Cambridge’s Head of Undergraduate Admissions, Dr Geoff Parks, has rekindled the debate over the effect of the A* grade on university admissions this week.
After introducing offers conditional upon the achievement of the A* grade last year, Cambridge has since seen their percentage of state school undergraduate admissions rise by 0.8% to 59.3%.
Dr Parks expressed his support for the new system, suggesting that it disadvantages private school pupils who have been taught to simply “regurgitate answers”.
He added that the new system “has shifted the balance in favour of raw talent and away from students who are taught to pass exams.”
Oxford delayed the introduction of the grade but have now introduced A* offers to a number of Maths and Science courses for entry in 2012, after observing that considerable numbers of applicants for these subjects were gaining A*s.
OUSU Vice-President for Access and Admissions, Alex Bulfin, has questioned Dr Parks’ view. He said, “There has been no statistical evidence provided to substantiate these claims.”
Moreover, Bulfin suggests that there is “no logic” in the claims that independent schools cannot teach to an A* standard, and that “independent schools, with their smaller class sizes, have far more capacity to teach the most advanced parts of the course.”
He also highlights the dangers of using state school admissions percentages as evidence, arguing that, “top state schools and grammars can perform just as well as independent schools and consequently ‘smooth out’ the data.”
Bulfin joins former OUSU Access and Admissions Officer, Nathan Jones, in urging students to wait for more conclusive evidence to arise.
Jones concludes that, “in a year which has seen tuition fees trebled, and without adequate data tracking A* students across the entirety of their degree, I would urge caution if Oxford is to continue to attract the best talent, irrespective of background.”
PPE finalist and former state school student Joe Chrisp also opposes the system. Chrisp said the system will benefit the “trained brains” of independent education over comprehensive students, who are likely to have had lower levels of education and teaching.
A spokesman for Oxford University declined to comment further on the matter, referring to previous statements where it insisted that the university retains an important focus on other forms of admission assessment.
