Oxfordshire

Yes, the University of Oxford is considered highly selective. It terms of enrollment though, it is a mid-sized rather than a small university. 

Oxford is the federation of over 35 independent colleges so the community is quite big.

This is definitely not a small liberal arts college with a total enrollment of around 26,000 students at UG and PG levels.

If talking about Humanities from the University of Oxford, it is undoubtedly the best in the whole world. The reason being that the Arts and Humanities courses have the historical edge in prestige. 

For STEM courses, Oxford is also ranked the the strongest in the world but recently. It is particularly known for the given STEM courses -

• Life Sciences
• Medicine
• Physics
• CS

The University of Oxford is one of the the oldest universities in the world, with its top rankings among the top-ranking bodies of the world.

It is often considered equal to or superior to the Ivy League due to the following reasons - 

• Unmatched academic legacy 
• Mastery in specialised research 
• Intimate tutorial system

The University of Oxford has a larger student body than all the Ivy Leagues.

In total, Oxford is known to admit around 26K students at UG and PG levels. For Harvard University, Yale University and Princeton, the total enrollments remain around 19K to 23K. 

Only Cornell stays neck to neck to Oxford with around 26K students each year.

Yes, the Oxford University courses like Medicine, PPE and Law have earlier application deadlines. The important admissions test registration for all the applicants typically falls around Oct 15 each year.

Look at the admission deadlines given below -

• For the Oxford Medicine program, the students should take the UCAT which generally falls between Sep 7, 2026, and Sep 19, 2026. 
• And for Oxford Law programs, the LNAT is required to be taken and the registrations for the same stays open till Oct 15, 2026.

Yes, the October intake is the only main intake for both UG and PG courses at the University of Oxford.

Unlike other UK universities offering the January or May intakes for some of the courses, Oxford has a single cohort starting in late September or early Oct for almost all of its programs. 

Students will have to fulfil the elibilit criteria mentioned below to secure a seat in the MBA programme at Oxford-

• UG degree
• Supporting statement
• Online assessment
• GMAT/GRE score
• 2 years of work experience
• English proficiency proof
• 2 references
• One page CV 

As per the US News rankings, the University of Oxford is ranked lower than Cambridge University for all years. Given are the pointers for comparison -

• In the year 2025, the Cambridge University rank has slightly improved from what it was in the last year.
• On the other hand, it has remained the same for Oxford.

Look at the table of comparison for both unis -