Oxford loses right to choose students

Parents Forum
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<p><a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051215/lf_afp/britaineducation_051215052425[/url]”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051215/lf_afp/britaineducation_051215052425&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>As a grad, happy and sad at the same time. My college (the college of Bill Bradley, Rupert Murdoch, George Sainsbury, and Thomas DeQuincy, who smoked opium in his rooms), will end up with “better” students as a result, and certainly fewer very wealthy or well-connected ones. But it will change the character of the place. How will they be assured of enough students for their famous and well-developed student-run theater programs, or the rowing team, or… These colleges can be very small (I think mine now has about 400 undergrads) - and centralized academic selection, while probably a good thing as a whole, could have very negative impacts on what makes Worcester College…Worcester. <a href=“http://www.worc.ox.ac.uk/[/url]”>http://www.worc.ox.ac.uk/&lt;/a&gt; And (and this is a double-edged sword), what will be the impact on mentoring (the pride of the Oxford system) when tutors no longer play a role in choosing their students? They could end up with a pale imitation of Yale, and that would NOT be a good thing.</p>

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<p>800 years of tradition …up in smoke.</p>

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<p>Centralized admissions for Oxford is a PROPOSAL only. Mini, I’m surprised you’re taking seriously a story in the Daily Torygraph!</p>

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<p>Didn’t read it there, but I do know that they have been kicking around centralized admissions for at least four years, and Oxford’s other attempts to attract “state school” applicants appear not to have been too successful. </p>

<p>Worcester has been in the middle to lower third of the academic tables for decades, and has regularly lost choristers to the House or to Magdalen, and future politicos to Balliol and St. John’s, so from that perspective, it is a plus. But I’m also a believer that it is a good thing when colleges generally can cultivate their own peculiarities, and allow students to naturally select where they want to be.</p>

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<p>Speaking as a current student, I chose my college for specific reasons and there are several colleges where, although I’m sure it would have been fine, I would much prefer not to go to.
Also, if St Hildas continues to remain single-sex, the centralised admissions system seems incredibly unfair.</p>

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<p>More detailed artilce from the BBC</p>

<p><a href=“http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4528944.stm[/url]”>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4528944.stm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>The Times</p>

<p><a href=“The Times & The Sunday Times: breaking news & today's latest headlines”>The Times & The Sunday Times: breaking news & today's latest headlines;

<p>It’s only a proposal. Any reforms will take years and years to go through. The key point is</p>

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<p>So it seems to be the case that the colleges will still be heavily involved.</p>

<p>Just because something is a “tradition” does not make it good, nor unchangable.</p>