MAKING THE GRADE

Imperial College, London, announced this week that from 2010 it will be offering places to students based on their taking its own entrance exam, rather than their A Level exam results. With so much upheaval in secondary education over the most appropriate qualifications for university, Imperial College has decided to set its own standards, as it is finding it increasingly difficult to distinguish between candidates, when they all obtain the same level of success in school exams, be they A Level, IB, or anything else. With the introduction soon of the new government school Diploma and the Pre-U exam, currently being run at a about 30 top public schools, Imperial feels that it needs a more accurate method of selecting undergraduates than just top grades achieved in exams that do not have any correlation to each other in standard or quality. The new Imperial entrance tests will be less fact based in their approach and will expect students to demonstrate problem solving skills and intelligence in dealing with the questions.

The last decade has proved to be a difficult time for university admissions tutors. Government policy has leaned towards broadening the social base of undergraduates, and pupils from private schools have found themselves somewhat disadvantaged by the guidelines that government has put forward. This, combined with the debate over the value of A Levels and the introduction of new exams at 16+ has meant that universities have had to think about more than just academic records when considering students for places.

Ironically, the evidence seems to indicate that by selecting students from a broader range of social backgrounds and also by favouring those from state schools, especially those with poor exam track records, has led to a much higher drop-out rate from university undergraduates. It s against this background that Imperial College has decided to go its own way, although many universities are now using psychometric tests for particular courses In medicine, dentistry, law, history and English some universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, already run specialist tests for entry. One result of this is that schools may well have to offer specialist teaching to those sixth form pupils wishing to apply for certain courses and this could have a knock-on effect to the organisation of the school curriculum.

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