Oxford LNAT: scores, shortlisting and your chance of an offer

Oxford sets no LNAT cut-off. It said so in a Freedom of Information reply in 2021, and it has published none since.

In practice, Oxford's offer-holders averaged 30.5 out of 42 for 2026 entry, against 24.9 for all applicants. Offers went to applicants scoring anywhere from 16 to 41 for 2025 entry (Law, M100).

Your chance of an offer rises steeply with the score. For 2025 entry, 46.6% of applicants scoring 32 or more got one, against 6.2% at 23 to 25.

From Oxford's Law Admissions Report 2025-26, covering Law and Law with Law Studies in Europe.

That is about 1 offer for every 8 applicants. The rest of this page shows where the LNAT helps you through that funnel, and where other things take over.

Oxford says "All applicants must take" the LNAT for its Law course.

That covers every course in the Law family:

Oxford's process for 2027 entry runs to these dates:

From Oxford's admissions timeline, interview timetable and decisions pages, and its 2025-26 Law report, checked 15 October 2026.

Two practical rules matter for your score to arrive. You must select Oxford in your LNAT account, because Oxford can only see the results of candidates who do, and your UCAS ID must be correct.

The Foundation Year in Law, open to eligible UK state-school students, also requires the LNAT. Its UCAS deadline is 13 January 2027, and Oxford says to take the test before that date.

Oxford asks for no written work for Law. As its Law Faculty puts it, it uses the LNAT in its assessments instead.

Oxford's Law Faculty publishes an admissions report each year.

Together they show a clear climb in the scores of the people it interviews and makes offers to:

Three things stand out:

1. Offer-holders have climbed about three marks. From 27.7 for 2021 entry to 30 or more in every year since 2023.

2. The typical applicant has moved much less. All applicants averaged between 22.5 and 24.9 throughout, so the gap between applicant and offer-holder has widened.

3. Places have stayed flat. Applications rose from about 1,800 to over 2,100, while offers stayed at roughly 230 to 270.

So an older guide that calls 27 "enough for Oxford" describes a different field. For recent cycles, 30 sits in the middle of the offer-holder range.

Oxford has released score-by-score lists of its Law applicants under Freedom of Information.

We counted how many in each score band were invited to interview and how many got an offer:

Read down the offer columns and the pattern is consistent. Each step of three marks roughly doubles your chance of an offer, from about 1 in 40 at 20 to 22 to nearly 1 in 2 at 32 or more.

The interview column matters just as much. In 2024, three in four applicants scoring 32 or more were interviewed, but only one in four scoring 26 to 28.

The same score buys less than it used to

Oxford's older lists go back to 2012 entry, and they show how much tougher the middle of the range has become:

A score of 26 to 28 got an offer more than 4 times in 10 for 2012 entry, and closer to 1 in 9 for 2025 entry.

More applicants are now competing for the same number of places, and more of them score highly.

Oxford says the LNAT is used "both when shortlisting and when making the final admissions decisions". Shortlisting is where it does most of its work.

Before interviews, the Law Faculty ranks every applicant.

For the 2025-26 round (2026 entry), its report describes two ranks:

1. Candidates with a contextualised GCSE score were ranked 10% on the LNAT multiple-choice score, 10% on the LNAT essay and 80% on contextualised GCSEs. Contextualised means your GCSEs are compared with the results of students at similarly performing schools.

2. Candidates without one, which in practice includes most applicants educated outside the UK, were ranked on the two LNAT scores equally. Oxford then adjusts those decisions in the light of their school qualifications.

That 80% weighting is new. The reports for 2022 and 2025 entry described the same three factors as equally weighted.

Oxford has not said why it changed, or what weights it will use for 2027 entry.

Oxford's internal admissions manuals, released under Freedom of Information, add three rules that shape how the rank is used:

1. The top of the rank is shortlisted automatically. Candidates in the first category, one for each place, go straight through.

2. The rank should "guide but not bind". In the 2021 and 2023-entry manuals, tutors read applications, and outstanding strength in one area can make up for weakness in another.

3. A weak LNAT can count against you. The 2023-entry manual listed a poor multiple-choice score, or a poor essay, "not compensated by strength elsewhere" as reasons not to shortlist. The 2025 version cites GCSEs and LNAT scores "in combination not sufficient".

Contextual information can also help. Oxford says applicants from the most disadvantaged backgrounds are strongly recommended for interview.

Its 2025-26 report also describes extra consideration for candidates from the most deprived backgrounds who did well compared with others at their school.

LNAT does not mark the essay. Oxford marks it itself, and it is one of the few universities that turns it into a number used in the rank.

