Is university entrance squeezing the middle class?

Reinventing the wheel often causes a flurry of headlines. This time (once again) it is about university entrance and the decision to have information about parents included on the University (UCAS) application form. The idea is that it will help to “widen access” if admissions’ tutors know what the potential student’s Mum and Dad do, and whether have been to university themselves.

Squeals of horror from the usual (middle class) suspects.

There is in fact nothing new at all here.

For a long time parental occupation was a question on the special Cambridge application form. Some years ago (I can’t remember exactly when) that question was abolished. The idea was, I think, that this information was encouraging us to discriminate AGAINST the under-privileged – as if we were sorting through the forms and picking out the ambassador’s daughter and chucking the postman’s daughter into the “reject” pile. Socially elite dons looking for students in their own image -- or so the paranoid fantasy went.

I always thought that it was actually working the other way round. Knowing more about where the kids were “coming from” really did help to judge their potential and make a more level playing field.

To put it another way, when I am interviewing a student who wants to come and read Classics, one thing I want to know is whether they have made the most of their opportunities to find out about the ancient world. And it all depends what those opportunities are. If, for example, a girl who has had several long Greek holidays has never once taken the trouble to visit an archaeological site or museum, I will have some qualms. If someone who has never left the country, but lives within a mile of Hadrian’s Wall and has never visited it – well, similar qualms are raised (but I wouldn't hold against them the fact that they had never seen the Parthenon).

The point is that we are looking for those, from whatever background, who have potential – and the capacity to benefit from the course. More information helps (particularly now that the school’s reference is open to the candidate and can be almost useless).

The middle classes really don’t need to worry. I am not looking to favour the stupid daughter of the postman over the clever daughter of the ambassador. I am looking for intellectual potential wherever it is found. Exactly as I have always done.

Comments

[Eileen]

as Cicero said

Orators are most vehement when their cause is weak.

[SW Foska]

I'm confused. Yesterday a certain Michael Bulley wrote “There are not linguistic meanings floating about, that can be expressed in any way. The meaning of any sentence is, most precisely, that sentence itself, which consists of words." Is this the same Michael Bulley as the one that wrote today “I nowhere suggested that words have fixed meanings”? Or is one of them an impersonator writing under a pseudonym?
& presumably the second bulley, the one that wrote 'I don't think there are any rules in language', did so at a public workstation in an airport terminal but had to run off & catch his flight before someone else came along and completed his post for him writing 'the rule is: follow the rule'?
Anyway, enough of that, or we'll drive Prof. Beard back to the bottle or put her off her hand-shovelled Cornflakes. The one rule we probably need is a 'no grammar correction' rule, a bit like the 'no Stairway' rule in guitar shops. There was a serious conversation going on here, remember...

[Mary]

Sorry Michael Bulley...I don't think you quite followed my point (or maybe I didn't make myself clear). This is, in part at least, a GENERIC one -- not a question of checking. As I slurped my cornflakes (if only!) I did indeed check it...missing, I confess, my own omission of the word 'they' and possibly the fine tuning on Admissions(') Tutor (jury still out on that one, though -- but I was bending over backwards in the interests of harmony and politeness when I admitted "errors"). As for the rest it is more or less intentional -- and intentionally casual. That is to say, no matter how many times I checked, those sentences would still be verb-less! And to judge from the comments they communicated their point pretty effectively.

If you think my posts are like e-mails, you should see my e-mails!

[Michael Bulley]

