Cherwell has broken down the number of firsts (and distinctions, where appropriate) awarded by the University of Oxford in Preliminary Exams (prelims) and Final Honour School Exams (finals) over the past eight years into subject-division, ethnicity, gender, and school background. The first-class attainment gap refers to the percentage point difference between the proportion of students from different groups who are awarded a first-class degree. The attainment gap between men and women and between private school and state school students at finals has gradually opened over the past eight years, with the latter increasing by almost ten percentage points. Additionally, looking at the average across the last eight years, BME students marginally outperform white students in prelims. However, in finals, a considerable attainment gap opens between the number of firsts awarded to white and BME students.
Between the 2016/17 and 2023/24 exam cycles, the proportion of firsts awarded has inflated by 18.8% in prelims and 14.5% in finals. Notably, the COVID-19 pandemic had polarising effects on the 2019/20 exam cycle results, with the first rate crashing to 22.5% for prelims and climbing up to 47% for finals. Averaging across all eight years, the proportion of candidates awarded firsts at finals (38.0%) increases from prelims (27.5%). This regular increase is visible when comparing the first rate at prelims and finals for nearly all demographics, but it affects certain groups disproportionately.
Ethnicity
Contrasting students identifying as white with students grouped by the University as ‘BME’ (encompassing students identifying as Black, Chinese, Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi, ‘Other Asian’, and Mixed Heritage), at prelims, a higher proportion of BME students (29.0%) are awarded firsts than white students (26.8%), on average – a 2.2 percentage point attainment gap. This was the case for all exam cycles except 2020/21. The trend flips, however, in finals where a higher proportion of white students receive firsts (40.0%) than their BME peers (33.1%), with a much wider attainment gap of 6.9 percentage points. This was the case for all eight exam cycles, with the most recent 2023/24 cycle seeing the largest attainment gap (8.1 percentage points). In fact, whilst the attainment gap was steadily closing until the 2020/21 cycle, it has been gradually opening again since, as both the proportion of BME students receiving firsts has decreased and the proportion of white students receiving firsts has increased over the past two years. On average, white students experienced a much higher rate of growth in the distribution of firsts between prelims and finals (48.6%) than BME students (12.3%).
An article published by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) suggests a relation between the widening attainment gap to the success of access and participation schemes at the admissions level. “When a much larger proportion of any group enters university, that group may naturally include a broader range of academic ability,” the article notes. “If mainly the top third of White students attend university, but nearly half of ethnic minority students do, we would expect to see differences in degree outcomes – even with completely fair teaching and assessment.” In Oxford’s case, we would expect to see these effects manifest as an attainment gap in prelims results. On the contrary, since the attainment gap only opens in finals, the issue seems to lie beyond the admissions cycle, and in Oxford’s teaching and environment itself. Last December, Oxford Student Union’s (SU) Welfare Survey found that 20% of respondents identifying as BAME had faced discrimination in the last academic year, compared to 12% of white students.
Breaking ‘BME’ up into its constituent groups, Black students experienced the highest increase in firsts between prelims and finals (87.4%), yet still proportionally were awarded the fewest firsts in both prelims (8.9%) and finals (16.6%). Inversely, Chinese students were awarded the greatest number of firsts in prelims proportionally (42.7%), but were the only group to experience deflation in finals, experiencing a 7.2% decrease in the proportion of students awarded a first (39.6%).
Gender
A higher proportion of students identifying as male are awarded firsts in prelims (33.0%) than female students (22.2%). The same is true in finals, with 42% of male students receiving firsts compared to 34.4% of female students. Averaging over all eight years, this means female students have experienced a higher increase in firsts between prelims and finals (55.4%) than male students (24.3%) and the attainment gap has closed by 3.2 percentage points during the course of study.
More troublingly, whilst the attainment gap has fluctuated for both prelims and finals, it has increased between 2016/17 and 2023/24 for both prelims (by 3.1 percentage points) and finals (3.2 percentage points), reaching a total gap of 12.6 and 10.1 percentage points respectively. Further, over the past three years both sets of exams have seen a steady increase in the attainment gap year-to-year. As a result, Oxford is not on track to meet the goal set out in their 2022/23 Equality, Diversity, and Inclusivity Report to reduce the first class degree gender attainment to 4.4 percentage points by 2025.
