
New figures show that no other state school secured more offers from Oxford and Cambridge last year than Queen Elizabeth’s School, Barnet.
Sixty-two QE pupils received offers from the two universities in 2024 – the same figure as for Hills Road Sixth Form College (a state college in Cambridge with a student roll many times larger than that of QE’s Sixth Form). The only school in the whole country to exceed this figure was the private-sector Westminster School.
In addition, a higher proportion of QE Oxbridge applicants received offers from Cambridge and Oxford than those from any other state school securing 20 or more offers – while QE also had a better application-to-offer conversion rate than any independent boys’ school nationally.
The figures are revealed in a Sunday Times survey of the 90 schools that secured most offers in 2024. The article is headlined How to get into Oxbridge – by the state schools that do it best.
Headmaster Neil Enright said: “It is heartening to receive independent corroboration of how brilliantly our pupils are doing. Over the past three years, a remarkable total of 157 of our leavers have won offers from Oxford and Cambridge. Our success in gaining such high numbers, and in turning applications into offers, results from a consistent focus on fulfilling our mission to ‘produce young men who are confident, able and responsible’.
“We work hard to nurture habits of free-thinking scholarship – that is, encouraging boys to go well beyond the requirements of GCSE and A-level syllabuses so that they pursue their own areas of academic interest.
“Our QE Futures programme provides senior pupils with detailed, specific help with university applications and is supported by the wider Elizabethan community, including our alumni, who provide specialised support, such as tailored mock interviews.
“In addition, the very extensive range of co-curricular activities delivered through our QE Flourish programme ensures that the QE experience is broad and rounded: our leavers are therefore highly credible candidates for admissions tutors at Oxford and Cambridge.”
The Sunday Times survey revealed that QE had a 49% success rate in converting Oxford and Cambridge applications into offers (127 applications; 62 offers). This was the highest percentage out of the six state schools gaining the most Oxbridge offers nationally. In fact, in the top ten, it was beaten only by first-placed Westminster, with 96 offers, and by another independent school, St Paul’s Girls’, which secured 48 offers, against QE’s 62.
The Sunday Times spoke to QE’s James Kane, Assistant Head (Pupil Destinations), who pointed to the help provided by Old Elizabethans in assisting those applying to Oxford and Cambridge. He said: “We draw upon the expertise of parents and former pupils and teachers – doctors who may help us with practice admission tests for medicine, or teachers who themselves studied a particular subject at Oxford or Cambridge, who can work with those applicants.”
- Pictured are the group referred to by the Sunday Times survey – the pupils who received Oxbridge offers last year.