Cambridge University does not use personal statements when deciding whom to interview. Photograph: PA/Andrew Parsons

Spare a thought for those poor year 12 students who, as they traipse around university open days this summer, will be wondering just what they have to do to get into the course of their choice.

Should they concentrate on beefing up their volunteering, work experience and extracurricular activities in order to have lots to put into their Ucas personal statements in the autumn? Or should they set all else aside and focus exclusively on trying to achieve the new A* grades at A-level?

The answer, I am afraid, is not a simple one. If applicants are aiming for the University of Cambridge, they would certainly focus on the A*s rather than the personal statements. Cambridge has said it does not use personal statements when deciding whom to interview, but it does want students who achieve at least one A*.

However, not all universities take the same line. Indeed, if anything, there has been a general trend towards universities taking a broader view of the merits of applicants. The Schwartz report into university admissions in 2004 stressed that transparent and fair admissions should take account of candidates' wider achievements.

Clear criteria

The report said the first principle of fair admissions should be "transparency". In other words, applicants should know exactly how, and against which criteria, they are being assessed. The second principle should be that candidates are judged on "their achievements and their potential".

To judge "potential", the Schwartz group said universities could use a number of methods in addition to examination results, including interviews, additional entrance tests, "non-academic experiences and relevant skills", and the "educational context" in which they had achieved their qualifications. The latter does not mean that students from poorly performing schools should automatically get lower offers, but that each applicant should be treated as an individual, taking full account of the factors they may have overcome to achieve their results.

However, although the government and higher education institutions broadly welcomed the Schwartz recommendations, there are still practical problems for admissions tutors to overcome. For example, many universities say it is logistically impossible to interview all candidates.

There is also the problem of trust. As a senior admissions figure at Cambridge told a recent conference, many schools "play games". He says it is not just a "systematic over-prediction" of grades by over-enthusiastic teachers, but also a problem with references. He cites one school that wrote about two separate applicants to Cambridge colleges, insisting that each was the best Oxbridge applicant from that school for many years.

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Source: BBC