The disparity is visible across subject divisions, and a 2024 report by HEPI found that nearly all Oxford courses have a first awarding gap favouring male students (bar geography and medical sciences), including courses where women represent the majority of the student body, such as English, as well as those where they are underrepresented. By contrast, the report noted that female students generally outperform their male peers across the rest of the UK education system.
The SU’s welfare report found female students were significantly more likely to have experienced unwanted sexual behaviour, worsening mental health, low self-esteem, anxiety, and loneliness than male students. Additionally, the HEPI report points to several Oxbridge-specific factors which may impact female students’ assessment results. The tutorial system is brought into question for potentially “favouring ‘combative, rather than co-operative [behaviours]’” as female students at the University of Cambridge reported that “discussions were ‘frequently thwarted by the domineering practices of male students’”. Further, Oxford’s examination methods themselves could be further opening the gap. It is suggested that short exam periods with high grade-weighting disadvantage female students who are less predisposed to take the risks needed for a first-class grade, instead working consistently over three years. The report continued that female students may be additionally impacted by Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS) during the highly concentrated course of their exams.
Data points for individuals identifying under the University’s classification of ‘other’ did not exceed five individuals, and hence were redacted to avoid these individuals being identified.
School background
Privately educated students are more likely to receive firsts in prelims (29.9%) compared to 21.7% of their state school peers. This disparity continues in finals, where 39.9% of independent school students are awarded firsts, while the figure for state school students stands at 35.7%. Generally, the attainment gap almost halves between prelims and finals, reducing to 4.2 percentage points as state school students experience a prelims-to-finals increase rate (64.7%) nearly double that of private school students (33.5%).
The attainment gap for finals has steadily increased by nearly ten percentage points between 2016/17 (1.7%) and 2023/24 (11.5%) to an overall disparity of 9.8 percentage points. This was the widest attainment gap of the three analysed for the last exam cycle. Crucially, until 2019/20, the attainment gap remained below 2 percentage points, with a higher proportion of state school students receiving firsts in 2017/18, with a marginal gap of 0.4 percentage points. Over the past four years, however, the gap has been steadily opening as the proportion of state school students receiving firsts consistently decreases. Though less uniform, a similar trend occurs in prelims, with the attainment gap increasing by 3.8 percentage points since 2016/17. During this period, Oxford has also been admitting a decreasing number of state school students.
Looking forward
A University spokesperson told Cherwell: “The University is committed to addressing gaps in exam and degree outcomes where they exist. Progress has been made in some subject areas, but the reasons for these gaps are varied and highly complex. We are working hard to understand this issue through extensive engagement with students as well as data provision to enable us to better target support, and we are introducing a programme of measures including flexible teaching, mixed assessment methods, and study skills support, to deliver a more inclusive learning environment in which all students can perform to their full potential.”
The University recently announced a new Access and Participation Plan for 2025-29 in order to combat attainment gaps. The plan aims to “expand the range of summative assessment available to departments” beyond traditional exam formats. The HEPI report urged Oxford and Cambridge to ensure that while such reforms should seek to eliminate “systematic disadvantages”, they should “refrain from scaling back the ‘academic rigour’” of employed assessment methods. The report further insisted that the “awarding gap is symptomatic of a broader institutional problem” which requires “bold reforms” catered to the specific needs of each disadvantaged group, in place of “catch-all solutions”. The University has additionally allocated £12.9m to funding transitional programmes for undergraduate students, in addition to £3.3m specifically for BME students
With Oxford graduates going on to fill many top roles in government and industry, attainment gaps do not only suggest that certain demographics are being snubbed in their education and assessments, but will also have rippling social effects. The coveted Oxford first class degree offers a seal of approval, which the data suggests more often than not finds its way to those who fit the historic Oxford image. Most startlingly, it seems that these trends are not merely the result of the University failing to keep up with changing times or undo wider societal inequalities; rather, they are unique to Oxbridge, and currently getting worse by the year.
