*5.1. Admissions Changes*

The CCS have undertaken, in the context of a collaboration between Trinity College Dublin and LMH Oxford University (2016–2020), the development of a foundation year and an adapted admissions process.

Admissions processes in both institutions changed to target low-SES students. The evidence of strong academic performance by such students in the Irish context helped to strengthen the case for more targeted admissions at lower academic thresholds in the UK context. Both institutions drew on nationally available proxies for educational disadvantage. In Ireland, students admitted to Trinity and the other Irish universities now have a long and strong track record of academic progression and achievement in higher education, and they continue to make the case for diversified admissions, that takes account of the fact that student potential may be masked or underestimated due to socio-economic circumstances.

By 2022, 43 former LMH FY students had matriculated at the University of Oxford. Thirteen former Foundation Year students had graduated with degrees from Oxford University including two with First Class Honours. The student success on the LMH FY echoes the strong academic attainment and higher education progression of the TAP FC and HEAR students in Ireland [36].

The persistence and success of the LMH FY students, along with external policy pressure from the OfS, helped to make the case for Oxford University to scale the FY project beyond LMH. Between 2019 and 2020, both Oxford and Cambridge Universities announced their intentions to develop a university-wide FY to diversify their socio-economic intake, with an objective that one in four of their admissions would be from low-SES groups by 2025 [36]. The University of Cambridge admitted 43 low-SES students to its first Foundation Year in 2022, and the University of Oxford will admit 50 students to an institution-wide programme in September 2023 [38,39]. This is the biggest shift in the Oxbridge admissions landscape since the awarding of degrees to women over a hundred years ago.

## *5.2. Community-Based Change*

The TA21 programme emerged from 20 years of practice, which demonstrated that low-SES students could survive and thrive in selective HEIs. By 2013, the TAP team considered what more they could do to develop the potential of all students within partner schools and to tackle some of the persistent challenges identified in the literature. TA21 aimed to build a whole-school college-going culture and to engage as many students, staff and community networks in this objective as possible. In 2014, 48% of students from TA21-linked schools progressed to higher education. Over time, this number has gradually increased and in 2020, the schools with high levels of engagement are reporting up to 74% of their students progressing to HE [30].

The LMH and Oxford approach focused much more on bringing 16–18-year-olds to the campus for summer schools and other outreach programs, but it was not aiming for this deeper level of community-based change. It took an individual approach to selecting low-SES students rather than a broader structural approach that considered the students' lived realities. In this respect, the development of thinking and associated practices within Oxford are at a much earlier stage of development than in Trinity.

As the former Principal of LMH, Alan Rusbridger observed, "If Oxford shrugs—"we can't find them either!"—and blames a failing school system, it will look to some as if it's failing in its wider social, educational and charitable purposes" [40]. The Oxford response was, in many respects, a consequence of public policy pressures and, within LMH, emerged from a genuine desire to create greater socio-economic diversity and respond to its historic mission as the first women's college. The Trinity response, through TA21, evolved from institutional learning about the potential and success of thousands of students from low-SES backgrounds and a commitment to aim for larger-scale community-based change. These differences provide insight into diversification strategies in two of the world's most selective universities.
