Students say their tutors fail them

STUDENTS' QUALITY of life has deteriorated sharply during a decade of university expansion, according to a survey of students from leading private schools.

Almost a quarter of students meet their tutor at best only once every three weeks, and 4 per cent never see their tutors at all.

A survey of 6,400 former pupils carried out by the Girls' Schools Association and the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference found that a quarter were never taught in a group of fewer than 14 students.

Just a third said work was set and marked at least once a week. Some said it was never marked.

Dr Philip Cheshire, head of Warwick School and co-chair of the schools' working party on universities, said: "The findings raise big questions about whether enough money is being spent to allow students to have enough tutorial support."

Students also had worries about safety. One said: "Fireworks and rocks hitting your window on the eighth floor can be annoying." Another said of her accommodation: "It's disgusting, next to a hostel full of drug addicts and thieves." And a third reported: "Even the rats go out in pairs."

Students' workload varied sharply depending on both their subject and their university, with Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial College, London, demanding the most.

A second survey by the working party, of 12,500 private-school pupils who applied to university last autumn, found that interviewing standards were variable and sometimes eccentric.

Some interviews lasted only two minutes and applicants for one university course were thrown an apple as they came through the door.

Other candidates were summoned for an interview and treated to the university's sales pitch.

Tony Evans, head of King's College School, Wimbledon, said: "Many interviewers are under great pressure, dealing with huge numbers and without necessarily having been trained."

Although most candidates' experience of applying to university was good, there were exceptions. The number of reports of racial prejudice was 24, more than three times that for the same survey last year. All but one of these concerned the highly competitive subject of medicine.

There was also one complaint of sexual prejudice, from a woman who was greeted by the comment: "You seem to be a bit of a slapper."

Mr Evans said there was increasing evidence that the quality of pupils' GCSEs rather than their A-levels was the deciding factor in whether candidates were offered places on the most popular courses.

For subjects such as medicine, admissions tutors were simply totting up the number of A*s applicants had scored at GCSE. Mr Evans added:"It is very sad. In medicine, for example, it is not necessarily best to pick candidates on the basis of the A*s they scored at 16. There are other human qualities which need to be assessed."

Schools reported 80 examples of "golden hellos" offered by universities - ranging from a pounds 2,000 bursary for engineering applicants who scored two A grades and a B at A-level, to the promise of a free pen and carrier bag for students entering another engineering course.

UNIVERSITIES MAKING THE GRADE

How former independent school pupils rate the universities, in rank order.

Top for accommodation:

Leeds Metropolitan;

Warwick; St Andrews; Kingston; Cambridge.

Top for recreational facilities:

Warwick; Loughborough; Glasgow; Bath; Birmingham.

Top for safety:

Lancaster; Kingston; St Andrews; Imperial College, London; Aberystwyth.

Top for food:

Plymouth University of the West of England; Nottingham Trent; Oxford Brookes; Aberystwyth.

Examples of subjects with heaviest workload:

Architecture;

Biochemistry;

Chemistry;

Engineering.

Subjects with lightest workload:

Accountancy and Finance; French; History of Art; Politics.