Posted on 12/15/2005 9:46:09 AM PST by SmoothTalker
The colleges of Britain's prestigious Oxford University will lose their 800-year-old right to choose their undergraduates amid government pressure to admit more students from state schools and lower social classes.
Instead, admissions will be centralized to encourage applications from pupils from broad-based secondary schools who find current arrangements "confusing and opaque", the university said, according to The Daily Telegraph.
Pupils will apply to the university, not a specific college, and will be interviewed and selected by the appropriate department, not by their potential tutors, the university said.
The university admitted that as a result, colleges will lose autonomy and individuality, according to the newspaper.
Candidates will be able to state a college preference once they have been offered a place but in principle all successful applicants will be centrally ranked on the basis of their performance, then distributed randomly, it added.
Losers.
Yeah, but not end of the world.
IF (and only if - I don't know what is going on there) truly, the poor people are denied, give them some chance to get in.
If tutors are the only one picking, then one nerdy tight-ass would pick another nerdy tight-ass.
According to what I've read, they receive funding from the government, which opens them up to PC scrutiny. If they were totally private, then I'd say they have a case.
I don't understand why they can't leave something good alone. If the government thinks they need more students from "lower social classes" (code words for "minorities"?) then why doesn't the government build "Oxford II" and admit who they like? What about the deserving students that they displace? Does anyone worry about the unfairness to them when their admissions spots are taken by someone with lower grades and test scores? Could it be because it's easier to drag down something good to a lower level than to build something positive yourself? Hmmm, sort of like the terrorists.
Oxford is over. Beyond Oxford, the Rennaisance is over. The second darkness looms.
To me, a college is a college. Is this like a county within a state?
LOL at anyone thinking Oxford is any different from any other private university in the US. I would estimate 40 percent of the students got in through legacy, connections and not by virtue of their academic talent. Nothing wrong IMO with telling the schools that since you're receiving millions of pounds of tax dollars, contributed by ALL members of society, your admissions policy should reflect the fact that everyone at least has a chance to attend.
Most of the "dumbing down" happens when the schools let in Johnny just because daddy graduated 30 yrs ago.
Everyone has a right to a degree from Oxford.
Just let the government put them in the mail and send them out; it will save everyone a lot of time and work. . .
There's no logical reason why they couldn't have a couple of different avenues of admission - one through the traditional tutors and individual colleges another through the university directed and administered by the department faculties. There's no reason the tutors themselves should be prevented from picking students. Nothing wrong per se with a general admission to the university. But if they think this will eliminate bias or unfair discrimination, they're wrong. It will just replace it with another kind of bias and discrimination.
I believe that Magdalen College (in New Hampshire, USA) is organized similarly ... except that there's only one college.
Amen. Whatever Oxford's problems (and several posters have noted some) the government picking its students is only going to make them worse.
20 quid or whatever the heck those silly brits use for currency ... says, Oxford is bending to pressure to admit "poor muslims".
I'l gar-un-dam-t-yah that's the back story.
To apply for study with a particular professor, a student would have to know their life goals. Seems a tall order for eighteen year olds.
"..amid government pressure to admit more students from state schools and lower social classes."
Interestingly, they don't specifically cite race as a criteria for entry.
In some ways, we here in the US are actually more PC than our european bretheren.
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