Since the 2020-21 admissions round, Oxford has used comparative judgement, through software called No More Marking.

Trained markers see two anonymised essays at a time and choose the better one, each essay is judged several times, and the software turns those choices into a mark.

The marks sit on Oxford's own scale. In practice nearly every essay scores between 50 and 75, and offer-holders averaged 65.2 for 2026 entry against 62.4 for all applicants.

Oxford released its essay criteria under Freedom of Information in 2021.

Markers compare essays on all three:

Offer rates rise sharply with the essay mark, even among high scorers.

Here is the offer rate within each score band, split by essay mark, for 2025 entry:

At 32 or more, applicants with an essay mark of 66 or above got an offer 64% of the time, against 16% for those at 62 or below. The 2023 and 2024 data show the same pattern.

For how other universities treat the essay, and how to write one that meets these criteria, see our guide to how universities mark the LNAT essay.

Shortlisted candidates usually get two interviews of about 25 minutes at their first college, online. Some are then invited to a second college for one more.

Oxford's 2025-26 report says candidates were asked about their schoolwork and given scenarios to test their logical reasoning. Some colleges send a short reading in advance.

Once you are interviewed, the interview score does most of the work.

Here is how often interviewees got an offer, by the score their first college gave them, for 2025 entry:

A first-college interview score of 5 led to an offer 97% of the time, and a 2 or a 1 almost never did. Oxford's post-interview rank adds "a small addition of first interview scores" to the shortlisting rank, and colleges then make their own decisions.

So the LNAT's main job at Oxford is getting you into the room. After that it still counts, but the interview carries the decision.

A top LNAT score makes an offer far more likely, but Oxford's data shows it does not secure one:

1. 2025 entry: 68 applicants scored 35 or more, and 23 of them got no offer. One scored 40. Oxford's data does not give reasons.

2. 2024 entry: an applicant who scored 39 was not invited to interview.

3. 2025 entry: the lowest-scoring offer-holder had 16, and the highest had 41, the highest score in any Oxford data we have found.

GhostPrep's calculation from Oxford's Freedom of Information data (Law, M100).

Oxford's data does not give reasons, but the process above suggests some:

1. GCSEs and school results feed the shortlisting rank alongside the LNAT.

2. The essay shifts the odds within a score band.

3. The interview carries most of the final decision.

Less than the raw numbers suggest. In 2025, Law applications per college ranged from 20 to 186, but each college made only 4 to 12 offers.

That looks like a huge gap in odds, but Oxford moves strong candidates between colleges.

Its first shortlist is drawn up without regard to college, and unreserved candidates are spread across the Faculty "to maximise each candidate's chance of receiving an offer".

The result: for 2025 entry, 106 of 235 Law offers (45%) came from a college other than the one the applicant chose or was allocated to.

GhostPrep's calculation from Oxford's Freedom of Information data for 2025 entry (Law, M100).

So choose a college for reasons that matter to you. A "less popular" college is a weak strategy, and Oxford's Law Faculty says each college applies exactly the same criteria.

Over a third of Oxford's Law applicants come from outside the UK.

In recent years they have been less likely to get an offer:

Most international applicants have no contextualised GCSE score, so their shortlisting rank rests on the two LNAT scores and a review of their school results. For them, the LNAT carries far more weight than it does for UK applicants.

Oxford's internal guidance aims for a shortlist of roughly two-thirds home and one-third overseas candidates. Oxford says this is a general guide, not a quota.

This section is our advice. Oxford publishes no target score; these goals come from the data above.

1. Aim for 30 or more on Section A. It puts you level with the average offer-holder, and between half (2024 entry) and two-thirds (2023 entry) of applicants at 29 to 31 were interviewed.

2. Treat the essay as part of your score. At Oxford it is marked and ranked, and within a score band, applicants with the strongest essays had two to four times the offer rate of those with the weakest.

3. If you have no GCSEs, the LNAT matters even more. Your shortlisting rank leans on it, so give Section A and the essay the most preparation time you can.

4. Prepare for the interview as well. Once you are shortlisted, it carries most of the decision.

For Oxford applicants this cycle, the LNAT closes on 15 October. If you are reading this ahead of a future application, our complete guide to the LNAT sets out a preparation plan, and our free LNAT practice test shows the real four-option format.

To compare Oxford with the other LNAT universities, see what is a good LNAT score.

Every fact on this page comes from these sources, checked on 15 October 2026. Freedom of Information figures are GhostPrep's own counts from the data Oxford released.

Here's how that breaks down: