Cambridge college cuts private school pupil admissions from almost a half to a quarter

A Cambridge college has cut its private school pupil admissions from almost a half to a quarter after changing its admissions policy to emphasise “academic potential” over “achievement”.

Gonville & Caius, whose alumni include Kenneth Clarke, a former Conservative cabinet minister, and the philosopher Alain de Botton, has actively sought to shake off its former label as being one of the “most privately educated” colleges at the university.

In 2019 and 2020, the college had the highest proportion of private sector entrants in the university, at 45 per cent and 43 per cent, respectively.

That proportion dropped to 25 per cent in 2021 and the college said it has offered 28 per cent of places to private school pupils this year.

Boosting state applicants

The college published a strategy in 2019 that noted how many private school pupils it had compared to other colleges and set a target of boosting state applicants to 75 per cent by 2025.

In 2020, it also changed its admissions focus from emphasising  “academic achievement” to “academic potential, regardless of background”.

The proportion of state school pupils winning places has since risen sharply, despite the proportion of state applicants remaining static at about 62 per cent.

Dr Chris Scott, who was appointed Caius’ inaugural Tutor for Admissions and Outreach as part of its strategy to diversity its applicants three years ago, told The Telegraph: “What we're trying to do is make a critical judgement about which applicants have the greatest academic potential…and current academic abilities are a very big part of that.

Thorough look at all applications

"But it's not the be all and end all. I read roughly 900 applications every year at Caius and I read them cover to cover, I read the personal statement, teacher's reference, any submitted written work, admissions test results, the contextual data that we have.

“All of that we take into account on an individual basis. We're really trying to do things individually.”

The Telegraph revealed last year that the Oxbridge success rate of top private schools has dropped by a third in five years amid a drive to boost numbers of disadvantaged students.

The university has been criticised by some of its own dons for its admissions system.  

Prof David Abulafia, a fellow at Caius, said last year that “positive discrimination at Oxbridge has been around for a while but it has greatly accelerated”, and that “far too often unjust decisions are made that exclude better-qualified candidates from independent schools.”

Dr Scott said that the admissions process “does not equate in any way to discrimination or social engineering. I think that's a misrepresentation.”

He said that an applicant’s school background was not used as a “blunt instrument” to distinguish between candidates.

He said: “Context is at the very heart of what we're trying to do, which is to admit people with the greatest academic potential and to measure that you need to see them as an individual in their school background, in their local area background and their individual background. And all of that comes together to form our individual judgement.”

He added: “If your child has a lot of academic potential, then they have a very good chance of getting into Cambridge, wherever they go to school.

“Going to a particular kind of school, increasingly, does not, in and of itself, raise your chances of getting into Cambridge. And what we're seeing is that process. We're not seeing any kind of discrimination against people from particular schools.”