Fifty years ago only a small percentage of people were encouraged to go to university. In Britain the percentage was only about 4%. This was elitist and closed the door on many able people who would have benefitted themselves and the country from a rigorous university education. On the other hand, the old system did have one advantage that we seem to have lost: judgement of character.
What I am talking about is the university interview. In the old days, with fewer people to deal with, applicants were offered places provided they passed a certain number of “A” Level exams. But just as important was the interview. Not everyone thrives under exam conditions, as many young people at this point in time are currently finding, to their chagrin.
In the old days, you could make up for exam nerves and misunderstandings at the interview. I personally failed Geography A Level despite stellar predictions (yes, it was pass or fail – no grades) but in the interview I thrived (made them laugh, actually). If your school head wrote a good account of you and the committee of old and experienced dons thought you would benefit from the university experience, then their judgement could over-ride the pesky exam results. These people saw scores of youngsters who were not very academic, and who might do better in a polytechnic (now abolished) training for a job. No doubt university dons carried prejudices of many kinds into the interviews, but at least you had a chance to show that you valued personal growth, independent thinking and lifelong education, and didn’t regard a degree only as a job qualification or a chance of three or more idle years drinking or betting on the horses, so to speak.
Now there are just too many people applying to university for the interview to be practical. In big State schools with a thousand or more students, personal assessment and recommendations by the head teacher are also impractical. Thus everything hangs on grades, and messing up on a single exam paper can alter your prospects and your future life, not necessarly very badly (character will out) but, I think, unfortunately.
If you apply for a job in the wide world your experience and credentials can get you an interview, but the crucial thing is the interview itself, where the employer can ask himself, “Can I work with this person? He is qualified, but would he fit in?”. Every day and everywhere company recruiters are using their judgement, not just looking at a CV. In the world of education we have lost the benefit of the judgement of experienced educators.
The trouble with Oxford and Cambridge interviews is that privately educated students are given rigorous preparation for them: how to act, what to say, etc… Such preparation could never be afforded to state educated students as there are not enough teachers with experience of the system to teach them. As a substitute for the interview, students applying to university in the UK are required to write a personal statement, saying why they want to study the course, the experience and independent knowledge they have of the subject, and how the degree would be useful for their future plans- in a similar vein to the statements of intent required when applying for Masters programs. Its not a totally fair system, but I think did very well from it.