Top schools and colleges ‘tightening grip’ on Oxbridge places

Five elite schools and colleges sent as many students to Oxbridge in one academic year as 1,800 state schools put together, new research has revealed.

According to an analysis by the Sutton Trust, three independent schools – Westminster, Eton and St Paul’s – and two state sixth-form colleges – Hills Road in Cambridge and Peter Symonds in Winchester – produced 260 students in 2011/12 who went on to study at Oxford and Cambridge universities.

Four of the top-performing institutions also topped the rankings in the Sutton Trust’s last piece of research on the issue, with only Peter Symonds breaking into the top five since 2011. It replaced St Pauls’ Girls School, for which data on Oxbridge applicants was not published in the latest Department for Education tables.

Read the full article here. Read Lee Elliot Major’s blog on this issue here.