Oxbridge = Inaccessible to most students?

The main problem with Oxbridge admissions is that they are not transparent enough. Students with outstanding proven academic achievement are turned down in favour of students with mediocre achievement on the basis of, for example, interviews which are not recorded and for which notes are not kept.

In order for the process to be seen to be fair, all records for each applicant should be kept (including recording of the interview) and these records should be made available to independent auditors to ensure fairness in the allocation of places.

If it could be assured that there was fairness in the process, then it wouldn't matter what percentage of applicants were BME. Wouldn't you agree?

Well, he has. He clearly doesn't understand statistics at all. The report says:

Stephen Kinnock was reacting to figures which showed 101 pupils from Wales were offered places at Oxford in 2016 compared to 672 from the south east.

Just how many from Wales should have been offered? The population of Wales is about three million. The population of the South-east is about eighteen million (and that excludes Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire and southern East Anglia, right next door to Cambridge, just because I couldn't be bothered to check their populations.

The figures look pretty comparable to me, even on a population basis and that is without taking account of distance. If anything, Wales is over-represented.

Someone suggested earlier in the thread that those completion stats could be "massaged" though.

There's a world of difference between taking measures to level the playing field and striving for '100% equality' though.

I disagree that affirmative action 'almost invariably makes things worse'; I think it's a necessary evil. In an ideal situation - from my point of view - Pupil B would have the same financial and educational opportunities as Pupil A from the beginning. That way, when they get to university level, there's no need for affirmative action; they've had comparable opportunities, and it's up to them as individuals what they've done with those opportunities. To leave things as they currently are (where there's a massive disparity between educational opportunities way before pupils ever even think about university) and to deny affirmative action is basically to say, 'you had **** circumstances growing up, and we're going to hold you to exactly the same standards as someone who had the most propitious upbringing'. You may think that's fair and reasonable; I don't think it's fair or reasonable at all.

It seems that people who resent the idea of a 'helping hand' for certain university/job applicants are willing to ignore the significant 'helping hand' with which some people start life, and to avoid trying to change things so that no such artificial 'helping hands' are necessary in future.


Well, once you're through the doors, you still have to sit the same university exams as everyone else. There's no special paper for people who were admitted with slightly lower entry requirements (the operative word being 'slightly'; we're not talking about one relatively privileged person being asked for A*A*A* while a relatively under-privileged person is asked for BBB).

I don't know how exactly quotas worked at Oxford (i.e. where any purported leniency comes into play - is it with A-level results, personal statements, entrance exams?), but I do know that we all sat the same university exams.

At medical school, the way affirmative action worked there was that if you went to one of a selection of poorly-performing state schools in South Yorkshire and participated in a one-year extra-curricular programme in Year 12, you were guaranteed an interview at Sheffield medical school, and were asked for ABB if you completed the programme and firmly accepted the offer. If those criteria weren't met (and assuming you passed the interview), you received the standard offer of AAA. We did have a fair few people drop out in the early years of med school but (at least in my cohort), none of them were the SOAMS students; all the ones I know have now graduated, having sat exactly the same exams as everyone else, and are working as doctors. I don't see the problem with that. The entrance doorway might have been slightly wider for them in terms of admission requirements. The exit was just as narrow for them as it was for every other student.


No-one is suggesting that 'everyone has the capacity to be a PhD'. As above, a small 'affirmative action' concession is not tantamount to carte blanche; if someone is incapable due to their abilities or their work ethic, no slight (again, slight) relaxation of entry requirements is going to mask that. People still have to go to interviews to prove themselves and then do the work for themselves; no-one is giving them a lower pass mark or writing their PhD for them.


Good for you. Believe it or not, there are a number of school-age pupils who don't have access to the internet, although they're in the minority (750,000 as of 2013; probably fewer now). There are a lot of other socioeconomic factors that make it harder for people to do what you've described doing, though, even with the internet.

I worked a 30-hour week across two jobs while I was in sixth form doing my A-levels because we were poor. Admittedly we were one of those families that didn't have the internet while I was still of school age (it was a while ago, but the recent enough past that all of my friends did have home access to it), but even if I'd had the internet I was losing 30 hours of study time every week that lots of other people were able to take. On the other hand, I didn't have the sort of time-consuming caring role that some people have when they have dependent siblings/parents. We had one family computer (as above, sans internet), but at least I didn't have a bunch of school-aged siblings who all needed to use it for their schoolwork at the same time.

