The annual cycle of school and college students applying to university, sitting their summer exams and being awarded their grades in August finally returned to normal this year after the severe disruption to delivering and grading exams caused by the pandemic. 

But a recent news story shows that some things in our university application system have evidently not returned to business as usual. 

Earlier this year, it was announced that Lucy Cavendish College at Cambridge University had become the first college at the university to admit over 90% of its students from state schools, and it also received the most diverse intake in the history of the university. 

So how did Lucy Cavendish College achieve this goal? Is their greater emphasis on state school pupils a welcome boost for social mobility, or just an example of social engineering? And should we focus so much on which students get into university rather than worrying about where students end up after university?   

Our guests today are Professor Dame Madeleine Atkins, the President of Lucy Cavendish College at Cambridge University, and David Kernohan, the Deputy Editor of Wonkhe – a higher education news site.

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