Cambridge University to introduce written admissions tests

Tbh I personally would doubt that a lack of evidence for interviews is due to nepotism/privilege. More likely to be that Oxbridge dons overweight their own ability at assessing someone's academic ability, in my opinion.

No. They. Aren't.

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I agree in principle, but just to add: can you name me a university, college, school, employer or indeed institution of any kind which actually does this? Not that that should ever inhibit innovation but just saying: it would be pretty revolutionary.

They are at Oxford.

This is cambridge boy.


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It's ok, we can't all be perfect.

Oh Hi, why can't I do PPE at Cambridge. 'you can't', but I can at Oxford, 'well this is Cambridge boy'.



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I have no idea, but I'd have thought it would be common sense for institutions to research whether the selection methods they employ (often at great expense) actually work.

Plus I think for a lot of employers (and possibly some Oxbridge tutors as well) the point of interviews is to identify someone they like and can work with, rather than picking out any specific performance measures.

Yeah, see I don't think Oxbridge should be using that as a selection criteria.

Maybe "teachable" rather than "like".

Cambridge says in "Why do we interview":
All Admissions Tutors are looking for the students who they believe have the most academic ability and potential, are best suited to the course applied for, and who will benefit from what we have to offer.

http://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/applying/interviews/why-do-we-interview

No mention of "like"...

Yeah I agree; I was speaking hypothetically.

I even think "teachable" is a bit suspect though, I can't imagine you can accurately assess that in a couple of brief interviews. I mean, if someone has a string of A*s and near-perfect UMS, and the tutors say "Oh he doesn't seem teachable or to suit the supervision system", I personally would question their rationale.

Would rarely happen, but might be that the candidate knows the mark schemes well, but not how to apply the knowledge more creatively to unfamilar situations...

Very few people are Nobel prize winners - most successful Oxbridge applicants will be normal smart people, not geniuses. On that basis it doesn't seem justifiable that the best candidates in our examination system should be refused places under any circumstances.

That being said, I don't think such a scenario ever really happens. I gathered that Oxbridge are looking for the applicants who will do best on their courses. If these admissions tests are fairly written (ie. not catering the content to the tuition schedules of top private schools, as I recall pretty clearly from reading some colleges' admissions tests) they should be a good instrument for deciding whether that is the case.

The problem is, though, that our public examination system doesn't have the dynamic range at the top end to identify the "best" candidates...

Very few people are Nobel prize winners - most successful Oxbridge applicants will be normal smart people, not geniuses. On that basis it doesn't seem justifiable that the best candidates in our examination system should be refused places under any circumstances. This 'teachable' idea seems highly suspect to me, firstly because I think it's very easy for intelligent students to adapt to that system in time, and secondly because it's fertile ground for unconscious bias on the basis of race, gender or background to creep in.

That being said, I don't think such a scenario ever really happens. I gathered that Oxbridge are looking for the applicants who will do best on their courses. If these admissions tests are fairly written (ie. not catering the content to the tuition schedules of top private schools, as I recall pretty clearly from reading some colleges' admissions tests) they should be a good instrument for deciding whether that is the case.

The problem is, though, that our public examination system doesn't have the dynamic range at the top end to identify the "best" candidates...

The fact is that it does happen (occasionally) that applicants with very high UMS fail to get a place. But you don't need to be a potential Nobel prize winner to get an offer at Cambridge. They accept over 3,000 undergraduates per year... mostly very normal smart people (although a few might go on to greater things!).

And to your last para, Cambridge already have a lot of experience producing tests and exams (they own the Admissions Testing Service that runs STEP & BMAT etc and also administers the Oxford tests), so they should be able to develop a few more that meet their requirements AND without favouring "top private schools".