Goodbye to the wellies...

Scotland's top university wants more students from less privileged backgrounds. Lucy Hodges asks whether the new admissions policy will spark a row

Like Bristol, Edinburgh University has an image problem. Scotland's leading university is reputed to be stuffed with people who wear green wellies, say "yah" instead of "yes" and attended the poshest of independent schools, often south of the border. That is why, in common with Bristol, it is changing its admissions system to put less weight on applicants achieving the very highest grades and more on recruiting people with little tradition of higher education from the local community .

"One of the reasons we upped the anti on admissions was to send a message that, if you think you might be good enough for Edinburgh, then just apply," says the principal, Professor Tim O'Shea. "Come and look at what the place is like."

Edinburgh has attracted some opprobrium for changing its admissions system, but not as much as Bristol has. First, it has decided to set its entrance requirement at three Bs for A-levels (or four Bs for the Scottish Highers exams). That will affect admissions for the high-demand subjects like English, history and law which have required AAB in the past.

That way it avoids the Bristol solution of making lower offers to candidates from disadvantaged schools. And the independent schools have not talked about a boycott. Professor O'Shea is keen to keep them on-side. "We have managed to keep a dialogue going with the Scottish independent schools," he says. "And they have maintained a positive attitude to the university." A working group is deciding how admissions tutors will choose among the many applicants who meet the entrance requirements and its report will be published later this summer.

The aim is to score candidates for their interest in, and aptitude for, their subject, as evinced in their personal statement and teacher reference on the UCAS form. Finally, admissions tutors will award extra points to students who satisfy certain conditions: if they come from the local area, if they come from schools or families with little history of higher education, and if they have suffered serious disruption to their formal education or are disabled. The thinking is that motivation and academic performance are important but, if students have achieved Bs in the face of a disadvantaged background and without the help of educated parents, they deserve special consideration. The aim is to establish a system which is objective and out in the open. The university is devising a scheme to take into account how applicants' schools perform. "Achieving four Bs at Highers at one school may mean something different from four Bs at another school" says Sandy Hutcheson, the university's director of recruitment. "If a student is exceeding the school's average performance, that is saying something."

Whether the new system will avoid a row of the kind which dogged Bristol is debatable, particularly as the university is likely to offer places to state school applicants who have done less well on paper than those from private schools. It will certainly mean much more work for admissions tutors. At present 63 per cent of Edinburgh's students come from state schools, against a benchmark of 77 per cent. But the university says it is wary of treating the benchmark as a target in view of Scottish demographics. "You might end up being unfair to individuals," says Professor O'Shea. "You have to work with the applicant pool you have got."

The principal is referring to the fact that in the east of Scotland, where Edinburgh is located, a higher proportion attend independent schools than in the rest of Scotland – 24 per cent compared with seven to eight per cent. If the university were suddenly to turn its benchmark into a target, it could find itself embroiled in a huge public controversy.

In a quiet way, over the past decade, Edinburgh has made a real effort to find young people from lower-performing comprehensive schools and to encourage them to apply. Altogether it has seven projects on the go, the most interesting of which is "Pathways to the Professions" which was funded by Peter Lampl's Sutton Trust. It has contacted 46 state secondary schools in Edinburgh and the Lothians and encouraged pupils to consider careers in medicine or the law. After two years it has achieved some success. This year 11 offers in medicine have gone out to young people at these schools compared with two previously.

For the past 10 years another scheme, Lothian Equal Access Programme for Schools (LEAPS) has been encouraging Scottish teenagers to consider university. It runs a nine-week summer school opening their eyes to the joys of university life. In addition, a mentoring project gives support to first-year students who entered Edinburgh through one of these widening participation routes. Shortly the university will extend its efforts to local primary schools, sowing the seeds even earlier.

l.hodges@independent.co.uk

'It's been the best four years of my life'

Karen Wilson, 21, is in her final year at Edinburgh studying sociology. She never intended going to university, partly because her mother was against the idea but, as a pupil at Deans High School in Livingstone, West Lothian, she encountered the Lothian Equal Access Programme for Schools. Her older sister was encouraged to attend Edinburgh University through that programme, and Karen and her twin sister followed. Karen's grades were an A, four Bs and a D, roughly the same as other people's, she says. Now she can't speak enthusiastically enough about Edinburgh – and her mother is a convert too.

"I have adored university," says Karen. "It's been the best four years of my life. I've become much more open-minded and really ambitious. Before, when I was at school, I wanted to be a school teacher. Now I want to be prime minister."

Last year Karen, who belongs to the university Labour Club, did an internship with the investment bank UBS Warburg in the City of London, working in the department of human resources. "I discovered that I didn't really want to work for a company," she says. "It was fantastic working in human resources but I realised I wanted to work on a bigger scale doing something that really matters to me. Working for a bank is not what I want to do." Like Margaret Thatcher, Karen Wilson has her sights set on Westminster.