Is It Time For Radical Solutions When It Comes To Getting Poorer Students Into Top Universities?

By Author: pangsiyan
Total Articles: 130
Comment this article

Andrew Seaton, 22, is one of a rare breed - an ambitious student from a deprived background, with four grade As at A-level, who has just completed his first year at Oxford University.

He believes that Oxford and Cambridge should take many more students like him, but has no easy answers about how this can be achieved and is sceptical about the idea of Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, that Oxbridge colleges be forced to reserve places for a certain number of pupils from a wide range of schools.

The merit of Cable's wheeze is that it would widen participation. "You would have a higher state-school intake," says Seaton. "Obviously that's a positive thing, but I worry it would be too rigid, keeping out good people and letting in some who might not be suited to the work."

Seaton had never thought about applying to Oxford or Cambridge because no one in his family had been to university. "The idea was new and strange to me," he says. "I was planning to go to Bristol, but I got straight As in my AS-levels and decided to apply to Merton College, Oxford - not realising that it was one of the top colleges." His ...
... first attempt was unsuccessful but he tried again after achieving four As at A-level, this time applying to Mansfield College, which has the highest percentage of state-school students of all Oxford colleges. His interviews went better this time, he says, and eventually, after being recalled for a third interview, he got in to read history.

"In the first year I did find it hard to adjust to the level of work but I got used to it," he says. "I am lucky to be learning so much and to have close contact with such incredible academics. I consider myself really lucky to live in an age and a country where you can do this."

Seaton is endearingly appreciative of his parents and his teachers. He was home-schooled for years (his parents were cleaners, chasing jobs in different parts of the country), but that enabled him to read voraciously and to teach himself. When he finally returned to an educational establishment - Exeter further education college - he was on free school meals, and taking first GCSEs and then A-levels.

drive from www.independent.co.uk