Letter: When A-grades are just not good enough

Sir: I am sure we are all very sorry that Stella Faulkner was rejected by the five universities to which she applied ('How good must you be?', 13 May). But your correspondent, Sarah Strickland, was so anxious to discover Byzantine conspiracies by admissions tutors (who follow 'gentlemanly rules' and are obsessed by their rivalry with tutors in other universities) that she missed the two crucial points.

First, many universities, including some of the five universities mentioned, have colossal numbers of applications these days, part-icularly for subjects such as English.

Second, both universities and Ucca publish detailed information about numbers of places, numbers of applications and normal offers. Had Ms Faulkner's advisors examined that information carefully, they would immediately have discovered that her predicted grades were almost certainly too weak for the universities to which she intended to apply.

Yours sincerely,

T. E. WILKERSON

Reader in Philosophy

Departmental Admissions Tutor

University of Nottingham

13 May