Elite Universities keeping students in the dark, well the plebs anyway.

An interesting story about University admissions in the Guardian. 

Posh old universities like Oxford and Cambridge are being forced to tell people what they are actually looking for in applicants, so that when paupers' children are refused places it will be easier to see that there were no academic grounds.

I remember a local news story about the first student from our school in its ten year history to apply to Oxford. She was the daughter of two teachers and had worked hard towards this goal. Of course she didn't get in. The school I'm talking about is a comprehensive in a poorer region of the country.

And then you compare this with some posh schools where large percentages of the kids are going off to ‘Oxbridge’ - as they call it – and you see that (unless poor people children are genetically stupider) the system must be rigged in favour of rich kids somehow. I'm not saying intentionally rigged, but there seems to be some hurdles for one group and some short cuts for another.

But, which group is having their lives negatively impacted.

a) The rich kids who must do a lot of extra revision and homework, go through a regimented university production process and come out the other side ready for their lives of drudgery pushing papers around, sending poor people to prison or (for the most successfully brainwashed) going into politics and setting up systems to increase wealth misdistribution.

or

b) The poor kids who can often just ‘not do’ homework, go to a university full of hippies where creativity is welcomed and they want you to ‘find yourself’, and at the end get set adrift in a world that has no predefined place for them and have to create a life for themselves.

I must admit, I'm leaning towards option b – and the elite universities can keep their entrance requirements secret for all I care.