Oxbridge favours October babies

Children born in the month of October are 30 per cent more likely to become Oxbridge undergraduates than those born in July, it was revealed yesterday.

Admissions statistics released by Oxford and Cambridge universities under the Freedom of Information Act showed those born in autumn months were overall 25 per cent more likely to gain places at the prestigious universities than summer-born applicants.

The disparity is thought to be linked to well-established research, often known as the "birth date effect", that shows children who are younger within school year groups on average gain worse results than their older classmates. The data related to British applicants.