Editorial
This week the national press indulged in an all-too-familiar piece of Oxbridge-bashing. The scene was relatively familiar as well: bright, Northern state-school pupil receives unfair treatment at the hands of snobbish tutors lacking in social awareness. It happens more or less at monthly intervals: the more famous cases, perhaps, being those like that of the Essex student who was told by an interviewer "you won't understand those funny squiggles" (Greek letters).
With this case, however, the Times, Telegraph et al seem to have no particular point. Clearly, the young woman is very bright, securing as she has a scholarship to Harvard (arguably a better medical school), but no-one is entitled to a place at Oxford. It may be the case that the interviewers failed to spot her full potential, but in real life candidates for anything have to push themselves forward if they want to get anywhere. Proverbially, opportunity knocks once, but in fact you generally have to go and grab it whereever you can. Believing that the odds are stacked against you immediately hinders your chances of success, and in the case of Oxford the playing field is more level than it is made out to be.
In the whole issue of social prejudice, no-one seems to be asking what possible reason there could be for tutors not to pick the best candidates. The most convincing argument is that they want rich people to go to their college so they donate lots of money later, very dubious when you consider the kind of timescales involved. Far more important for the prestige of the college is how far it moves up the Norrington tables, which is hardly going to be achieved by shooing in a bunch of Tim-nice-but-dims. The poor ratio of state school to pubic school students is the fault of inequality of educational opportunity as well as the growing realisation that Oxford isn't all it's cracked up to be.
That said, Oxford colleges should do all they can to ensure that state school students who have the ability apply and are accepted. Prospective students these days are consumers: they are making a serious financial commitment and want to get the best for their money. There are many reasons why a lot of very able candidates are deciding to take their cash elsewhere: less-than-stunning assessments of the quality of teaching, employability rates, the outmoded tutorial system, and so on. The very least they can expect from their interviewers is the common courtesy of the matter being handled in private. Public relations disasters like this are bound to make even more talented candidates ask what the point of applying to Oxford is.
At a time when Oxford is, perhaps more than ever before, attempting to retain its status as a world class university, it should be desperately trying to break down the social barriers that seem to exist in order to get the best candidates. Summre school schemes and trips to Old Trafford are laudable efforts, but without some real assessment of why pupils decide not to come here is needed.
Oxbridge interview myths are numerous, but most students have the sense to realise that the interviewer is much more likely to be interested in your potential than setting fire to a newspaper or asking you to throw a chair out of the window. Sadly, whilst your sanity may not be tested in these ways, there seems to be no guarantee that the details of your academic failings will not be splashed across a page of the Daily Mail one day.
The college's motivation for taking this reprehensible step is quite obvious: to silence criticisms that it based its decision on something other than academic merit or potential. It was, for this reason, an entirely self-motivated act. To do this at the point when the student in question is taking her A level exams shows the kind of blatant and cruel disregard for people's well-being that one would have expected to see in the Oxford of centuries ago. In trying to dig themselves out of a PR problem, Magdalen college have given a dreadful impression of the SCR to the public and discouraged the state-school students who might have been wavering in their favour. Originally, they had done nothing wrong, but their actions this week have caused this to be a sad day for anyone who believes in meritocracy.
18th May 2000