We now know from the horse's mouth that some of Mary Beard's blogs will be thought out and others will be off the cuff. No one should object to that. Some types of blogs can be as casual, chatty, vague as you like. She seems to admit, though, that some of the latter sort might be written carelessly and not checked before posting. I'd say that was the difference between off the cuff and offhand. Posting an authorial blog on a newspaper web site is not the equivalent of writing an email to someone you know. You are addressing the public. So, even if you are typing with one hand, with the other shovelling the cornflakes, it must be worth spending some time - surely not more than a minute - checking that what you've written is fit for the public. Otherwise, maybe Mary Beard should begin some of her blogs with the message "Couldn't be bothered to check it. Could contain sloppy mistakes." That would give people the chance to stop at that point if they didn't fancy having that sort of writing inflicted on them.
I know I should have kept my mouth shut and not been tempted to write. You know from experience you'll find yourself accused of all sorts of bizarre things in these types of blog threads. So, just to tidy up the loose ends:
1. I didn't mention Fowler. I don't think there are any rules in language, either of the Fowlerian or of the Chomskyan sort. There are, however, conventions of educated English, some vague, some disputed, all changing, and there is good advice from style guides. If you use such guides, the rule is: follow the rule, unless for that particular sentence you think, for well-grounded aesthetic reasons, it is better not to.
2. As for SW FOSKA's reading list (why do people adopt pseudonyms here? If you've got something to say, come out and say it), I have not only already tried to read those works, but have, I think, succeeded.
3. I nowhere suggested that words have fixed meanings or that grammatical structures are not arbitrary. In fact, I have written elsewhere, for the public, arguing the opposite.

[Rachel Stansfield]

As an applicant to university in the 2006/2007 cycle of UCAS I was asked in a round about way what my parents' occuaptions were. This seems to be wrong. As an applicant who would be deemed as "lower class" due to the industries my parents work in and their combined household income, I would not wish to be discriminated against, positively or negatively. As any minority group anywhere will tell you, they wish to get by on their own merits.
However, once a place at University has been won, then information regarding background and financial circumstances must be taken into consideration. Without this there will almost certainly be a higher dropout rate for less priveliged students forced to take up extra jobs in between their studies. This is the real discrimination. The Universities made a promise to the government upon the introduction of top up fees- that the money would be ploughed back into encouraging less advantaged students into Higher Education. This, in my experience has absolutely not been the case. So in all fairness, they should have the right to charge top up fees withdrawn.

[dr venables preller]

I fear that xyz is either unaware or does not care that when an institution (such as an Oxbridge college) which has a fit-for-purpose selection system for its intake subverts that system with another, perhaps imposed from outside, which replaces specific criteria (such as scholastic excellence) with an arbitrary statistical conformity to some percentage quota, a distortion to that selection process is introduced.

Insofar as most who enthuse for positive discrimination wish to enhance a gender or social class minority to the loss of those who might otherwise have been selected, my point was that such distortion might be a retrograde step if it were to lower the overall excellence of achievement of the alumni, and could in any event offer an opportunity to research qualitative change linked to such distortion.

The separate issue which arises when such distortions are introduced is that in a competitive situation there is a reward (possible selection) from appearing to conform to the new criteria rather than the old. In the extreme case, prospective entrants could be improving the chances of a successful application by voluntarily assuming expected behaviours or attributes of the newly preferred elite - or even using pretence.

A case in point could be the retrospective conflagration of applicants’ pyjamas being reported following information on a student website as to the beneficial effect thereof on chances of successful application, possibly to those colleges where nocturnal revelry might benefit from light, heat or attendance of fire management personnel.

More worrying are the hopes of xyz for compulsory class and work experience at the opposite extreme of expectation for applicants with parents of financial standing. Whilst this object all sublime might be achieved in time anyway through normal gap year experimentation diversity, it’s the controlling aspect that’s out of character with the faux democratisation mooted.

Anyway, Hermann’s enthusiasm for Stasi Academia seems to have been given the thumbs down by the lumpen, if demolition of walls is anything to go by. Best stick with Immanuel.

[Xjy]

Great pseudonym, SW! I tip my hat...

[Mary]

Ok -- let me confess a twinge of sympathy for Michael Bulley (as I have been known to do similar to students' work). But only a twinge.

First -- as a number of you have pointed out (thanks..) -- we don't and shouldn't let ourselves become clones of Fowler (vel sim.).

