Dukes Plus is a roll-up of eight education brands including Oxbridge Applications, InvestIN and The Medic Portal. It publishes 'From' prices for summer programmes between £2,290 and £6,695 and nothing for applications support or tutoring. Its headline Oxbridge acceptance claim is stated as a multiple of the global average with the multiplier itself missing from the page.
This review also covers a statistic with the number missing. Dukes Plus is not a programme. It is a brand consolidating eight others, and reviewing it means reviewing what the consolidation does to a buyer's ability to compare.
What is actually underneath it?
Eight brands, listed by the company itself.
The site says it is "consolidating the offerings of these distinguished brands under Dukes Plus" and names them: oxbridgeapplications.com, alisteducation.co.uk, themedicportal.com, thelawyerportal.com, investin.org, summerboardingcourses.com, ultimateactivity.co.uk and dukestutoring.co.uk. The footer adds "Part of the Dukes Education family," and gives Company No. 09345899, registered at 58 Buckingham Gate, London.
Notably, the page does not explicitly state ownership of those brands — it describes consolidating their offerings. For a buyer that distinction has a practical consequence: when you enquire through Dukes Plus, it is worth asking which entity you are contracting with and which one holds your money.
The services span an unusually wide range: university applications (Oxbridge, Ivy League, medicine, law, drama), tutoring from 7+ through to undergraduate, summer schools at Oxford, Cambridge and Eton sites, short career experiences, and Ofsted-registered activity day camps.
What does it cost?
Partially published, as "From" figures, and only for some products.
| Product | Published price |
|---|---|
| Career experiences (Doctor, Lawyer, Engineer, Architect and similar) | From £2,290 |
| Eton College courses (Future Entrepreneurs, Global Leaders, Scientists) | From £2,950 |
| Faculty of Psychology, Dukes Cambridge | From £4,895 |
| Oxford college faculties (Medicine, Law, Business, Global Leadership) | From £6,695 |
| University applications support | Not published |
| Tutoring | Not published |
| Camps | Not published |
"From" prices tell you a floor and nothing about the ceiling, and the three unpriced categories include the one most families arrive looking for — admissions support.
This is the market norm rather than an outlier. Reach Cambridge publishes no main programme price at all; Crimson Education's own FAQ poses the pricing question and does not answer it. Oxford Scholastica is the exception, publishing a complete table. Dukes Plus sits in the middle: more than most, less than enough to compare.
The statistic with the number missing
This is the finding, and it is unusually concrete.
The site carries headline claims about admissions outcomes framed as multiples: an "Oxbridge acceptance rate" and an "Ivy League acceptance rate," each described as "x the global average." On the page we fetched, the multiplier is absent. The claim is a sentence with a hole where the number should be.
Several other headline figures on the same page are also missing their numbers — a count of schools globally, a count of industry professionals, a summer-school ranking.
Two readings are available and we cannot distinguish between them from outside. It may be a template or rendering fault, in which case it is a website bug. Or the figures may simply not be filled in. Either way the effect on a buyer is the same: a prominent claim about admissions outcomes that cannot be checked, because there is nothing there to check.
What the page does state as numbers: "We're partnered with over 1,100 schools" and "a network of over 2,000 vetted admissions tutors." Neither has a denominator, and "vetted" is not defined.
And one more: a "100% success rate" attached to GCSE tutoring, with no sample size, no period and no definition of success. A 100% figure without a denominator is the least informative statistic available — it is equally consistent with a thousand students and with three.
None of this is unique. UniAdmissions publishes a "67% Engaged Student Oxbridge Success Rate" whose asterisk leads to terms defining "engaged applicants" as "engaged applicants." Crimson's 98% refers to admission to a top-five choice the student nominated. The pattern across this industry is the finding, not the exception.
Whenever you see a percentage in admissions consulting, the question is the same: percentage of whom, measured against what target, and who chose the target?
Is it affiliated with Oxford or Cambridge?
