Ethnic-minority students who live in London are more likely to attend university, a report has found.

Higher Education Careers Service Unit (HECSU) figures found that 93 per cent of non-white Londoners wished to attend university, compared with 80 per cent of white Londoners. The figures dropped to 85 per cent and 70 per cent respectively for youths living outside of the capital, according to figures reported by Times Higher Education this week.

The statistics for the 2012 cycle of admissions for the University of Cambridge reflect the geographical trend moreso than the ethnic one. While 14.6 per cent of applicants last year were from the Greater London area, an overwhelming 76.2 per cent of home applicants were of a white ethnic origin.

“Cambridge is not doing as well as the other London universities to enroll BME students. The university has been quite keen to develop access schemes and I can only encourage it to do so”, said Alex Dien, the Ethnic Diversity Officer of King’s College Students’ Union.
The dominance of white students is even more pronounced in the acceptance figures: 82.8 per cent of offers made were to white students.

Cambridge is also notable for the high number of international applications it receives. 37.4 per cent of applications received last year were from overseas students, which exceeded that of any individual region in the UK.

However, the success rate of these applicants was only 12.7 per cent, compared to a 27.3 per cent success rate of applications from the Greater London area.

The report follows concerns expressed last year by the government’s universities and science minister, David Willetts, that “white, working-class boys” underperform in university applications. Nationally, 30 per cent of male school-leavers applied for university last year, compared to 40 per cent of females.

However, Cambridge again bucks the national trend when it comes to gender representation at the University. Cambridge received 8,624 male applications last year, and 7,077 female ones. The offers made reflected this proportion: 1,848 were made to males, compared to the 1,589 to females. This is despite the presence of three all-female colleges at the University.

Regionally, the fewest Cambridge offers were made to Wales and Northern Ireland and Scotland. Scottish students can attend university for free in Scotland, whereas they are subject to the annual tuition fees of up to £9,000 for universities in England.

Faith Waddell, a second year student at Trinity who is from Edinburgh, is concerned about the lack of Scottish students in Cambridge: “Even going to a large private school in Edinburgh, I felt that there was a lack of awareness within the school body regarding Oxbridge applications and a lot of unnecessary fear.

“But of course, everyone is swayed by the fact that we have the chance to go to university for free.”