Second -- as again you've pointed out -- blogs are an explicitly casual medium, and we're still finding out what that casualness means. They are NOT articles. Some of mine do gestate for a few days, but the one that irritated Michael Bulley was indeed done on the spur of the moment, rather like an e-mail. I woke up on Friday to the sound of the Today programme on the subject of UCAS forms, thought that they were in part missing the point and blogged before I left to go to a meeting that started at nine. Errors there may have been, and the odd missed word -- but it was the kind of instant comment that the web makes possible.

[Xjy]

Oh dear, Dr VP has obviously never read Die Aula by Hermann Kant, a eulogy in passing to the ABF Arbeiter- und Bauernfakultät system they had at East German universities after the war. Where the Latin teacher grudgingly goes through the motions but recites Greek poetry to himself and can't wait to have a break and dig back into Aeschylus.

So I formally submit a plea for positive discrimination in higher education - and the more the better!
How about that? Ferocious egalitarianism - gimme gimme gimme!

All fat cat kids to spend 3 years doing rotating shift work in small parts factories, or living on the dole on the other side of the tracks in Middlesbrough before they *might* perhaps be considered for a special quota place in higher ed. If Jacob can wait - they can!

To make the playing field a bit more level of course we´d have to change toddler, primary and secondary education too, on the same lines. Fat cat kids being allowed to opt out of comprehensive schooling to do three years hard weaving carpets or making and carrying bricks in South Asia. Or serving the needs of horny fat cats in the brothels of paradise. That work and life experience would give them a good shot at getting into uni later. Not to mention learning a much-desired second language like Urdu or Thai.

Any fat cat kids that can prove they have been brutalized by their parents mentally or physically would be given individual interviews, offered rehab and placed in suitable fast-track facilities if deemed necessary.

The question of how to deal with such fat cat parents of course is beyond the scope of this topic...

[Nev]

What a suspicious lot your readers are! Why exactly would Oxbridge colleges wish to embarrass or somehow penalise pre-selected groups of applicants? Their reputation after all rests on the potential and actual academic quality of their selections; nothing else.

I was fortunate enough to attend an old-fashioned grammar school in the 'fifties, win an open classics award to Oxford and enjoy four years in an albeit all-male but socially mixed community. My relatively lowly beginnings did not come into question at all, even though the college was fully aware of them from the outset.

PS Who says that effective writing has to slavishly follow Fowler's rules? (whoops)

[dr venables preller]

How refreshing to find no plea for 'positive discrimination' here, despite the dangle of temptation.

For those who like to use this statistic based methodology in pursuit of covert social engineering, it might be worth reflecting that it could be applied to situations where intrinsic ability to organise the mind (as at present crudely quantified by IQ tests) is a requirement, to unintended result not necessarily suited to purpose.

If, in the egalitarian interest, selection of those bunched near the upper extreme were to be balanced by appropriate numbers of those at the lower, the purpose of fairness could be seen to be fully served.

The additional cost of helpers and assistants to coach the latter, hopefully to any minimum level of understanding and competency required would be a small price to pay for the opportunity to investigate, in a statistically meaningful way, any evidence-based causality for the proverb which negatively cautions fabrication of receptacles of tactile sensuality for carriage and safekeeping of specie for personal use from the auditory appendages of beasts of gender destined for bacon.

[SW Foska]

Michael, you really think the meanings of words are fixed? That presupposes a fixer, and unfortunately there ain't one. Try reading Saussure, Jakobson, IA Richards: the mutability of meaning (and the arbitrariness of grammatical structures) will become less mysterious to you. A bracingly rude introduction to the problem was published by Roy Harris (Saussure and His Interpreters, 2004). For an alternative paradigm try Raymond Tallis's wittily-titled Not Saussure: A Critique of Post-Saussurean Literary Theory (1995).

[Alex D-F]

Great post Daisy! Neither inoffensive nor inappropriate - that's the way I like 'em. I'd give you an A+ but unfortunately, judging dubiously by your first name, your social confidence and your correct spelling of 'supercilious' I deduce that you are probably middle class, for which no grades above B- are allowed.
I'm looking for a pseudonym for posting on this blog, being a bit shagged off that all the comments get spewed up on Google for the gogglers to read out of context (as Mr. Bulley will discover). I think I'll go for 'supercilious wanker' + 'full-of-shit know-all' = SW Foska. Suits me quite well I think. See you soon everybody.

