A Welsh MP has argued that “Welsh students are poorly represented today at Oxford and Cambridge”, as statistics showed that a disproportionately small number of Welsh applicants to Oxbridge succeed in gaining offers.
Paul Murphy, Member of Parliament for Torfaen, made these comments after a Welsh newspaper, the Western Mail, obtained figures which showed that last year, just 4 out of 87 applicants in Wales’ six most disadvantaged regions – like Merthyr Tydfil, Anglesey and Blaenau Gwent – received offers. This is roughly equivalent to a 4.6% average success rate, while the overall success rate across the UK is nearer 20%.
While the proportion of Welsh students at Oxford is relatively low (of last year’s admissions, just 2.3% were from Wales) at Jesus College around 15% of the current undergraduates are Welsh. This is due in part to Jesus’s historic links with Wales. The college was founded at the request of a Welshman (Dr Hugh Price, Treasurer of St David’s Cathedral) and continues to maintain strong links with the country.
David Callender, a third year Jesus student who helped run the Welsh society last year, supported Murphy’s comments, telling Cherwell, “It’s clear that Welsh students are under-represented at Oxbridge, and if one were to remove Cardiff and Monmouthshire from the equation the number of Welsh students attending the universities would be very small indeed.
“Very few go to Oxbridge from deprived parts of Wales, such as the Valleys. Nobody from Merthyr Tydfil has gone to Cambridge for seven years.”
Callender called for greater access work on the part of the universities, saying: “Oxbridge should reach out more to Welsh state schools and form links with those schools to ensure that those who wish to go to Oxbridge are given appropriate guidance.”
Huw Fullerton of Somerville College offered some insight into the potential reasons for the lack of Welsh students at Oxford. He said, “I think that the reason for this is just that the schooling in Wales is different to that in England, with different exam boards and so on – there’s not such a focus on getting to big universities; it’s more about getting the basic levels.
“Another reason is a kind of reverse snobbery – Welsh people think Oxford is too snooty and elitist (and English), so don’t bother applying in the first place.”
Laura Davies, another Jesus student, suggested that Welsh university applicants are likely to favour universities within Wales, pointing out that “Until recently, Welsh students were subsidised to study in Welsh universities”.
The Oxford University Press Office issued a statement on this matter, commenting, “We encourage any student with the ability and potential to succeed at Oxford to apply, no matter where in the country they are from. Our student recruitment and access teams run student events in Wales encouraging them to consider Oxford, and there are hundreds of Welsh students across the entire student body.”
