Mary Dejevsky: You need more than just good A-levels for Oxford

It is that time of year again: the first chill of autumn, the national trauma of A-level results – and the howls of indignation about who did not get into Oxford. This year's poster girl for the unjustly excluded is 19-year-old Anastasia Fedotova, Ms Fedotova, who was born in Russia and is deaf, achieved (I think that is the term) six A-levels at grade A; but she will not be joining the crocodile of begowned matriculands filing through the Sheldonian in October. Her applications to Brasenose and Christ Church colleges were rejected.

Ms Fedotova follows in the disgruntled footsteps of Laura Spence, whose perceived handicap was to have been educated at a state comprehensive. Her rejection by Magdalen College two years ago, despite the highest of recommendations and a clean sweep of top A-level grades, became a political scandal that brought out all our inverted snobbery. Ms Spence crossed the Atlantic to Harvard, leaving a miasma of bad feeling in her wake.

This August, the flak has been flying towards Oxford not just from rejected students (and their parents and headteachers), but from senior academics, unhappy with the direction they say that British universities are taking. Their unlikely standard-bearer is Richard Jenkyns, a classics professor who is about to exchange the scrub of Oxford's Port Meadow for what he believes will be the leafier groves of Boston University. He says he is fed up with government regulation and the low standard of first-year undergraduates. He accuses the Government of being confused about what higher education is for and adds that many colleagues are contemplating a similar move.

Such is the aura of Oxford that complaints like those of Ms Fedotova and Professor Jenkyns spawn a host of supporting anecdotes, from both sides of the college gate. Those long ago rejected by Oxford rail at unfairness. Some of the fortunate say in wonderment that they cannot imagine how they got in, as they failed half their A-levels or took none at all. Others denounce the teaching, singling out lazy or incompetent tutors who turn up drunk, if at all.

Now there is some truth in these views, but not the whole truth. As one who did get into Oxford and a graduate, as it happens, of the college (Lady Magaret Hall) that Professor Jenkyns is making such a fuss about leaving, I feel honour-bound to speak out in Oxford's defence.

A large part of the problem stems from the Government's use of targets as the sole measure of educational success. This has led pupils, parents and teachers to believe that the more As, the better the chance of admission to Oxford or Cambridge. Unfortunately, that is not true. Neither Oxford nor Cambridge needed the recent report by two London university professors to know that A-levels are not a foolproof guide to future academic success.

For years, Oxford and Cambridge ignored A-levels, setting their own entrance exam with interviews. No one had any illusion then that three, four or even six As at A-level would guarantee a place. Oxbridge was fickle. That was part of its attraction. Schools that knew how Oxbridge worked also knew that it was worth entering some oddballs and "characters" along with their "swots". You never quite knew who college tutors would see as "Oxbridge material". You could, rarely, go up to Oxford with no A-levels at all.

Of course, that system was unfair. But it was not as unfair as often believed. Schools that offered extra tuition for the entrance exams gave their pupils a better chance. The exam also gave the less formally tutored a chance to show what they could do. School coursework and externally marked A-levels do not have that flexibility. And with so many now scoring A grades, how is a university to judge who would best benefit from what it can offer?

One despicable aspect of old-style Oxbridge entrance was that exceptions could be made for the well-bred or well-connected. As the rejection of Euan Blair showed this year, that is less prevalent now – and a good thing, too. But the corollary is that others miss a chance that might have come their way under a more flexible system.

The use of A-levels as the main gauge of ability has other effects. It is one reason why the social background of Oxford entrants has narrowed again after widening in the Sixties and Seventies. It is also part of what Richard Jenkyns was complaining about when he says that first-year undergraduates are worse prepared than before. Oxford and Cambridge have always had a suspicion of overtrained memories that mask unquestioning minds. Six A grades in their view may be evidence of an exceptional memory and not much more.

Professor Jenkyns's hopes for better times at Boston, however, may be vain. If he thinks he will be blissfully free of directives and paperwork, he has another think coming. Nor will his students necessarily be better prepared. Affirmative action means that they may represent a broader social base, but also a broader spectrum of achievement, with a good sprinkling of the rich and privileged. How else did George W Bush get into Harvard? Mr Jenkyns will also be subject to pressures of which Oxford is still happily innocent: to inflate grades to maintain his, and the university's, scores – and its fees.

Oxford's misfortune is to have slipped between two eras: the old paternalistic age in which it was comfortable and the new, more standardised one in which it is not. But its admissions operation, like its college and tutorial system, still has much to recommend it. The good news for Ms Fedotova is that Oxford has invited her to reapply this year.

m.dejevsky@independent.co.uk