[Michael Bulley]

My original post was meant, almost totally, as a bit of fun. The reactions to it have made me think I should take it more seriously. It is not a question here of distinguishing between formal and informal usage. If Mary Beard's piece had appeared with the modifications I suggested, it would have been as casual and conversational as the original, but easier and pleasanter to read. Nothing I proposed was difficult. Her article may have been written quickly, but there must have been time for reflection. It is to be hoped, too, that Mary Beard would point out similar errors and infelicities in her students' writing.
One poster suggested that the article should be treated like an email to a friend. It would be wrong to do so. Such an email would be private. Mary Beard's article was public. If I am writing to a friend, I usually have a good idea how that friend will take the style. I might even write deliberately in a bad style, if I am pretty sure it will be taken as ironic. If I'm writing for a wider readership of people most of whom I will not know, however, I must adopt a different approach and it will be polite to write clearly, with the comfort of the reader in mind.
I do not claim to be free of linguistic errors myself. What I am getting at, rather, is the attitude a writer for the public should adopt. Some people say that all that matters is that the meaning should get through: "Communication before correctitude", as one poster put it. I disagree. There are not linguistic meanings floating about, that can be expressed in any way. The meaning of any sentence is, most precisely, that sentence itself, which consists of words. If you care about communication, therefore, you should care about words and how to use them. I hope that is the view of most university teachers. Of course, you would not reject an eighteen year-old applicant for a place at university for the sorts of errors I criticized. That was meant in fun. Students should, however, have improved their writing by the end of their university course, getting rid of such errors on the way, and their teachers should be their models.
As a postscript for Lauren Kinsey, all the Cambridge colleges use the term, admissions tutor, without an apostrophe, correctly, I think.

[Lauren Kinsey]

I am really loathe to continue this argument with Mr. Bulley but there could be a case for having "Admissions'(sic) tutor" written with an apostrophe because the tutor is a "tutor of admissions (or in charge of admissions)" suggesting the genitive case.

[Candadai Tirumalai]

I think one of the most challenging things in many areas of life, including university admissions, is to recognize the difference between those who start out strong but will fade as time passes, and those who make a slower start but will outdistance the better prepared, making up earlier deficiencies as they go along. Of course there are those who come exceptionally prepared and will get even better.

[Xjy]

"Bulley" by name... They have a thousand ways of letting people know they're supercilious wankers. Like showing them the door.

One thing all of them hate, strangely enough, is full-of-shit know-alls.

Communication before Correctitude, old son...

[Michael Bulley]

Now, now, Daisy. I don't think an admissions tutor, even one for the Classics Faculty at Cambridge University, would use the expression ‘supercilious wanker' in a letter to an applicant.

[Daisy]

Would Michael Bulley have been accepted as a student at a university on the basis of his post?

Dear Candidate,

We are sorry that we are unable to offer you a place at our institution. While grammatically correct, your application demonstrated no imagination, humour or any redeeming features at all. We advise you take a year out and reapply when you are no longer a supercilious wanker.

Sincerely,

[Eileen]

doesn't Mr. "Bulley" know the difference between formal and informal expression? doesn't he know that a blog is akin to an e-mail where the reader wishes to hear the voice of the writer and does not want or expect "perfect" writing?

[Lawrence Lanum]

I'm an American who very likely would have been favored by the scheme that is described in this article. My mother and stepfather both worked at an automotive plant, and neither had a university degree. Very likely I would have been seen as deserving and showered with advantages. Instead, I received almost no aid. I worked hard, and even though it took me ten years I scraped through an undergraduate degree. Then I went back for an MBA. I now have a decent-paying job at an investment bank. Thank god no well-meaning busybody ever "helped" me.

