A final word about university

I think that this topic has been more or less worked to death, but after Alison Sauer drew my attention to a few universities which she felt would be promising to those with no formal qualifications, it seemed churlish not to look into the matter. I have now been in touch with the four universities and all but one are complete duds for the purpose of the home educated young person without GCSEs, A levels or an IB.

I spoke to people at each of the universities, which were Oxford, Cambridge, St. Andrews and Nottingham Trent. I am quite a persuasive fellow, but I have to say that Oxford and Cambridge clearly thought that I was off my head for even asking about such a thing! My mention of a "well kept lab book", which Alison Sauer said would be regarded by some as far better evidence of scientific understanding than an A level in the relevant subject, provoked, I am sorry to say, laughter at all the universities except for Nottingham Trent. I followed these enquiries up with emails, so that we would have something more than my own recollections of the conversations. Oxford said;

In almost every case, we will very much be looking for specific qualifications at a high level, although we do accept a wide variety of possible qualifications

In the email, we are told, 'in almost every case', which seems to suggest room for manoeuvre, but when I spoke to the woman, she told me she was not aware of a single case. Cambridge were even more definite. They said;

It is unlikely that any of the Colleges at Cambridge would consider an application from anybody who did not have some form of formal qualifications. Application to Cambridge is extremely competitive, and colleges need to be able to ascertain whether or not an applicant would be able to cope with the very academic courses that Cambridge offers. Without formal qualifications it would be incredibly difficult to judge this, and any applicant without examination results would be competing on a very high level with other applicants who would be offering some form of examination system.

This seems pretty certain to me. When I spoke to the guy there, he had never heard of anybody getting in without the accepted qualifications. St Andrews were also definitely sure that nobody had got in without qualifications, at least in the last few years. Which leaves Nottingham Trent.

Nottingham Trent University is what is know euphemistically as a 'new' university. It was until 1992 a technical college or polytechnic or something or that sort. It must not under any circumstances be confused with Nottingham University, which is, and has always been, a university. Now I don't think that anybody could accuse me of being at all snobbish or elitist, certainly not about matters of education, but I have to observe that a degree from Nottingham Trent is broadly equivalent in value to the old-style CSE............at about Grade 8. I was accordingly not particularly surprised to find that Nottingham Trent are prepared to be a little more flexible than some of the, shall we say, older universities. Not for Physics mind, which seems to be about the only proper academic subject they teach there. But for some of the courses, there is a distinct possibility that one could get in on a portfolio or even just by having favourable past experience. I had a long chat with a woman there and she specifically mentioned Horticulture: Garden design and Fashion Design as courses which one might possibly be able to join without any formal qualifications. She certainly remembered more than one person who had done so in the past. She was equally sure that nobody would get onto the Physics course without at least a GCSE in the subject and almost certainly an A level as well.

So the situation does indeed seem to be, as I have said all along, that for a traditional, academic course such as Physics, then even at the modern universities, you will be out of luck. The one ray of hope is that some universities, even Oxbridge, are prepared to consider the first year of a BA course at another university as being equivalent to three A levels. I understand that this would depend upon both the university and the course. I suppose in theory that this could be done of Open University points, but I am guessing that you would need at least 120 to pull this off and even then you would stand more chance with A levels.