Is it true you can BUY your way into Oxford?

As far as I'm aware Prince William got the grades required for St Andrews, which were lower then than they are now (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, though). Cambridge certainly used to give out much lower offers when Prince Charles went - I know someone from a fairly ordinary background who went to Cambridge 10 years later with an offer of two Es for passing the entrance exam. I don't know whether Gaddafi's son was qualified to go to the LSE but found it pretty amusing that Oxford rejected him.

About 75% of Oxford students don't get a first, which is shocking considering the supposed standard of entry.

http://www.ox.ac.uk/about_the_university/facts_and_figures/undergraduate_degr_3.html#acollege_undergraduate_degree_classifications_201011_sorted_alphabetically

Edit: To clarify, I'm not putting down people who get 2:1's etc, just saying there's clearly a lot of people at other universities who do better than people who get into Oxford - you still have to earn your degree.

I'm not totally convinced about the whole grade inflation thing. Some subjects have become less work-intensive, and obviously there's coursework as a safety net for exams, but I've spoken to people who took exams 40 years ago and who agree that the concepts students have to grapple with now are no easier - sometimes more complex - than in their schooldays. The reason why Oxbridge stopped giving out really low offers was because schools were complaining that their students weren't doing any work for the rest of the year and of course as competition for places increased the entry requirements crept up as a kind of filter.

Believe me it's true. I read an article in the latest Economist magazine today about inflation other than monetary inflation - inflation in women's jean sizes, food sizes, hotel ratings and so on. It included a section on grade inflation - Durham University did a recent study that concluded that a C grade at A-level in 1980 is equivalent to an A grade today. How can you explain the fact that the proportion of students getting A's at A-level has more than doubled over the past decades yet standardised tests show that students haven't got any cleverer?

You could argue that fewer students are left behind in the system today - I know several people who were perfectly capable of getting good grades in the 60s and 70s but got no encouragement and support for their exams, whilst today that support is available for sixth formers.

In any case, if A Levels were that worryingly easy today, the thousands of students who go on to Oxford and Cambridge after achieving AAA at A Level would find the standard of work impossible to cope with. I don't really get the fascination with 'grade inflation' because it just seems irrelevant.

Not really. It just means that it is harder to seperate the top students from the rest. Hence the application system also takes into account personal statements, references, interview performance and additonal test performance (the last two being the most important of course).

That's quite surprising, would you say that's also true across the board for subjects other than yours?

Three theories.

1) You're lying to perpetuate myths about Oxford.
2) He's lying about his "offer."
3) He seems quiet to you but may be excellent at his subject and felt more comfortable talking to people who share the same passion for his subject, excelling at interview.

Don't rate me down, but I've heard across the grapevine that some people with contacts in Oxford and with some extra moolah can BUY their way into Oxford.

For example, this super rich russian guy in my year is not really oxford mat. He's a distinctly average student who isn't really loquacious enough to blag his way in via interview or personal statement. He has links to admissions tutors in Oxford and a **** load of money and got an Oxford offer for law at BBB.

WTF?

OPINIONS?

What I can't comment on is, whether or not each recipient of a place at a prestigious university deserved their place or not, but that to some extent is irrelevant, what I am interested in is whether or not their connections, the fact their parents are Oxbridge or redbrick alumni or the fame they have had any impetus to backdoor decision-making in awarding them a place. Let me put it differently, if they didn't have the connections, the fame or the financial resource, would they have still gotten a place and I think (with the greatest objectivity in mind) the answer is either "No" or at best, "maybe".

To be fair I think it's hard to buy your way into Oxford but far from impossible. Regarding Prince Charles you are correct. He got a B and a C at A-level, then the Dean of Windsor (according to Wikipedia) recommended him for Cambridge. That in itself is an elite privilege. The man may be a good guy but is clearly not one of the best of the best intellectually. The selection system was probably the same then as it is now, with selection test (without outside oversight), and interview and a panel of admissions people deciding whether he should get in. The very fact that the British government lobbied Oxford to admit Gadaffi's son suggests that it is possible for someone to be allowed into Oxford on such a 'recommendation'. If it was impossible, they would not have tried.
Also for the sake of balance I note that Oxford and Cambridge have a lot of money anyway. So the promise of honours (knighthood, OBE, MBE, whatever), or should that be the decline of honours, probably carries more weight than waving the odd million in a don's face.

Why automatically assume that, just because they're the children of rich/famous people, they bought their places? (I can speak for Oxford but that's it really) The fact that Oxford turned Gaddafi's son down speaks volumes. They have more than enough money without having to pander to politicians like Blair. In his son's case I would strongly suspect that he got there through merit.

Oh definitely, in Prince Charles's days I would say that there was a clear bias towards the rich, through "recommendations" and such. And I think the fact that Oxford DIDN'T accept Gaddafi, despite him being recommended by the government, because he didn't meet their entry standards shows that there's been a lot of progression since. Most dons don't really care about honours, they just care about their subjects and about admitting the most academically able students for their subjects. It's a shame that LSE didn't do the same..

It worked differently in the old days and now Oxford puts more emphasis on A-level grades. Which is a very recent thing in the organisation's 800 year history. Which means that the reputation of Oxford as it currently stands, having been built up over centuries when they would take social, political and economic elites is grossly exaggerated. I disagree with you about honours and dons. That would be a very idealistic world in which honours weren't sought after by people like dons, magistrates, civil servants, etc.

slightly more obscure magnates, oligarchs, billionaires, multi-multimillionaires that do not appear on the public's radar, and yet their son or daughter (and I have met a fair few of them as I attended a private school on a 100% scholarship, because my family were dirt poor at the time after having just lost our house and my mother simultaneously being made redundant), who attained BBC at best at A-level, gained admission to a redbrick because they not only could pay international fees for their 3-4 year degree in one go, but give financial endorsements that make the fees look like lunch money.

You look at the endowment funds of Oxford and Cambridge and they have funds running into the billions, namely because of huge endorsements and "charitable donations" from financial heavyweights who are alumni. Other redbricks have quite big endowment funds in the region of ten to hundreds of millions of pounds. Now this is fine, but you have to wonder, by way of human nature, nothing ever comes for free or without a caveat, and I think Oxbridge's and the other redbrick's way of partially honouring their side of the bargain is to unfortunately, accept a handful of the families of the rich and influential, regardless of whether they have the aptitude to get in or not.

Think of it also this way, which academic institution wouldn't want to say that they taught the fundamentals of politics or economics (which is almost always is) to the future leader of a world state?

I think the proxy-argument to this discussion is whether wealth, resource and power produce the "best" students and I think, judging from the actions of most top unis, they obviously partly believe in such an idea. (I say partly, because they obviously accept students from other backgrounds).

It worked differently in the old days and now Oxford puts more emphasis on A-level grades. Which is a very recent thing in the organisation's 800 year history. Which means that the reputation of Oxford as it currently stands, having been built up over centuries when they would take social, political and economic elites is grossly exaggerated. I disagree with you about honours and dons. That would be a very idealistic world in which honours weren't sought after by people like dons, magistrates, civil servants, etc.

I don't have a huge amount of experience with dons but the ones I've met couldn't really give two hoots about anything but their subject. The fact that Oxford dons voted to condemn the government's HE white paper before any other university is at odds with the idea that they'd pander to the government in order to get honours. Maybe I'm biased, but I don't think Oxford's reputation is grossly exaggerated.