14th April 2011 9:00
By Blue Tutors
Figures have been released this week showing the number of state school students accepted by Oxford and Cambridge Universities, and they have both missed targets set for them by Hesa (the Higher Education Statistics Agency). There is a feeling that this adds further weight to the idea that Oxbridge institutions are elitist, and discriminate based on social background.
Obviously a large proportion of our tutors are from Oxbridge, and many of our students approach us with a view to applying to either Oxford or Cambridge, and so we have experience identifying whether there is anything unethical about either university’s admission procedure.
While Oxford have emphasised their commitment to promoting access, Cambridge have reiterated that their selection policy has, and will, always be based on accepting the best students in the country. Both statements were given in the context of being fair, and encouraging state school students to apply to either institution, but it’s the statement from Cambridge which identifies the route of the problem, and, in Blue Tutors opinion, is the right way to look at the university application process.
Access is supposed to encourage university applications from state school students, and identify students who deserve to be at the top universities. Access isn’t, but is sometimes perceived to be, a method for prioritising state school applications over their fee-paying counterparts. The feedback we always receive from students and tutors is that Oxbridge admissions boil down to a student’s academic ability and their learning ability.
This appears to be the correct policy; we must want our best students to attend our best universities, and not be trying to fill quotas. One could argue that a state school student might have more potential than someone else, but currently be performing more poorly because they are yet to have the opportunities of more privileged students. This is something that universities should consider, and many of them claim to.
As was pointed out when the figures were released, the government should really be putting their efforts into improving grades among state school students, rather than trying to persuade Oxford and Cambridge to accept students who aren’t achieving the grades required. The issue of fairness really begins when a student starts at school, trying to resolve this problem when they’re 18 and applying to university is too late.