Cambridge college defends private school recruitment drive

A Cambridge college has insisted there has been “no change” to its widening participation policy after facing criticism of its efforts to target elite private schools for student recruitment. 

Senior leaders at Trinity Hall – one of the university’s oldest colleges – last month approved proposals to apply a “targeted recruitment policy” to schools including Eton, Winchester, and St Paul’s Girls, in a bid to boost the “quality” of students applying, the Guardian reported.

The strategy will see it approach around 50 independent schools to encourage students to apply for courses including music, classics and languages. 

Marcus Tomalin, Trinity Hall’s director of admissions, claimed in a memo seen by the newspaper that private school students may be becoming victims of “reverse discrimination”. 

Tomalin wrote that “the best students from such schools arrive at Cambridge with expertise and interests that align well with the intellectual demands” of the subjects.

He continued: “To ignore or marginalise this pool of applicants would risk overlooking potential offer holders who are not only exceptionally well qualified but who have been encouraged to engage critically and independently with their subjects in a way that Cambridge has historically prized.

“It is important that the crucial task of securing greater fairness in admissions does not unintentionally result in reverse discrimination.”

A spokesperson for Trinity Hall insisted there has been “no change” to its widening participation policy, and said “this modest additional activity is aimed at ensuring we get the best applications from talented students from all backgrounds”. 

“The college is very proud of the progress it has made in widening access. Average admissions from state schools at the college in the past three years has been 73 per cent and Trinity Hall admitted 20.4 per cent of its UK students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds last year, an increase on previous years.”

Both the universities of Oxford and Cambridge have long made efforts to ensure a more diverse range of applicants. But last year Cambridge saw its proportion of state school pupils accepted fall by a record amount.

In 2024, 29 per cent of the university’s intake were from private schools, compared to 71 per cent from non-private schools. This fell from 72.6 per cent in 2023.

The university previously had targets to admit at least 69 per cent of students from non-private institutions, but it moved to scrap these specific admissions targets for applicants’ school types in 2024 to focus on wider socio-economic factors.

juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com