state-run school or college, with 59 in total.
That’s followed by Brampton Manor Academy in Newham with 53, Brighton Hove and Sussex Sixth Form College with 50, and Peter Symonds College in Hampshire with 43. Not every part of the country managed to send pupils to Oxford or Cambridge, however.

Salford is one of three “Oxbridge Deserts” with no pupils from state-funded schools making it into either Oxford or Cambridge University. A total of 1,332 students finished A-levels or other level 3 qualifications at state-funded secondary schools and colleges at the end of the 2019/20 academic year.

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