Some Oxbridge colleges are twice as likely to admit state pupils as others, their own figures reveal.
In reply to a question by Labour MP David Chaytor, lifelong learning minister Malcolm Wicks published tables from Oxford and Cambridge universities showing admissions from the state sector by individual colleges.
Harris Manchester College, Oxford, says that all its places are offered to students from the state sector. However, the college, founded in Manchester in 1786 for Nonconformists, only accepts applicants aged over25.
Of those open to school-leavers, King’s College, Cambridge, has the highest proportion of former state pupils at 77 per cent and Magdalene College, Cambridge, the lowest at just 36 per cent.
At Oxford, Mansfield College offers almost three-quarters of its places to pupils from state schools, while at Oriel 60 per cent of places are offered to students who were privately educated. At Cambridge, only the colleges for mature students accepted a higher proportion of students from the state sector than applied.