As stated previously, it's not about saying any of these things constitute an automatic right to be waved through the doors of whatever prestigious institution you might set your mind on. It's about acknowledging that some people start out with rather more obstacles, and trying to do something small to remedy that.

The main problem with Oxbridge admissions is that they are not transparent enough. Students with outstanding proven academic achievement are turned down in favour of students with mediocre achievement on the basis of, for example, interviews which are not recorded and for which notes are not kept.

In order for the process to be seen to be fair, all records for each applicant should be kept (including recording of the interview) and these records should be made available to independent auditors to ensure fairness in the allocation of places.

If it could be assured that there was fairness in the process, then it wouldn't matter what percentage of applicants were BME. Wouldn't you agree?

Evidence?

No single thing, including a "less than good" interview, will be "fatal" to an application, if the rest of the application is strong.

On the basis of one applicant in a FOI request to a single college you have drawn a conclusion that your evidence simply doesn't support. You don't know how well that applicant did in the HAA. You don't know how well that applicant did with written work. You don't know if the other candidate with "mediocre achievement" in GCSEs also went on to achieve AAAA in their AS-levels, etc, etc.

Well, he has. He clearly doesn't understand statistics at all. The report says:

Stephen Kinnock was reacting to figures which showed 101 pupils from Wales were offered places at Oxford in 2016 compared to 672 from the south east.

Just how many from Wales should have been offered? The population of Wales is about three million. The population of the South-east is about eighteen million (and that excludes Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire and southern East Anglia, right next door to Cambridge, just because I couldn't be bothered to check their populations.

The figures look pretty comparable to me, even on a population basis and that is without taking account of distance. If anything, Wales is over-represented.

Although you'd really need to look at the figures for the population of 18 year olds in those regions to get a fairer stat.

You've already been asked for a citation for this, but yeah, outside of the Royals (and believe me, I think the likes of Edward being admitted is a huge freakin' embarrassment to Oxbridge) I'm not aware of this happening.

It's not just one applicant, if you look at the FOI request, there are several others with excellent grades (both achieved and predicted) which were turned down in favour of candidate with worse achieved AND predicted grades. Such grades would reasonably presuppose a comparatively better performance in written work and the HAA. So we are only left with interview for which there is no record according to this FOI request.

Given the demand for places at Oxbridge and to ensure absolute fairness, all records (including recordings of interviews) should be kept and decisions documented with reference to them. This information should then be independently audited to ensure fairness in the decision making process. If this were done already, then David Lammy's (and my) mind could be put at rest.

I do agree with you.

In a working environment, evidence suggests that interviews are the least likely predictor of future performance. There can actually be a negative correlation between interviews and performance on the job. I wonder if Oxbridge interviews have the same issue.

There probably needs to be an Ombudsman for university places and video recording of all interviews. Applicants signing a waiver that the Ombudsman can review them in the event of a complaint. The Ombudsman would rule on contentious cases and also monitor the overall performance of universities and colleges at widening participation and fine the transgressors.

something of great value is being offered (eg Oxbridge place)

There is always going to be suspicion and resentment when something of great value is being offered (eg Oxbridge place) and decisions on allocation are being taken behind closed doors by people who do not have to justify their decision (to an independent witness).

Certain measures can be put in place (multiple interviewers/interviews; assessor training; using other evidence or assessments to support decisions) to reduce those risks.

Oxbridge interviews are used more to see how you would cope with supervision-style teaching: if you can't cope with how they teach you aren't going to do well

So this is the other part of this discussion that hasn't been addressed. You are saying effectively that it's Oxbridge or bust for applicants. This is rubbish.


Don't make me post up Exhibit 54...

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No I'm not. I haven't mentioned the value of other universities at all.

The value of other universities does not impact on the value of an Oxbridge place. And an Oxbridge place is more valuable because of its reputation; the significantly better resources;the benefits of the supervision/tutorial system and not to forget some of the cheapest student accommodation in the UK.

If Lammy, had any sense, he should be jumping up and down about the lack of scrutiny for admission decisions; and the lack of evidence on record to allow that scrutiny to properly take place.

You say your raison d'etre is to encourage university applications especially Oxbridge applications: it would encourage people enormously if the admission system for Oxbridge could be made wide-open to scrutiny and be seen to be fairer to all.