St Anne’s College would like to congratulate all of the 138 students who have today received an offer of a place to study with us in 2024 or 2025.
As you may know, Oxford interviews remained online in December for a fourth consecutive year. This process is one which minimises disruption and the expense of travel for our applicants, but it does also require schools and colleges to work hard to ensure a smooth and straightforward interview process for candidates from all backgrounds. We would like to thank these schools and colleges for their support, and also to thank our tutors for their diligent efforts over the interviewing period. Our interviewers commended the intelligence and drive of this year’s applicants – who will undoubtedly go from strength to strength in their studies, whether they receive a place at Oxford or elsewhere. We would like to wish all applicants the best of luck with the rest of the academic year.
St Anne’s aspires to be the home of choice for the best and brightest students from all backgrounds, an ambition which has its roots in our history as the forward-looking, outward-facing Society of Home Students, which enabled women to access an Oxford education that might otherwise have been barred to them. As such, we are very pleased to be making offers to a diverse group of brilliant young people from all walks of life, including from schools and colleges which have rarely sent students to Oxford before, as well as from Sixth Form Colleges, comprehensive schools, grammar schools, academies and independent schools across the United Kingdom and beyond.
This year, around 76% of our offer holders who list the UK as their Area of Permanent Residence come from state schools, with some 9% of our ‘Home’ students being eligible for Free School Meals. We have made offers to six students who have caring responsibilities, or who have at some time been in .
We are especially pleased to have made 7 offers to students from our link region of the North East of England, of whom some were involved in the Aim for Oxford North East Residential in the Spring of 2023. This is an outcome which demonstrates the ongoing success of our sustained contact programme, for which our hardworking Outreach Team must be commended. The North East of England is an area of the UK which is significantly under-represented at Oxford, and it is very pleasing to see our Outreach work there paying dividends.
We are also proud to participate in the University’s pioneering Opportunity Oxford scheme, now in its fifth year of operation, and to have made 12 Opportunity Oxford offers this year. Opportunity Oxford makes offers to students from under-represented backgrounds and includes specially-developed bridging support materials to assist students’ academic transition. You can read more about Opportunity Oxford here.
In addition to our undergraduate intake, St Anne’s is delighted to be once again offering a number of places on the Astrophoria Foundation Year, which admitted its first cohort of students in October 2023. We would like to remind potential applicants and their teachers that the selection process for this will take place later this term, and applications are still open. This is a one-year fully-funded foundation programme for UK state school students with significant academic potential, who have experienced severe personal disadvantage and/or disrupted education which has resulted in them being unable to apply directly for an Oxford undergraduate degree programme. It will enable motivated students to perform at the highest possible level through a supportive and challenging course aimed at developing their skills, self-belief and academic confidence.
If you, or someone you know or teach, would like to apply for this opportunity, you can find more information here: Astrophoria Foundation Year.