Oxford has enrolled its highest ever proportion of students from state school backgrounds in a bid to finally prove that Oxbridge institutions really are becoming open and accessible to all. What we rarely discuss, however, is the uncomfortable truth that Oxbridge’s reputation for academic rigour and league table brilliance trumps all such concerns.

When Oxford reports these increases, it is hiding the fact that almost half of this state school group will in fact have come from a select number of leading grammar schools. Many children only get into these schools because their middle-class parents can pay for tutors to help them pass the 11-plus. If the grammar school in their neighbourhood were to close down, I’m tempted to think that most parents would simply send their child straight to the nearest private school.

An increase in the number of Cambridge and Oxford students from state schools is not a cut and dried representation of a wider intake, especially considering that Oxbridge’s state school admissions are still vastly disproportionate to the percentage of state school students across the country.

Now, our university is considering opting out of the government’s Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), a new way of grouping and ranking elite universities that allows them to charge their students even higher fees. Cambridge claims that the TEF ranking system fails to recognise that university is a place to “help students grow into thoughtful and critical citizens”, and that it is clearly a scheme worthy of criticism.

The real issue, however, is that Cambridge relies on high rankings to maintain its reputation worldwide; a current estimate of the new TEF ranking in The Times puts Cambridge in twelfth place. Maybe underlying its dislike of the TEF is Cambridge’s fixation with staying on top and being number one at all costs. A low ranking in a league table could be an incentive for Cambridge to work to fulfil its stated aims to “help students grow” and improve access. Instead, the position is simply seen as a stain on its glowing record.

But there is more to the issue: with the reputation of UK universities already at risk due to post-Brexit concerns and the rise of American and Asian universities, Cambridge will go to ever greater lengths in order to cling to its place at the top of the rankings. At a recent University Council meeting, there was a proposed cut to the target for admissions from the lowest Participation of Local Areas (POLAR), from 13 per cent to 12.5 per cent. While the Office for Fair Access (OFFA) ultimately barred this proposal, the Council also took the opportunity to reaffirm its rejection of preferential offers, which adjust entrance grades for disadvantaged students.

These contextual offers are common at many other universities and are backed by research, yet the consensus in Cambridge still seems to be that they are a threat to its lofty academic standards and that the POLAR intake target is just too ambitious. When you consider this, the University’s repeated statement that they are “committed to widening participation” simply sounds like meaningless rhetoric to maintain their image and satisfy the OFFA.  

In fact, the proportion of students from poorer backgrounds admitted to Cambridge has fallen by over two per cent in the last decade. On its website, the University claims that it wants to “encourage and support applications from well-qualified students”, meaning that applications from disadvantaged students are flagged for special consideration.

Yet it also asserts that “academic achievement remains central to all admissions decisions”. This begs the question as to why they actually bother to flag these profiles in the first place. If Cambridge will not fully admit to, and act on, the reality that students from underperforming schools and low-income families may not be able to attain the standard offer, however able and determined they are, then the University cannot be truly committed to change.  

All of this seems bad enough, but what worries me most about Oxbridge’s obsession with reputation – particularly recent developments – is the impact they will have on prospective applicants from less traditional backgrounds. These students will read the reports at the moment they decide whether to undergo the ordeal of the applications process, and hearing this news will only reinforce their view of these institutions as unwelcoming, elitist and full of empty promises – and that is surely Oxbridge’s biggest image problem.