For the elite crust of the UK’s independent schools, record-breaking examination results are not quite the boast of educational excellence that they once were – particularly at a time when many heads are grumbling that A-levels have lost much of their academic rigour. Instead, it is the annual haul of places offered by Oxford and Cambridge universities that most delight school heads and their marketing directors.
Schools’ share of the few places (just 6,500) up for grabs each year have been proudly touted on school websites and in prospectuses for years. But this year the FT brings together data supplied for the first time by the universities themselves on exactly how many offers were made in the past two years.
