Cambridge University offers disadvantaged students second chance to apply

Sally Weale quotes Sir Peter Lampl in response to Cambridge University’s new admissions plans in an article for the Guardian.

The University of Cambridge is seeking to increase student diversity by offering disadvantaged candidates who narrowly miss out on a place a second chance to apply after they get their A-level results.

From this summer, students from underrepresented backgrounds who applied and were interviewed for an undergraduate course but just fell short will be able to refer themselves to be reconsidered on results day once they know their grades.

Cambridge will for the first time participate in the Ucas system of adjustment that allows students who have outperformed the terms of the conditional university offer they are holding to refer themselves for consideration by another institution.

Sir Peter Lampl, founder of the Sutton Trust which campaigns for greater social mobility through education, welcomed the move as a step in the right direction. “Closing the stubbornly wide access gap at our best universities is vital so it is good to see Cambridge looking to new solutions to tackle the problem.”

Research has shown however that poor but high-achieving pupils who go on to gain the kind of grades required to get into Oxford or Cambridge either do not apply or have their grades underpredicted. “We want to see a complete move to post-qualification applications where students apply only after they have received their A-level results. This does away with predicted grades and empowers students to make the best possible choices.”

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