In Defence of Oxbridge Admissions

Tomorrow, offers for undergraduate places at Oxford will be sent out. Every one of them will demand three A-grades at A-level or equivalent. It is almost certain that nearly half those offers will go to the privately-educated. In languages or the physical sciences the proportion will be far higher. Very soon, the Guardian will demand that Something be Done about this state of affairs. The Government, smelling a general election and/or an excuse to cut spending, will threaten the funding of Oxford and Cambridge unless they make greater efforts to admit pupils from the state sector. The emergence of another Laura Spence story, especially if pushed by senior Cabinet members, would be a sure sign of a coming general election. What I should like to know is what these objectors would like to see done, and who they think is creating the problem.

The usual proposal is for a quota of state-educated pupils, but this is fundamentally unworkable. How does one explain to a 17-year-old whose parents made great sacrifices to buy the best possible education that for this reason alone she is less fit to attend a university for which she is otherwise qualified? Are all state schools to be treated as equal; the leafy Devonian grammar counting towards the same quota as the inner-city comprehensive? There are no easy answers. Any quota which could be created would, in any case, be rapidly circumvented by cunning parents and applicants. The addition of educational bureaucracy almost always ends up as a boon to those 'pushy parents' who have read the small print and know precisely what they have to do in order to be technically 'eligible' – look at the annual furore over school places, with people moving house temporarily, converting to Catholicism, joining PTAs and various other dodges in order to ensure a place for their child at a favoured school.

Talk of an 'old boy network' among dons is desperately outdated. Oxford's tutors are, on the whole, considerably to the left of their pupils, the majority came from grammar schools and were funded through their long educations by student grants. The Oxford admissions system is set up to be as difficult as possible to 'coach' applicants through. The subject-based aptitude tests which have been re-introduced in heavily modernised form over the last decade are supposedly un-teachable, based on unpredictable material and requiring no prior knowledge – indeed, some positively discourage it. Unfortunately, this has had absolutely no effect on the proportion of state pupils accepted, which has remained constant at around 45% for many years.

Preparation for interview is always touted as something independent schools excel at, thus helping their pupils shine in their total of around an hour in front of tutors. This is true. Top independent schools are far more likely than others to employ teachers who went to Oxbridge themselves and have far more time to prepare pupils. However, in the end we must trust the interviewers. These are the greatest experts on their subjects the world can offer (unlike some universities, Oxbridge interviews are always conducted by academics). If they cannot tell the difference between someone who is well-prepared and articulate but not quite up to the mark and someone who is neither of the former but highly talented, it probably cannot be done – and someone who is that well-prepared and articulate is liable to succeed at anything they choose. The faceless, straightforward UCAS-form-and-reference used by almost every other university in the UK is far less likely than interviews to accurately sort the wheat from the chaff - any fool can write, or have written for them, a convincing personal statement, and no school will give other than glowing references to a student expected to get straight As.

Oxford and Cambridge do far more than any other university to ensure that they receive the very best undergraduates, because it is to their advantage to do so. They do a very good job of selecting among the best of those who apply – there are too many applicants of too similar a very high standard to ensure that there are no mistakes, indeed there are many, but as few as human ingenuity and a Byzantine system of second, third and even fourth interviews can ensure. What is needed is to convince more people from 'non-traditional' backgrounds to apply; too many very bright people simply cannot conceive of themselves or their children ever getting to Oxford 'because people like us don't go there'. The universities are doing their best to dispel these illusions, because (I repeat) it is entirely in their interest to have the brightest and best. More could probably be done. Target Schools and its equivalents need to be better-run, better-funded and much, much better staffed. Instead of 50-odd volunteers, let us have 500 or 1500, paid and dispatched to every school in the country. It would be nice if the government which complains so much would chip in for this, though that is about as likely as Magdalen relocating to Blackbird Leys council estate.

In summary, the admissions system is just fine the way it is. Oxbridge is not broken, please don't fix it.