What to Do If You Get Rejected from Oxford or Cambridge

Most applicants to Oxbridge invest a huge amount of time, effort, and care into making their application, and some have been dreaming of a place at their chosen university since they were a child. The experience of being rejected by Oxford or Cambridge can sometimes be crushing. Unfortunately, this is the reality for most applicants – only around 15-20% are successful, so there are a lot of unhappy students on Oxford and Cambridge offer day.

But if your application was unsuccessful, don’t worry – you have options. This guide will walk you through how to approach this situation, what to consider, and what the alternatives are. Read on for clear advice on what to do if you get a rejection from Oxford or Cambridge.

Reflect on the decision

The first thing to do if you get a rejection from Oxford or Cambridge is to reflect carefully on their decision. Not receiving an offer is painful, so you may want to take a week or two after receiving the rejection to vent and grieve, before you can approach this with a clear and calm mindset.

If you contact the college you applied to, they will usually give you feedback. If you took a subject admissions test, they may give you your exact score – if so, you can compare this with the scores of successful applicants in previous years to see whether your performance here let you down. For interviews, the feedback is usually qualitative, but it should give you a solid indication of how you fared in this aspect of the application.

Then, look over the rest of your application, starting with your predicted or achieved grades at A Level or equivalent. It’s worth bearing in mind that the advertised entry requirements for Oxford and Cambridge may be A*A*A or A*AA, but in practice, most successful applicants exceed these, achieving three, four, or even five A*s. Finally, you can review your personal statement and reference – perhaps also letting a teacher, tutor, parent, or friend read them over too, and see if you can think of where you might have improved these parts of your application.

Once you’ve been through this exercise, you might have a fairly clear idea of what caused your application to be rejected by Cambridge or Oxford. Think too about whether you missed the grade only narrowly, or if you were a fair distance from meeting the requirements.

Then ask yourself some questions:

• Realistically, could I improve my application significantly second time around?
• How much time and work would it take to improve my application? Do I have the energy to do this?
• How would I feel if I were rejected a second time?

You now have a few options to think through…

Accept the decision and go to a different university

It is certainly true that the difference between an offer and a rejection from Oxford or Cambridge can often come down to small margins, some of which may have been beyond your control. For instance, you might have done better with a different set of interview or admissions test questions.

However, we generally advise against ‘blaming the system’, or assuming the Oxbridge admissions tutors got the decision horribly wrong. It’s estimated that these universities spend twenty person hours working on each application – this is a lot of time and consideration given to your candidacy! The tutors assess dozens of candidates every application cycle and have been doing so for years. As uncomfortable as it may be to admit, they might well have come to the right decision – Oxford or Cambridge might not be the best fit for you.

Getting rejected from Cambridge or Oxford feels like a major disappointment, but it’s so important to remember that it will not determine the course of your life. For context, these universities receive about 28,000 UK applications every year out of the 521,000 UK students who apply to any British university – that means only 5% of applicants apply to Oxbridge. Just being competitive enough to be in the application process means you are a very intelligent, talented, and high-performing student. You will be successful in your academic career and beyond, no matter what university you go to.

And there are many, many other fantastic universities in the UK (not to mention around the world!). Oxford and Cambridge hog the limelight, but the other G5 universities (UCL, Imperial, LSE) are brilliant institutions which rank highly in international league tables, universities like St Andrew’s sometimes come above Oxford or Cambridge in official rankings, and there are dozens more great options you could consider (Edinburgh, Durham, Manchester, Warwick, Bristol…the list goes on). Any of these universities will set you up for a hugely successful life – and you may, as many students do, find that you fall in love with them within weeks of starting.

Re-apply to Oxbridge for undergrad

Although accepting an offer elsewhere is a great option, there are some good reasons to consider re-applying to Oxford or Cambridge next year.

Firstly, you may be stronger for the experience. For instance, now you know what to expect with admissions tests or at interview. These fearsome hurdles might be a little less intimidating second time around – plus, with your experience, you may be able to prepare more effectively.

If you applied with predicted grades first time, you may be a stronger candidate once your grades are achieved – especially if you exceeded your predictions. Let’s say you were rejected by Oxford or Cambridge with predictions of A*AA – if you can re-apply with an achieved A*A*A, your candidacy will necessarily be stronger. Once your results are in, you may also want to re-take one or more of your subjects to boost your chances, though you should make sure that this is allowed by the specific course you are applying for before embarking on a year of A Level revision!

In addition, if you are re-applying after you have left school, you will have more time at your disposal to prepare for your application. Without the pressures of working on three or four A Levels, or seven IB subjects, at the same time as your Oxbridge application, you will be able to devote more time and energy to mastering each section of the admissions process.

You can also get some extra support with your preparation. At Dukes Plus, we have been preparing Oxbridge applicants since 1999, and our students have a 3-4x greater success rate than the average student. From personal statement to interview, we can maximise your chances – book a free consultation today to discuss how we can support with your re-application.

One quick note – some students even start a first year at another university and re-apply to Oxbridge from there. The advantage of this is that you don’t have to take a gap year, and if you’re unsuccessful second time, you haven’t ‘lost’ a year. If you were successful on re-application, though, it would entail a lot of social upheaval – think of all the friends you’d have made in your first year that you’d be leaving. And you would still have to enter Oxford or Cambridge in first year, so your degree would still have taken a year longer than otherwise.

Re-apply to Oxbridge for postgrad

Another option is to do your undergraduate degree at another university and then apply to Oxbridge for postgrad. This way, you can move on from your Oxford or Cambridge rejection whilst not giving up on them forever!

If this is your plan, make sure you excel in your undergraduate degree and put together a compelling postgraduate application when the time comes. We have a dedicated service for Oxbridge postgraduate applications, which provides comprehensive support for all aspects of the process.

Other options if you were rejected from Cambridge or Oxford

There are a couple of other options you may wish to consider:

Apply to the Ivy League

Want to move on from Oxbridge but still attend a top university? An Ivy League application might be attractive. Before you go down this route, consider the differences between US and UK universities as the experience is very different. For one thing, in the US, you will most likely continue to study a range of subjects as part of your degree, whereas in the UK, you typically specialise in one discipline.

And remember, Ivy League institutions are also hyper-competitive, and applications require a lot of specific prep – like getting ready for the SAT or ACT, or learning to write a very different style of personal statement. Luckily, at Dukes Plus, we can help with this too – we have specialist tutors and advisors to prepare students for Ivy League applications.

Enter work

A final option is to enter the world of work ‘early’, without attending university. Many desirable professions take on non-graduate school leavers – like investment banking or management consultancy. If you’re driven to pursue a top career, you could get a head start on your university-attending peers, as well as building up three or four years of earnings before they even graduate.

How we can help with a rejection from Oxford or Cambridge

Whether you want to discuss your options following an Oxford or Cambridge rejection, or you’ve made your mind up to re-apply, we can help. We’re Oxbridge application specialists with more than 25 years’ experience and a success rate 3-4x the global average.

You can book a free initial consultation here, or get started on the re-application process today by booking a full 60- to 90-minute consultation.

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