Imagine if they did it to you
Magdalen College is fighting to recover from a public relations disaster after the release of an interview report on the state school candidate who failed to gain a place there, but went on to scoop a scholarship to Harvard. A copy of the report on Laura Spence's interview for a place to study Medicine was sent to the Daily Mail, The Journal and The Today Programme on Monday.
18 year-old Laura applied to Magdalen last year to study Medicine, but was rejected despite her ten A*s at GCSE, straight As predicted at A-level, distinction in an Open University Mathematics course and Grade 8 violin.
The 18 year-old's headmaster has condemned the college's actions: "appalling, and completely out of order."
The report - which would normally be kept confidential - notes that Laura was "v. nice" but continues "it was difficult to get her to talk. Possibly very good but potential hard to assess." She was interviewed by Professors John Stein and John Bell and Dr Ajit Laivani.
The interview report - which also contains detailed descriptions of what the tutors were looking for in tests set during the interview period - was released to the Daily Mail after it was suggested that Laura lost out on her place at Oxford because of her background. Out of the students invited for interview for Medicine, 10 were from state schools and 13 from independent schools.
Laura attends Monkseaton Community High School in North Tyneside. Her headmaster, Dr Paul Kelley has previously commented on the increasing numbers of students from the North East applying for courses abroad.
Kelly was shocked: "There is an assumption that these things are confidential. He dubbed the release of the secret documents as "a PR faux pas - an unbelievable thing to do."
Andrew Hobson, Admissions Tutor at Magdalen, told the Oxford Student that he passed the report to the Daily Mail "as an exercise in transparency." Hobson claims that the letter was "not sufficiently personal to be inappropriate for the public domain. In the circumstances, it was the right thing to do. We were able to present the clearest account of what actually happened."
He defended his actions, saying that the school had decided to raise the issue and bring it into the public domain in the first place. JCR President Helen Conford agreed: "The first indication from the school that there were any problems was in a newspaper,"she said. If that's the arena in which the problem is raised then that is where a response must be given." She claimed that "the only way that Magdalen has any possibility of denying these claims is by sending a detailed report written at the time."
Laura has since turned down a place to study Medicine at Newcastle and accepted a place to study Biochemistry at Harvard where she won a £65 000 scholarship. Last year Laura Dixon, another pupil at the Tyneside school, went to study at Harvard.
A spokesman for the University of Oxford made it clear that it was not their policy to discuss individual cases and that this was a college matter. But he agreed that Magdalen had "dug themselves a bit of a hole there."
Dr Kelley was quick to point out that there was no animosity towards Oxford on the part of his school. Laura is currently taking her A-levels and was unavailable for comment.
18th May 2000