Oxbridge have even more questions to answer about why they’re beholden to what the algorithm says, because of how they recruit. Candidates take their own in-house tests b) are interviewed c) Colleges can see candidates’ academic records. Why were they worthy before but now now? https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1294604049342504960

This was what marked out what Worcester told me yesterday as interesting because they were wrestling with the philosophical issue at hand. What has actually changed for these candidates since the offer was made? You can credibly say nothing at all- because no exams were taken.

One Oxford college told alumni this morning that they’re worried if they did what Worcester did they’d be admitting students who might “not flourish”. Colleges are going to have to explain why they thought students would flourish when they made...

...their offer, on the basis of all the information they had at their disposal, but now withdraw them after the basis of a set of results which clearly are a deeply imperfect way of assessing merit.

In short (as I wrote yday) yes there are capacity and logistical problems for universities in accepting all their offers. But a) it’s not defensible that (because of how the algorithm works) more disadvantaged students are more likely to pay that price for those problems...

and b) universities should cite that argument first, not incredible stuff about how these results suggest students might not flourish, because in so doing it rather suggests they don’t understand what these results are and what has actually happened this year.