This article is taken from the December-January 2026 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Get five issues for just £25.
Interview season is upon us again. Although, since almost no British university interviews its applicants — except for medical degrees — what this really heralds is Oxford and Cambridge interview season. But as this column reported at the start of the year, far fewer applicants now find themselves sitting nervously in the cold corridors of medieval quads.
For Oxbridge, as for so many institutions, the Covid pandemic provided the opportunity for those with long-held frustrations to act: the suspension of “resource-intensive” in-person interviews brought delight to many administrators and academics. Despite persistent protest from a principled few, Oxford persists with its half-decade moratorium on in-person interviews until 2028.
Bureaucrats congratulate themselves on escaping the expenses of travel rebates and gratis accommodation; staff who style themselves as part-time environmental activists crow about the university’s reduced carbon footprint.
Oxford used to be famous for the multi-day rigour of its interview process. Applicants would stay in the city and be moved between colleges until interviewers could be sure they had placed the strongest applicants across the university.
So how has the process played out?
On two major socioeconomic indices Oxford’s performance has declined over the online period
Not well. First, applicant numbers have decreased by over 5 per cent since 2021. Second, those who claimed online interviews would advance “social justice” and “widen participation” — since it was intimidating and overwhelming for poor applicants to confront the dreaming spires of Oxford — have to face some inconvenient truths.
On two major socioeconomic indices Oxford’s performance has declined over the online period. Since 2021, the proportion of Oxford’s UK intake from ACORN categories 4 and 5 (a measure of adversity) has slid from 17.3 to 14.5 per cent, and that from POLAR quintiles 1 and 2 (a measure of participation in higher education) has dropped from 17 to 13.6 per cent.
Both figures are appreciably below the per centage of UK students in these categories who achieve Oxford’s requirement of AAA or higher at A-Level.
Third, there is the pundits’ obsession: private schools. Here too, the recent direction of travel will not please the progressives. From 2020 to 2024, the admission of UK state school students has decreased from 68.6 per cent to 66.2 per cent in a period where state school applicants have risen steadily (by 12 per cent, to 10,258), whilst independent applicants have fallen (by 5 per cent to 3,852).
The consequence of these trends is that, in 2024, 19.1 per cent of state school applicants received an offer, compared to 24.2 per cent of private-school applicants; in 2019, the last time Oxford interviewed in person, the figures were far closer, at 21.4 and 23.8 per cent respectively.
Nevertheless, other changes during the virtual interview era have been stark. The proportion of UK ethnic minorities admitted has risen from 22 to 30.8 per cent. Perhaps other forces are in play here: over this same period 6 per cent of British white students were admitted having missed their offer grades, but the figure was 16 per cent for black students. For UK Chinese students, it stands at 2 per cent.
In terms of academic attainment, the tail remains long and wagging: despite 4,135 students in the UK achieving A*A*A* in their 2024 A Levels, 23.1 per cent of Oxford’s offer-holders that year went on to receive AAA or lower. More alarmingly, one in 13 UK students in Oxford’s 2024 cohort were admitted with grades lower than AAA.
To show how much has changed, let us take a specific subject: History. Over the last decade Oxford’s interviewers have lost the following data points to inform their decisions: AS-Levels, UCAS personal statements (now three guided questions) and, most remarkably, the Oxford-administered History Admissions Test. Publicly it was claimed the logistics were too difficult and expensive; privately it was whispered that incompetent, wildly disparate marking made it too untrustworthy.
Despite all this, and despite AI cozenage being easier than ever, Oxford remains content to interview its students on a screen, and for less time. Second interviews, which used to be rounded off in “ninth week”, have now, in the era of online convenience, spilled into the following week; yet fewer choose to use them, with exhausted academics instead being tempted to lower the bar to fill their places, and take their much-needed holiday respite early.
There is better news from Cambridge, where the realisation is growing that the screen obstructs more than it connects. Last year’s tally of seven colleges offering or requiring in-person interviews to differing degrees has risen to 12 in the current round. Good luck to all those bold enough to sit in the hot seat.