Good personal habits and a winning attitude cannot be taught in the classroom. In many cases they can be instilled in a child by caring and loving parents, however, which is why success tends to run in families. Successful parents pass it on. It's an age-old story, and there's no reason government or society should try to change the outcome. Do you really want the banker's son to cut up your next steak while the butcher's son figures up the value of a portfolio of loans? How does that make you better off, and more importantly, why would you spend an enormous amount of taxpayer money to make such a thing happen?

The real danger posed by a scheme to "help" the underpriviliged, however, is that it will destroy the university's student body. In the US and most countries, do-gooders have already destroyed the value of a primary education. "No child left behind" is the do-gooder's battle cry. As a result, our schools are packed with children who do not wish to be educated, and no student is challenged to do his best. When even the worst student won't be left behind, the brighter students know they have nothing to fear. In fact, with so many mindless students in class with them, the brighter students don't even have to study. This is why K-12 is such a mess, and the same fate awaits out universities if we start admitting students in order to "help" them.

A school best helps students when it's fair and impartial. Those who say the proposed scheme won't favor lower class students over middle class students are being disingenuous. If asking those blasted questions won't change anything, then why ask them in the first place?

Here in the US the do-gooders are hard at work on our universities, and I'm afraid you're plagued with them in the UK as well.

[Michael Bulley]

Would Mary Beard have been accepted as a student at a university on the basis of this article? Here are the comments I would have made if I had been marking it for the quality of the English in it.

1. admissions' tutors: There should not be an apostrophe here. In this expression "admissions" functions as a modifying noun, not as possessive or partitive.
2. whether have been to university: This should be "whether they have been".
3. nothing new at all here: "at all" is not needed; it is implied by "nothing".
4. I can't remember when: You should have found out. Laziness is not acceptable.
5. "reject": There is no justification for the inverted commas. Do not follow the popular, but mistaken, trend of adding quotation marks where there is no quotation or irony.
6. Socially elite... went: There is no main verb here. Some top-class writers can get away with sentences that lack a main verb, but you are not in that league.
7. kids: Avoid this slang usage. Write "children" or, better in this context, "students".
8. level playing field: Cliché.
9. come and read Classics: Omit "come and"; it is not needed.
10. whether they: This refers awkwardly to the preceding singular "student who wants". Better to have written "students who want".
11. it all depends what: This should be "it all depends on what".
12. never once: "once" is superfluous; "never" implies it.
13. an archaeological site or museum: Did you really mean "an archaeological site or archaeological museum"? I suspect not.
14. against them: see (10)
15. potential — and the capacity: I see no justification for the dash.
16. I am not looking to favour: This is a sloppy expression. I think you simply mean "I won't favour".
17. Exactly... done: no main verb. See (6).

Dear Candidate
We regret to inform you that the quality of your written English is not high enough for you to be accepted as an undergraduate at this university. If you are serious in your intention to follow a university course that involves the study of language and literature, we recommend that your take some night-school courses in English composition and reapply in a year's time.
Yours sincerely

[Heather Yaxley]

Very interesting views - we definitely need to have real people with passion both applying to universities and involved in the recruitment process.

[Hypatia]

Oh, dear! I think before one can make any distinctions, the point needs to be made that each applicant really is an individual - perhaps, despite their background. And, further, the category of "middle class" is misleadingly out-dated. Coming from a so-called middle class background does not, as Prof. Beard points out, ensure that a student has the potential to do well.
Middle income, and typical 'middle-class' values and interests are not always all present within one's background.
To take myself as a case in point.
Both of my parents suffer with mental illness, and I grew up on a gritty northern council estate; my parents did not possess the prerequisite house/car/social standing etc. etc. However, they did encourage hard work at school, reading, extra-curricular interests; they valued intelligence and ambition over and above the usual list of status symbols that one could acquire if earning in a 'good' job.
Consequently, I have always strived to do well academically.

