How to be Topp

An interesting piece in today’s Thinking Allowed on R4 about a study on Oxford University admissions. It seems the key findings from the study by Tony Heath (of Oxford University) and two other researchers is that if you want to get into Oxford, its best to be male, private school educated and white. Cultural capital does make a difference, but those other factors dominate. The researchers found that state school applicants though actually had a slightly better chance in arts subjects (though I would want to argue that many state school Oxford students come from the professional classes) and in the sciences, students from the ethnic miniorities were five times less likely to be successful than white students. The researchers suggest that some of these inequalities may be due to interviewers being predominantly white and male themselves. Oxford University’s head of admisssions has apparently issued a statement arguing that the data in the study is out of date and inaccurate, but the researcher interviewed on Thinking Allowed refuted these claims.

It’s all available again on iPlayer or downloadable podcast- follow the link above.