Which one would you choose?

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What I find highly problematic is that, yes candidate A shows great potential, but we cannot say that candidate B would have done worse in the same circumstances. Candidate B's achievements ahve been limited by the grading system, i.e. they cannot get any higher than an A.
It is very hard, and I believe impossible because when we say that A has shown more potential we have to assume that B would not have got better grades, if put in the same situation.

Reply 21

Brown Patrick Bateman

kingslaw

Good thread. Shame you, for no particular reason, restricted it to an Oxbridge scenario. It may not have come to your attention, but universities all over the country face the exact same problems.

Mm, this thread was a direct response to comments in the "Do you have faith in the Oxbridge admissions process?" thread.

Reply 22

username9816

Jools

Whilst I agree there needs to be more standardised criteria and less subjectivity, doing a 'points system' is a bit too far I think. With your criteria, someone who is a complete gimp in interview and doesn't answer anything right could get through. What about the kid who's really good, but hasn't had any "difficulty posed by background", they're penalised for not suffering adversity, when they've got perfect credentials what more can you ask of them? etc

I don't think that's the case; each section of the criteria is weighted to however deemed suitable.

e.g.) Give a lot of points available for interviews then.

I don't see the problem.

Give different weightings to each section; then people know the sciore, from the offset.

Reply 23

Alexander

Jools

Similarly, I believe that top schools such as St Paul's arrange work experience with top top companies such as Credit Suisse.

That's an advantage of living in London too; many areas don't have many top companies with which people might get work experience.

I went for Candidate B, because I thought him a safer choice as he'd be accustomed to doing a lot of work at a high level (and partially out of self-interest as B's profile looked rather similar to mine :redface:

-- see kingslaw's comment above).

Reply 24

Cirsium

Hmmm i'm looking at Candidate A tbh... i mean obviously they're not predicted 3As... but you've really stacked the odds against him/her

Reply 25

kingslaw

Jools

Mm, this thread was a direct response to comments in the "Do you have faith in the Oxbridge admissions process?" thread.

Fair enough then. I suppose the Oxbridge process is slightly specialised in that it interviews all its candidates. However, the fact that your descriptions of the two candidates included nothing about the what happened in the interview kind of negates the chance that this might have had something to do with it.

Anyway, I'm just saying that this is an interesting thread and I would have been interested to see the responses from a wider range of people, like in the General Uni Discussion, or Debate thread, etc.

Reply 26

EconLou

A points system is all very well, but unless someone can provide hard solid evidence showing just how much you are disadvantaged by poor teacheing and how different factors (such as large classes, poor overall school performance, single-parent family, endless list!) affect the results you can't expect admissions tutor to be making highly acurate judgements on just how disadvantaged someone is.

Reply 27

fishpaste

kingslaw

you should post it again in the debate forum :smile:

it really is directly relevant to the do you have faith in oxford admissions though, because we were discussing whether a string of As automatically makes you oxbridge material.

Reply 28

aliel

Re- Nema

Yes they do rank you for criteria - well i was told that's what happened at Pem. We were ranked for written work, interview and UCAS application.

Reply 29

username9816

Louise_1988

Well, as Jools said, Bristol/Warwick have done research into this thing; surely using this to enable a quantative assessment of all 8-10 sections of the criteria I mentioned is better than simply "we're assessing academic potential" and the rest of it.

You get your score back, and they can say, "sorry, you got 55 points - You needed 58 points or more for a place."

Simple.

Reply 30

synaesthesia

Interviews have more weighting. As far as I know, at Cambridge the order is interviews, reference/grades, personal statement last.

On the actual question itself, I'm not commenting. Yes, A's worked hard and done damn well given his/her circumstance, but equally, B's made the most of what's been offered to them. (What would B have to do in order to impress, given your assertion that work experience is sorted for them? Which, for the record, it rarely is: the schools give details of placements to those who are interested, you still have to write off with CV and cover letter. Granted, you're in a position where you get told of them rather than seeking them out, but the idea that they're delivered is ludicrous.)There is absolutely no way in this instance of gauging who deserves the place more on the basis of grades vs. circumstance. Furthermore, the issue about IQ is almost redundant, given that we know people's IQ in different areas (verbal vs. spatial) etc. can differ wildy.

