University Chances Calculator

It is an estimate, not a prediction. It starts from the chance of an applicant who exactly meets each university's typical offer, then adjusts for your grades (predicted or achieved), your course and your Statementory score, and rounds the result down. It cannot see your admissions test, interview, reference, GCSEs, contextual flags or how competitive your exact course is this year. Use it to balance your five choices, not to decide whether you are good enough.

Both make roughly one offer for every five or six applicants, and most of those applicants already have top predicted grades. Admissions tests and interviews decide most of what is left, and the calculator cannot see either. It therefore never puts Oxford above 55% or Cambridge above 60%, however strong the rest of the profile is.

Because they are certain. A predicted grade is a forecast that can slip, so universities discount it; an achieved grade cannot. If you already hold the typical offer or better, your chance is noticeably higher and any offer is usually unconditional. If you already hold grades below it, that shortfall is final, so the estimate drops further than it would for the same predicted grades.

It depends on the university. Where most courses do not interview, such as LSE, UCL and St Andrews, the statement is one of the few ways to stand out from applicants with the same grades, so it moves the estimate more. At Oxford and Cambridge, admissions tests and interviews carry more weight, so it moves the estimate less.

Most first drafts score 40 to 60. A statement scoring 77 to 86 is competitive at top Russell Group universities, and 87 to 95 is Oxbridge-competitive. The calculator shows, for each university, the score at which your statement stops holding you back there.

Mix ambition with safety. A common shape is one or two ambitious choices, two realistic ones and at least one safe choice, where your grades sit comfortably above the typical offer. Two rules shape the list: you cannot apply to Oxford and Cambridge in the same year as a school-leaver, and medicine, dentistry and veterinary courses can take at most four of your five choices. All five read the same personal statement, so the courses need to be close enough for one statement to argue for each of them.

Often, yes, as one of five. UCAS gives you five choices (four for medicine, dentistry and veterinary science), and a common approach is to mix one or two reaches with realistic and strong options. If you qualify for a contextual offer, the grades a university asks of you may be lower than the typical offer used here.