Grammatici certant
Sir: Your leading article (5 March) prefers opinions to facts. Some of your readers may prefer the latter.
Contrary to your portrayal, the video is a positive move. It was commissioned not by the University but by the college admis- sions tutors. Because they know schools well, admissions tutors are aware that many comprehensives (and other kinds of state schools evidently unknown to you) do achieve high standards, but their brightest pupils often do not apply to Cambridge, because of a mistaken view that 'it is not for the likes of me'. As a result both they and Cambridge lose out. The video (which incidentally was commissioned at a time when Oxford applications had just fallen) is aimed at changing that. It is practical academic self-interest, not theoretical so- cial engineering or defensive rivalry, that is the reason for the video. Your account of the admissions system is full of astonishing howlers. It fails to mention A-levels. Performance in these examinations is the key element in admis- sion to British universities. By acknow- ledging this fact Cambridge has done itself a great deal of good; under the new system the proportion with AAA at A-level has risen by over 10 per cent while 95 per cent have ABB or better. The proportion from state schools has risen too, despite your suggestions about dramatic lowering in academic standards. Nor have standards fallen in other ways. For example this afternoon an undergraduate from my col- lege (and as it happens a state school) won a silver medal in the European Indoor Athletics Championships.
Moreover, under the new system there are fewer differences between colleges than before. This year total applications were at the fourth highest figure ever, and those from state schools at their highest ever level. So the confusion among schools you mention cannot be too serious. It is certainly less than your own, given your evident belief that Oxford retains a seventh-term entrance examination (in fact abolished before Cambridge abolished its examination.) Fortunately 17-year-olds have a visual sophistication you lack. They will gather from the video that Cambridge is a special place, unashamedly academically elitist, but not elitist in any other way. I doubt they will see it in the outmoded class terms to which you still cling. Verbum sapienti sat est.
Rae Mitchell
Chairman of the University Admissions Forum, Magdalene College, Cambridge
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