How Many Judes ?
Sia,—I am much intrigued by the career of a "statistic" which Janus quoted last week, to the effect that "Only one applicant out of twelve for entry to the university can be accepted." It first appeared, I think. in a Cambridge undergraduate newspaper in the form that "it is established that only one in twelve will be accepted" (i.e., at Cambridge in October, 1949). This was last April, and I found on enquiry that it had been a misprint and that " established " should have read "estimated." But the statement reappeared, misprint and all, in the Sunday Times about a month later. This month,' in his admirable vale- dictory address as Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Raven repeated it, though with greater caution, stating that: "We are still only able to accept about one in twelve." And now Janus.
No one has ever been able to explain to me how any such figure— even as an estimate—has been or could have been reached. As it is the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge which control entry, it is to these that applicants apply. They apply by post and in person and by every other less direct method; they sit for scholarship examinations and entrance examinations in large numbers ; they come from every part of the world ; they often apply for entry in alternative years (e.g., for before or after National Service); there are some twenty colleges at Cambridge, and applicants very often apply to several colleges in turn before being accepted or giving up in despair. I doubt if any college attempts to keep an accurate record of its rejects, and certainly no attempt has been made to pool information from all colleges, still less to discount the very high degree of re-duplication. I think that only two things are certain: that we must be content with simply not knowing a figure ; and that no serious attempt is likely to be made by overworked college tutors to produce such figures. After all, the result would be peculiarly useless unless it also told us what proportion of applicants was deemed anyhow unsuited or unqualified for admission, and what proportion was eventually accepted by some other university. And to discover the latter there would have to be elaborate cross-checking of names not only between colleges but between universities
But if a figure, originating I suspect in a wild undergraduate guess, goes on receiving national publicity and authority, I fear we may soon be told that as Cambridge can take only a twelfth of its applicants it must fix a " target " figure of expansion at least ten times its present size ; and then where shall we be 1 My own guess is that the great majority of well-qualified and suitable applicants do at present eventually gain entry to a university, though not necessarily to the university of their first choice. But this guess is no more (and no less) reliable than any other guesses that are being made.—Yours sincerely, Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. DAVID Thom SON.
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