A crooked business
Sir: Roderick Smart's kindly meant sub- terfuge does not serve his pupils well ('Cut- ting the old school tie', 21 August). Getting into university is a crooked enough business without introducing a middle man whose tip-offs are confessedly hit and miss. Groomed by a trainer who dismisses sui- cide as 'trivial' and pines for the imaginary grandeur of grandes ecoles, is it any wonder Mr Smart's favourites don't make it past the finishing post?
Not that the whole process needs to be seen as a race anyway. If a Business Studies degree from Leicester can get you a well- paid job as one of Mr Smart's colleagues, why bother with the arbitrary mess of Oxbridge? The public school applicant to less prestigious universities has the added freedom of not being cultivated by over- solicitous teachers: their college place wins them personal satisfaction rather than insti- tutional kudos.
Forget the 'Oxbridge Admissions Jungle', Mr Smart. Your protégés need more help surviving the wilderness of public school.
Bee Wilson
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