No, and no affiliation is claimed — which is the correct position, honestly held.
What the site does use is location-based wording: studying "in an Oxford University college," experiencing law "at the University of Oxford," a "Faculty of Psychology – Dukes Cambridge." Tutors are described as "top graduates from Cambridge or Oxford."
All of that can be literally true and none of it implies an institutional relationship. Colleges let their facilities commercially in the vacations. Oxford Scholastica puts the general case most clearly of anyone in the market: "There are no Oxford summer schools affiliated with Oxford University."
The University's own position, such as it is, comes from a spokesperson quoted in Cherwell by Timothy Blackburn in August 2026: "summer programmes are entirely separate to the University's undergraduate and graduate admissions processes."
Who is it for?
A family with several needs and a preference for one relationship.
It suits someone who wants tutoring, admissions support and a summer programme from a single point of contact, and who is comfortable establishing prices by enquiry rather than from a page. There is genuine convenience in that, and the breadth is real.
It suits less well a buyer who needs one specific thing. If what you want is medicine admissions support, going directly to the underlying brand and asking for a written quote gets you a clearer comparison than going through a consolidator.
And it does not suit anyone who needs the price before the call. That is not a judgement about the service — it is a practical constraint on buying anything.
Where we fit, and where we are the weaker choice
The Oxford Centre for Advanced Research is not an admissions consultancy and does not do tutoring, test preparation or camps. We run 1:1 mentorships with PhD candidates and early-career researchers at Oxford, Cambridge, other leading UK universities and Ivy League institutions, producing a piece of written research. The Oxford Scholar Programme is £2,000 — about $2,600 — for ten contact hours over ten to fourteen weeks; the Oxford Publication Fellowship is £3,400, roughly $4,400. Both figures are published.
We accept approximately 60% of applicants. Self-reported and unaudited — but stated, with a denominator, which is the standard we would like applied to us.
We are not affiliated with the University of Oxford.
Where Dukes Plus is the better purchase: if your problem is how do I navigate a medicine application, and also my son needs GCSE maths help, and also we want a summer programme, we solve none of that and they plausibly do. We supervise one project. That is the whole product.
The three questions to ask
What is the total price for the specific thing I want, in writing, before I commit?
Which company am I actually contracting with?
And: what is the multiplier, and the denominator, behind the acceptance-rate claim?
The third one is currently unanswerable from the website, which is the reason to ask it.
Frequently asked questions
What is Dukes Plus?
A consolidation of eight education brands under one site: Oxbridge Applications, A List Education, The Medic Portal, The Lawyer Portal, InvestIN, Summer Boarding Courses, Ultimate Activity and Dukes Tutoring. It describes itself as consolidating their offerings and is part of the Dukes Education group. It is a holding brand rather than a single programme.
How much does it cost?
It depends which brand you reach, and most prices are not published. Career experiences start from £2,290, Eton College courses from £2,950, Dukes Cambridge psychology from £4,895 and Oxford college faculties from £6,695. No prices at all are published for university applications support, tutoring or camps.
What does the Oxbridge acceptance claim say?
It is stated as a multiple of the global average — and the multiplier is missing from the page. The claim reads 'x the global average' with no number, so there is nothing to verify. The same is true of the Ivy League claim beside it.
What is the 100% success rate?
A claim attached to GCSE tutoring, with no denominator, no time period and no definition of success stated. A 100% figure with no sample is the least informative form a statistic can take, and the question to ask is: success at what, measured across how many students, over what period?
Is it affiliated with Oxford or Cambridge?
No affiliation is claimed, and none exists — no commercial provider is affiliated with the universities it prepares students for. The site uses location-based wording such as studying 'in an Oxford University college', which describes where a course is held rather than who runs it.
Who is it actually for?
A family who wants one point of contact across several needs — tutoring, admissions support and a summer programme — and is comfortable establishing prices by enquiry. If you need one specific thing, you are likely better off going directly to the underlying brand and asking it for a written quote.