However, such an application form described by Prof. Beard with questions upon my parents jobs would have posed significant difficulties for me, if I were making an application today. I think I would have felt dismayed, and compromised, and possibly that my chances would be put in jeopardy.
As has been pointed out, perhaps Prof. Beard personally may not make certain judgements - but who is to say that such an application containing these details would get that far??
I know the worthiness of my parents, but, being realistic, society still possesses, unfortunately, negative evaluations regarding mental illness - it cannot be denied, however idealistic one claims to be.

In sum, despite the claim that these questions are designed to find potential, whatever one's background, they still, nonetheless may cause difficulties and problems for prospective applicants.

Thankfully, I am not in the position where I am having to make an application in such circumstances - I am several years in to my PhD, and I hope that I do not encounter such questions on any future application form - if i do, I think that i will state the non applicability of the question!

[Fred O'Hanlon]

Dear Mary

Jude the Obscure chronicles the admittedly fictional life of a talented, working class Englishman who studied Latin and Greek in his impoverished spare time in the doomed hope of an academic career in class-ridden late 19th century England. George Boole was a real person, as well as being an extraordinary genius, who studied mathematics in his spare time as a school janitor in early 19th century England. Few Brits have heard of him today although everyone in this world who has studied computer science is familiar with Boolean algebra. That Boole did not quite suffer Jude’s fate is attributable to the fact that he wrote personally to certain, eminent 19th century English mathematicians who took the trouble to read his correspondence, recognised his talent and encouraged him to persevere with maths. Boole did get an academic post eventually … at University College Cork in the newly established University of Ireland where he caught his death of a cold.

Nowadays in the attempt to encourage equal opportunity for all we are relying more and more on statistical surveys which monitor, for example, as it appears from your piece, the percentages of children from poorer backgrounds who obtain places at universities. Personnel managers have been re-christened Human Resources managers and recruit by matching job descriptions with personal career descriptions, by treating people and jobs as the sum of the skills used to describe them, as resources on a par with non-human resources. Why bother with personal contact, with interviews? Why not do it all by computer?

In a doubtless well-intentioned attempt to protect the rights of individuals, the role of individual judgment and responsibility is being undermined. Decisions are being increasingly based on statistical data as opposed to individual judgment. This ‘scientific’ bias is the contemporary equivalent of Victorian class bias. More than a quarter of a century ago in the American SAT and ACT university entrance tests subjectively assessed essay writing was abandoned in favour of statistically more reliable, machine-marked test items. Last year essays were re-introduced. Other statistics have shown that during the same period standards of literacy among US college students have declined.

Aren’t elections a waste of time and money? Why don’t we let the pollsters elect the next prime minister?

There is a world of difference between you as an individual asking about a student’s family background in a face-to-face interview and having the information supplied on an application form.

Fred O’Hanlon

[Kathleen Bell]

I remember two different approaches from my university interviews in the mid-1970s. One college principal (at Durham) looked at my father's occupation with horror and remarked, "I don't know what a fitter is", before explaining that I would probably feel out of place among her "gels" and suggesting that university might be an unwise choice for someone from my background. At St Hilda's College in Oxford I was made much more welcome. I wasn't expected to talk about fancy holidays or extra-curricular interests, but invited to discuss subjects that really interested me in the books I'd read for pleasure. I had a delightful half-hour on Samuel Richardson's narrative structure and view of chastity and a more tricky one in which I struggled to explain new ideas about prosody in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. As a result I felt that Oxford welcomed people like me but that Durham did not. My three happy years at St Hilda's confirmed that sense of welcome.

As a lecturer in a new university with different constraints, I'm worried about this latest initiative. I don't think it will harm middle-class applicants. It's much more likely to privilege them further since so-called "non-traditional" applicants are more likely to face financial difficulties, more likely to work long hours while studying and more likely (so studies show) to drop out. This isn't because of any unwillingness or lack of potential but because the government is unwilling to provide the money needed to help them realise their potential. Universities are told to find the cash for scholarships and are penalised if students drop out, however good the students' reasons. I fear it won't be long before some admissions tutors, under pressure to minimise drop-out rates and given no incentive to help students realise their potential, begin to implement the kind of selection that reinforces privilege rather than encouraging achievement.