Private pupils shunned by Oxbridge are being ‘driven overseas’

State schools are celebrating a bumper year of offers from Oxford and Cambridge
At Eton College, the number of boys getting an offer from Oxbridge has fallen from 99 in 2014 to 48 this year
At Eton College, the number of boys getting an offer from Oxbridge has fallen from 99 in 2014 to 48 this year
CHRISTOPHER FURLONG

It was, to anybody’s mind, a shocking statistic when it came out in 2018 — eight schools between them had as many pupils accepted to Oxford and Cambridge as three-quarters of all schools. Of the eight schools, six were private.

But research by The Sunday Times reveals today that most of these top private schools, including St Paul’s Girls’ School, King’s College School, Wimbledon (KCS) and Eton College, have suffered a decrease in the number of their pupils being accepted into Oxbridge, widely seen as the golden ticket to a top university education.

Meanwhile, the two state schools that made it into the 2018 research by the Sutton Trust, a social mobility charity, have prospered, with both getting more pupils into Oxford and Cambridge than