The race for a place at Oxbridge traditionally starts earlier than any other university, with sixth formers expected to submit their Ucas applications by October 15 rather than January 25 for most courses. This year, however, Cambridge Assessment Admissions Testing (Caat), which runs admissions tests for some of the most popular courses at both universities, has brought forward the registration date for its exams by two weeks to the end of September. Cambridge applicants who have to sit these tests, which are a crucial part of the selection process, will also take them earlier in October than usual. Some fear that giving students just weeks after returning from summer break to take the leap and apply to these highly competitive universities could mean that some students at state schools that don’t focus on sending students at Oxbridge they will miss the boat. Lee Elliot Major, professor of social mobility at the University of Exeter, said: “In this increasingly competitive race for degree places, we need to be absolutely sure that we are not inadvertently creating new barriers for disadvantaged students who already face an uneven playing field with several ways. .” Dr Rohan Agarwal, founder of UniAdmissions, a commercial tutoring service that supports students applying to Oxbridge, said: “We have people contacting us who are panicking. I really feel for these students, especially those who didn’t get good advice from their school.” Students must take Caat tests for subjects such as medicine, natural sciences, engineering and computer science at Cambridge, as well as medicine, classics, mathematics and philosophy at Oxford. Agarwal’s company tells applicants that these tests could be “the deciding factor” in whether they get a position. He said: “If you’re at a state school and your whole preparation for a Cambridge test is now just four weeks, that’s suddenly very difficult.” He added: “When tryouts were after half-time, you could spend the holidays cramming in at the last minute.” Trainee barrister Jack Bailey, who grew up in Rhyl, one of Wales’ most deprived towns, and graduated first from Cambridge last year, said neither of the two comprehensive schools he attended had a long history of sending students to Oxbridge. She decided to apply at the last minute “because if I didn’t I might always wonder”. “My head of sixth form spoke to me in September about applying and by then I had just four weeks to get my application together. It was manageable, but it was definitely a bit difficult,” he said. “Your deadline may be more urgent, but everyone else is also preparing for university applications at the same time and teachers are under a lot of pressure.” Last year, Bailey took to social media to offer help to working-class students to apply to Cambridge and received a “great response”. He said students “not at the kind of school where the teachers guide you through the entrance tests” would probably find them quite intimidating. Earlier this year, Stephen Toope, Cambridge’s vice-chancellor, said: “We need to continue to make it very clear that we intend to reduce over time the number of people from independent backgrounds in places like Oxford and Cambridge.” In October, Cambridge will welcome a record number of state-educated students, 72.5% of the cohort. Mike Nicholson, deputy head of education services at Cambridge, said it was “not ideal” for the tests to fall at half-term, forcing schools to reopen so students could sit them. He said students should not worry about not having enough preparation time and no one should feel they need to pay the fees to get in. Candidates are not intended to revise specific subjects. It’s about how you apply your knowledge of what you’ve already learned to unfamiliar questions.” An Oxford spokesman said it was “working on how best to support any student who is unable to register by the new deadline”.
