Why do published Oxford totals differ?

Follow the stages without collapsing them

Applications describe the pool applying through the named centre. Offers describe offers made within the source’s cycle. Accepted or admitted outcomes describe the university return’s later admissions stage. A school destination list describes the destinations reported for its stated leaver population.

These are useful views of the same broad subject, but they are not automatically a linked set of individual journeys. In particular, an accepted-outcome count is not an independent count of enrolments. What a stage counts is whatever its source defines.

The same year is not enough to match a cohort

The worked records retain each published stage. Previous leavers, deferred entry, reporting dates and the scope of a destination list can matter. Without a matched account of the people behind both publications, the numerical difference does not tell us which mechanism caused it.

An offer-to-acceptance gap must not be labelled “missed conditions” from aggregate counts alone. Nor does a lower destination count prove that a school’s initial announcement was wrong. Inspect the exact source and population first.

Use a rate for the question it actually answers

The Oxford offer-rate comparison divides offers by applications from the same apply centre and cycle. It asks about the recorded applicant pool. It does not divide by all leavers, and it does not estimate the chance that a future pupil will gain a place.

A change in offer counts can accompany a change in application volume, in the offer rate, or in both. Read the two stored counts alongside the reviewed rate. Subject choices, prior attainment and the composition of the applicant pool remain possible explanations, not measured school effects.

Continue beyond one destination

A destination record can answer a further question: where else did the stated leavers go? Keep named institutions without counts, offers, accepted outcomes and final destinations separate as you broaden the view. An overseas destination should not be assumed to explain an unobserved Oxford application decision.

Where these figures come from

Each record gives the full definition, the documents it came from and what we checked.

1. St Paul’s School · 2025 · Oxford apply-centre cycles · 2025

   Applications in the named apply-centre cycle. Offers in the named apply-centre cycle. Accepted / admitted outcomes in the named apply-centre cycle.

   We don’t yet have a usable description of this figure’s source, or a check against the original. Its reference codes are kept for further research.

2. St Paul’s School · 2025 · Leaver destinations · 2025

   A separate leaver-year population; not relabelled as admissions-cycle acceptances.

   Publications differ on at least one figure here. Checked against the original: abroad, Cambridge, destination-list denominator and Oxford.

• The worked records do not match individual applicants to individual leavers.
• A source reference alone does not mean that every field has been checked against that source. The inspector states the checking scope.