The Power Of Paxman
BBC QUIZ SHOW University Challenge has been blamed for the massive drop in applications to Magdalen this year. For the previous three years, applications rose against the general university trend, which College President Andrew Smith argued significantly coincided with Magdalen's two-year triumph on Paxman's University Challenge. The College claimed that this year's fall-off in applications was because Magdalen did not take part in the BBC2 quiz.
JCR President Helen Conford was however sceptical of such a claim, pointing out that Magdalen have not been involved in the programme for the last couple of years. President Andrew Smith furthermore did concede that there could be "other causes" for the "considerable" 22% decrease in applications. The College's rejection of the Tyneside comprehensive pupil, Laura Spence, last year caused a protracted and much-discussed Oxbridge elitism row led by Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown. Ms. Conford believes that the "bad publicity" caused by the public debate is another possible explanation of the drop in applications. She also expressed concerns that the Government might try to "manipulate" these recent application statistics as evidence to justify their actions in the elitism controversy.
Magdalen College is, however, not disheartened by the recent drop. Of the 400 applications for the 120 places this year, significantly 48% were from state school pupils as opposed to only 39% from the independent sector; the rest being from overseas students. Conford also said that the 'Spence Affair' more positively served to highlight the extremely high level of applications that the College had been receiving over the previous years. "What has happened," added Andrew Smith, "is that we are now back to what we were before, which is not a bad thing because we are at a more realistic level now."
A BBC spokesperson laughed when told that it had been suggested that Jeremy Paxman held such decisive power over university applications, but when asked to remark further on the subject found that he could make "no comment".
23rd Nov 2000