Independent school pupils storm into popular universities

4 December 2006

The largest ever survey of university applications from pupils at Independent Schools Council (ISC) schools shows that nearly two-thirds of their applications to the most popular universities produced an offer of a place (each student can apply to up to six universities). Overall, 98% of ISC pupils received at least one university offer - the majority of them at a Sunday Times Top 15 University.

For ten of the 20 most popular universities, an application from an ISC pupil had a 70% chance or better of producing the offer of a place. These include Birmingham, Exeter, Imperial College, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Sheffield and Southampton. For these 20 universities as a group, 19,760 applications produced 15,912 offers (81%).

The Imperial College result (71% of ISC applications received an offer) is particularly remarkable, and shows the extent to which leading universities are now reliant on independent school pupils to fill science places. Imperial College is regularly rated as one of the UK's top three universities: 92.5% of ISC applications to read Physics were accepted, as were 89% for Chemistry and 97% for Biology. Even at Cambridge, over half the applications from ISC schools for natural science places resulted in an offer.

Commenting on the results, ISC General Secretary Jonathan Shephard said:

"These results, from our largest-ever survey, show the robust performance of ISC pupils in gaining places at the top universities. They also point to the worrying decline in science provision in the state sector - something which ISC is committed to helping to redress. The results show once again that leading universities continue to choose students on merit, regardless of background."

Note to Editors

A questionnaire was sent to all 545 ISC schools with sixth forms. 153 schools responded, producing a database of 67,530 applications to 4,206 courses at 226 universities.

The Independent Schools Council (ISC) exists to promote choice, diversity and excellence in education; the development of talent at all levels of ability; and the widening of opportunity for children from all backgrounds to achieve their potential.  ISC represents the seven leading independent schools associations in the UK, collectively educating 500,000 children in 1,278 schools in the UK and overseas.