@forthispost off the topic of oxbridge, but just in response to Your ds will still possibly be due to have some contextual offers from other universities based on the school that he did his gcses though?
No actually, those that score GCSEs score them regardless (not that this was a problem for DS, as his GCSEs were good enough, and he swerved the one medical school that counts English literature as one of its essentials, as he only got a 7 there - all the others takes the best 8 or 9, including maths, sciences and English, so he had top scores for that). And the other ones he is applying to measure only on UCAT score. Most of them do have widening participation options, but these don't apply to DS (nor does he want them, actually, he doesn't think he is an appropriate candidate for contexualisation) and the criteria are different, I think they look more closely at background, parents never been to university etc). Interestingly though what is and is not counted in these criteria. We noticed that St Andrews gives credit for someone being a registered young carer (and does it by deeming the UCAT score to be 10% higher), but that does not seem to be a criteria for contextualisation anywhere else.