Finally, the interesting thing that's been done is we've taken the absolute two extremes. In the other thread, the automatic assumption was private/grammar school = brilliant teaching, probably middle-class background, optimal environment. There are kids at private schools who have a hell of a lot of family problems, there are children at comprehensives who are very well-off and have supportive parents. You also have children from deprived areas who are fortunate to attend top private schools on scholarships and still face the Bristol discrimination.

I don't like where this survey is going, because it looks like we're going to build up this ideal, stereotype of an image, then attack that for all it's worth, rather than the situation at hand.

Reply 31

aliel

I was told by my Pem tutor (in History) that the average Alevel score in points is investigated as well as if AEA's are offered and percentage of uptake.

Reply 32

fishpaste

In response to the points system, I think tutors should just be able to choose at their own discretion. On the basis that that they'll probably be the ones having to teach them. They're the ones under pressure to ensure the ones they pick get 2.1s/1sts. With a points system you could end up with a fellow being forced to accept a student they think is good but is just not suited to the place, and then the fellow is forced to work with this student they're not enthusiastic about for three years and it just doesn't work.

Reply 33

EconLou

Nima

yes, but how can u put an exact value on how disadvantaged someone is?

And of course a system could potentially be abused. Are they going to check every applicant who says they have a poor home life or drug-using parents!
And then there will be some people who are willing to move to crappy schoola dn have out-of-school tutors to make sure they get the top grades.

Reply 34

fishpaste

Nima

Manchester have this system in place exactly for medicine just for interest's sake. It doesn't seem to be a bad system. My friend got a "sorry you got 60, you needed 62 for an offer." Although they clearly didn't give much credit to ASs (or schooling background), because she had a 5A prediction, whereas James got an offer on his AAB prediction. Good interview for him I guess.

Reply 35

username9816

fishpaste

But the fact remained that overall, 1 candidate was more worthy of an oxbridge place than the other.

I don't agree with tutors picking candidates entirely to their discretion; simply because whether some1 gets a place depends on which tutor they happen to meet and the tutors own preferences.

At least with the scoring system, you can see what the points were awarded for and whether you were actually worthy of a place over another candidate.

Reply 36

synaesthesia

I don't think you *can* have a points system and publish the details of it, because then candidates try and work their way around that, and the criteria no longer becomes a differential. If you're going to have an unpublished points system, isn't that going to be subject to the same criticism of being 'closed' as the current Oxbridge system?

Reply 37

Brown Patrick Bateman

Louise_1988

yes, but how can u put an exact value on how disadvantaged someone is?

"No Dad, I got rejected from Oxford, I got 55 points but I needed 58. Everything was fine but I wasn't disadvantaged enough so lost points in that category. If you'd divorced Mum or were an alcoholic, things might have been different..."

Your suggestion of a points system is perfectly reasonable, and perhaps better than the current system where there's too much subjectivity. I just don't like the sound of things like one's interview performance getting a mark out of 10.

Reply 38

synaesthesia

Nima

At least with the scoring system, you can see what the points were awarded for and whether you were actually worthy of a place over another candidate.

And that's on the assumption that it's easy to categorise disadvantage. A long bitter divorce in your GCSE years isn't going to be the same as one that happened when you were too young to remember. People react to situations in different ways. That suggests that you can't have a set number of points for a situation. In which case, a points system in no way prevents a tutor who likes a candidate saying, 'oh... we'll assume that he was badly affected, a couple more points, and they're in.'

Reply 39

username9816

The disadvantaged section can be subdivided:

- School
- Parents income
- Any serious conditions/illness

Thats all that's needed. Tutors don't know about your mum/dad etc anyway.