Re-applying to Oxbridge

[AFingerofFudge]

I was hoping someone would have some recent experience they could share with us regarding re-applying.
Short bit of background- DS was hoping to get into Oxford to do Maths but didn't get an offer. His school is an average city school and could offer no extra help so we were very much on our own with applying etc. He was gutted but has moved on. However he is now talking about either re-applying to Oxford or applying to Cambridge and spending this coming year preparing for the STEP exam. He's partly thinking of delaying his university start anyhow because of the uncertainty around what'll be happening in September.
Does anyone know if this is even possible?

From what I can gather, it's a shitfest trying to get in this year. So many students got deferred from last year that many courses now have very limited places.

There were the deferrals from 2020, yes, which cut the number of places available to new applicants this time around.

On top of that, in anticipation of the inevitable grade inflation with teacher-awarded grades in the UK, Cambridge (and you can imagine all the other top schools) have been making offers for a smaller percentage of the places they have going, knowing that practically everyone will achieve their A-level conditions - whereas they used to slightly "overbook" (ie give out a few more offers than they had places).

So for 2021 entry, applicants were competing for a smaller percentage of a reduced number of places.

But a percentage would have failed to get the grades in normal times, thereby deferring disappointment to August. And Cambridge do not make allowances and let people in anyway. There were two spare slots on ds's course as the offer holders had slipped a grade. The prof said that it would be unfair to admit people who had not fulfilled their offer when others who hadn't gained a place had achieved better grades in the end.

@IrmaFayLear no quite correct. A very close family friend's DC was given a 2Astar and 2A offer with an A star in maths specified. He did get 2A star and 2A but A star wasn't in maths. He was let in after 36hrs to the same college