Posho ranking: These are the universities with the most private school students in 2023

The Times Good University Guide has just been released, among other things revealing the universities with the highest percentages of former private school pupils in 2023.

Amongst the culprits were a lot of the usual offenders including Oxford, Cambridge and Durham, of course, which has somehow managed to get even more posh than last year with now a grand total of just under 40 per cent of its student coming from private schools.

Despite this incredibly high figure, it has been knocked off the top spot since 2023 with Royal Agricultural University now claimed first place with a total of 39.5 per cent.

Oxford and Cambridge didn’t even make the top five with third, fourth and fifth places respectively going to University of Edinburgh (31.8 per cent), Imperial College London (33 per cent) and University of St Andrews (36 per cent).

Over a third of students at both Exeter and Oxford also attended private school.

If you’re hellbent on going to a Russell Group university but want to avoid all the poshos, Queen’s University Belfast may be the place for you. Just two per cent of students at QUB went to private school.

Here are the universities with the highest percentages of private school students in 2023:

20. University of Leeds – 17.4 per cent

19. University of Nottingham – 18 per cent

18. King’s College London – 18 per cent

17. Loughborough University – 18.7 per cent

16. University of Warwick – 19.8 per cent

15. Newcastle University – 22.3 per cent

14. University of Buckingham – 24 per cent

13. Oxford Brookes University – 24 per cent

12. University of Bristol – 24.6 per cent

11. London School of Economics – 26 per cent

10. University of Cambridge – 28.2 per cent

9. University of Bath – 28.2 per cent

8. University College London – 29.5 per cent

7. University of Exeter – 30.3 per cent

6. University of Oxford – 31.4 per cent

5. University of Edinburgh – 31.8 per cent

4. Imperial College London – 33 per cent

3. University of St Andrews – 36 per cent

2. Durham University – 39.1 per cent

1. Royal Agricultural University – 39.5 per cent

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