Of Course Universities Should Be Free to Make Offers at Any Grades They Like

Admission to a university formally requires that the candidate is 17 years of age and able to matriculate. Matriculation will require some examinations that go back as far as GCSE level - a requirement for a grade C minimum in GCSE mathematics is commonplace in degrees that call for no mathematical skills, for instance; at least no skills overtly and commonly understood as mathematical skills. Usually there is a requirement for another four GCSEs including English and a foreign language, and at least two A-levels. The faculty, outside of the matriculation requirement, may make offers of places wherever it chooses.

Except there has been decades-long pressure to offer places to those with the best results. Those with the best results are often those with the best teaching behind them. They are by no means those most capable of using best the teaching on offer within a university. Academics know this very well and still offer places to those they judge will be interesting to teach and able to contribute to the faculty. And when they do it causes ructions - cf the girl with 3 As who Gordon Brown insisted was being discriminated against by an Oxford college when, in truth, hers was not a particularly unusual achievement from any school.

So the lifting of the 3 As offer rule - a rule that has been so fiercely demanded by candidates and parents - is welcome. What is not welcome is the notion that anybody except the interviewers can set the offer, most particularly that the offer should be guided by perceived parental or educational disadvantage. That is insulting to the individual candidate and detrimental to the building of a good department. The dons know what they are doing better than any quango, and infinitely prefer to teach those with what it takes to cope with the two and a half year sprint that is an undergraduate degree in England.

So matriculation should be the entry standard, and there should be no formal statements of handicap for those from different backgrounds; the Faculty or Department should determine the offer level. Three grade As with some at A* is a poor offer; a requirement to obtain a couple of Ds and you know they really want you.