Where to be ambitious, where to be safe
Most UK universities make offers to most applicants. The skill is knowing which ones don't.
On the cover: New College, University of Edinburgh, which makes offers to fewer than four in ten applications in eight subjects. Photo: Jon Ehresman / Unsplash.
The Bottom Line
Families often approach UK applications as if every university were hard to get into. The numbers say otherwise. Across 1,721 combinations of university and subject over the last three admissions cycles, three in four made offers to more than seven in every ten applications they received.
The genuinely selective places are few, they are mostly the same names in every subject, and they barely change from one year to the next. That makes something possible that most families never do: deciding, before applying, which of your five UCAS choices are ambitious and which are realistic — using real numbers rather than reputation.
What you absolutely need to know:
- Most universities make offers to most applicants
- Only a small group of universities is truly selective — and it is the same group in almost every subject
- The same subject can range from one offer in ten to nearly every application
- A university's offer rate in your subject barely changes from year to year
- The figure describes all applicants, not you
1. Most universities make offers to most applicants
Every year UCAS publishes how many applications each university receives in each subject, and how many offers it makes. We looked at 128 universities over the three most recent cycles, 2023 to 2025.
1,311 of the 1,721 university-and-subject combinations — 76% — made offers to more than seven in ten applications. Only 153, or 9%, made offers to fewer than four in ten.
| Share of applications receiving an offer | University-and-subject combinations |
|---|---|
| More than 7 in 10 | 1,311 (76%) |
| Between 4 and 7 in 10 | 257 (15%) |
| Fewer than 4 in 10 | 153 (9%) |
Combinations with at least 300 applications across 2023–25. Source: Telariq data, from UCAS.
In most subjects the typical university makes offers to between 85% and 95% of applications. The two clear exceptions are medicine and dentistry, where the typical figure is 24%, and subjects allied to medicine, such as nursing and physiotherapy, at 53%.
What this means for you: outside medicine and a handful of universities, an offer is the normal outcome of an application, not the exception.
2. Only a small group of universities is truly selective — and it is the same group in almost every subject
The combinations making offers to fewer than four in ten applications are concentrated in a very small number of places. Setting medicine aside, where almost every medical school is selective, the same names appear subject after subject.
The University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge each make offers to fewer than four in ten applications in 15 subjects. UCL does so in 12, the University of St Andrews in 10, the London School of Economics in 9, and Imperial College London and the University of Edinburgh in 8 each.
| Subject | Most selective, by share of applications receiving an offer, 2023–25 |
|---|---|
| Law | Oxford 11% · UCL 12% · LSE 15% · Cambridge 17% · King's College London 22% |
| Business and management | Oxford 6% · LSE 14% · UCL 23% · King's College London 23% · St Andrews 27% |
| Computing | Oxford 9% · Cambridge 9% · UCL 13% · Imperial 16% · LSE 17% |
| Psychology | Cambridge 13% · Oxford 15% · LSE 23% · UCL 23% · St Andrews 27% |
| Social sciences | Imperial 9% · Oxford 12% · LSE 15% · Cambridge 15% · St Andrews 26% |
| Engineering and technology | Cambridge 16% · Oxford 16% · Imperial 30% · UCL 31% · Edinburgh 60% |
Source: Telariq data, from UCAS.
Look at engineering. After the four most selective universities, the fifth — the University of Edinburgh — makes offers to 60% of applications. The selective group is not a long list with a gradual slope; it is a short list with a steep edge.
What this means for you: "ambitious" means a specific, small set of universities in your subject. Once you know which ones they are, everything else on your list can be judged differently.
3. The same subject can range from one offer in ten to nearly every application
A subject tells you very little about how hard it is to get in. The university tells you almost everything.
| Subject | Lowest | Typical | Highest |
|---|---|---|---|
| Law | 11% | 92% | 99% |
| Business and management | 6% | 88% | 98% |
| Computing | 9% | 85% | 98% |
| Psychology | 13% | 92% | 99% |
| Medicine and dentistry | 2% | 24% | 89% |
Share of applications receiving an offer, 2023–25. Source: Telariq data, from UCAS.
In law, one university makes offers to 11% of applications and another to 99%. In business the range runs from 6% to 98%. The middle of every subject except medicine and the allied health subjects sits well above 70%.
What this means for you: there is no such thing as a "hard subject to get into" outside medicine and nursing. There are hard universities to get into, in every subject.
4. A university's offer rate in your subject barely changes from year to year
This is what makes the numbers useful rather than merely interesting. If a university's offer rate swung widely from year to year, last year's figure would say little about next year's. It doesn't swing.
Between 2024 and 2025, the typical university-and-subject offer rate moved by just 2.1 percentage points. Four in five moved by less than 5.
| Combinations compared | 1,700 |
|---|---|
| Typical change | 2.1 percentage points |
| Changed by 5 points or less | 79% |
| Changed by 10 points or less | 93% |
Combinations with at least 100 applications in both years. Source: Telariq data, from UCAS.
What this means for you: last cycle's offer rate is a dependable guide to this cycle's. You can plan around it.
5. The figure describes all applicants, not you
An offer rate is the share of applications that received an offer. It does not tell you whether you personally will get one, for three reasons worth keeping in mind.
Strong applicants cluster at selective universities. Oxford's offer rate is low partly because so many of its applicants already have top grades. An applicant with weaker grades would find it harder there than the figure suggests, and an applicant with exceptional grades somewhat easier.
UCAS counts applications, not people. One applicant can make five applications, so the figures describe applications rather than individuals.
The figures cover all applicants together — UK, EU and international. International applicants are a minority of most pools, so the rates mostly reflect UK applicants.
What this means for you: use offer rates to place each university in a band — ambitious, in between, or realistic — rather than to predict your own outcome.
Using this for your five choices
The point of all this is a better-balanced application. Before you apply, place each university on your list into one of three bands for your subject:
- Ambitious — fewer than 4 in 10 applications receive an offer
- In between — 4 to 7 in 10
- Realistic — more than 7 in 10
Many families find they have filled all five choices from the ambitious band without realising it, because reputation and selectivity look the same from the outside. Others spend choices on universities that would almost certainly make an offer, when one ambitious choice could have been worth the risk. Knowing the band for every university on your list lets you decide deliberately.
Our advice
Find the offer rate for your subject at every university you are considering — not the university's overall figure, which mixes easy and hard subjects together.
Keep your ambitious choices to the universities that are genuinely selective in your subject. That group is smaller than most people assume.
Then check the rest of the picture. A university can be realistic to get into and still be the wrong choice on cost, entry requirements or length of course. The shortlist that looked right shows how those questions fit together.
Confirm entry requirements with each university before you apply.
The not so fine print: what was excluded in this report
- Universities and subjects with fewer than 300 applications across 2023–25, where rounding makes the rate unreliable
- Universities that recruit mostly outside UCAS, or whose figures include partner colleges
- Figures are for subject areas, not individual courses — a popular course within a subject can be more selective than the subject as a whole
- UCAS rounds every count to the nearest five
- Offer rates describe past applicants; they are not a prediction for any individual
Have a question? We'd love to hear from you — admin@telariq.com