There are about 30 colleges. They are all responsible for their own admissions procedures. Some will do it like that, but you might as well say that the admissions procedures for Newcastle say something about how Durham does it.
Some colleges give lower offers for medical students from state schools, based on research which shows that working-class students get better degree results than private school counterparts if they got the same A level results.
I don't know of any college, or any course within any college, that doesn't rely on interviews. I've known a few people who've been involved in UG admissions interviews across a range of subjects ('general admissions' senior fellows, languages, hard sciences, physics / maths, engineering... erm. Probably more).
IIRC, all of them have talked about looking for the 'something extra' that is about 'innate capacity / intuition / genius / the Oxbridge factor,' which (interviewers believe / assert) isn't schooled and which isn't interview training. [e2a: someone who shits themselves / says virtually nothing in an interview is likely to be fucked from the off, though. And being
used to being in a 15th century oak-panelled room, talking to fellows in an Oxbridge college, is something that many people kinda won't ever have access to, or the ability to prepare for.]
In practice, IMO that leads to a lot of mythologising and self-justification. Eton seems to be incredibly good at selecting people with 'that something extra' at the age of 8 (or whatever), for example, with - a couple of years ago - 44% making it to Oxbridge (IIRC). And I've known a couple of junior interviewers who've been quite explicit that their leads / seniors are pretty clearly old school tie, and've been looking for other people who 'feel right' in that vein. It's a relatively unaccountable process, so those decisions are likely to be the ones that're carried.
There're also additional (social) filters and justifications - there was a G2 report a year or so back in which a reporter sat in on Cam fellows sifting through papers. There were justifications like 'she's already been failed by the school, so would struggle at Cam'; 'wouldn't fit in'; 'would be unfair on her to give her a chance, she'd be better suited to another less strenuous / stressful university'; etc. When in practice, if x college really wanted to, it'd be *easily* able to find the resources to give people who'd been 'let down by their school' additional intensive support.
And then there's the presumption that once people've been accepted, the right choices were made, because there's a belief that the system is pretty damned extraordinary if not
quite perfect (because the interviewers are prety damned extraordinary, if not
quite perfect). So inordinate pastoral and additional academic support is given to those who've already made it in (that's what Oxbridge is, tbf), the requisite proportion of firsts is given within each group / year, and the system continues to justify itself to itself with only occasional barkings from off stage left.
I'm inclined to think that you could probably dump the entire cohort of successful applicants and take on a full cohort of 'second-choice' candidates; or dump the entire cohort of private school kids and take on only state educated kids for a year; and... well... it'd be interesting to see (IMO) if that had any effect on grades, completion rates, etc whatsoever.
Aye.
All of this is tinkering around the edges as far as I'm concerned. Oxford and Cambridge would both be much better at what they do if they could rid themselves of the elitist stench; there's no way they are admitting the students with the greatest academic potential.
Yeah. But... when I've said something similar in the past... people've pointed out that Oxbridge is embedded in and representative of the social systems. It highlights broader corruption / problems by distilling and focusing them, but is not particularly unique in the way it works. It's a component in a system. And is unlikely to be 'fixable' as a standalone entity whilst the same systemic problems continue to be prevalent / dominant / manifested.
We've recently had a list of internships sent round, being offered / promoted by former college members. (I'm guessing they're mostly unpaid - though it doesn't state that on the list). Oxbridge is just a refinement of earlier biases, corruptions, elitisms and injustices, that're then given the Oxbridge stamp of approval, and which then migrate to the elitist corners of the wider world.
But nothing will change whilst we fetishise academic potential above everything else.
tbf, I came to Cam thinking that it *was* about a neutral fetishisation of academic potential. I now find it really difficult to take that notion seriously, because assessments of 'academic potential' seem to be so heavily filtered by class / privilege. (And then those assessments are retrospectively justified because of the good academic outcomes of people who have extraordinary levels of resourcing poured into their HE).
I don't feel particularly qualified to enter into the politics of this - fully aware I'm inexcusably ignorant. And I'm a MC / privately educated white male at Cambridge, which makes me even more cautious of how much / what I've got to offer
But, well - Cam has certainly been an eye-opener about the way quite a lot of 'things' / social processes work.
