The US admissions scandal: have any mediocre students ever ended up at Oxbridge?

What’s the best path to a top education in the UK if your grades fall short? History suggests family ties, a private education and a lot of rugby practice

It is hard to say what’s most epic about the US university admission scandal, between the lies (faked special needs certificates, young slackers Photoshopped into sporting triumph); the money involved (huge sums, often more than $1m (£758,000), which parents are said to have paid to score their kids scholarships in fields wherein they have no merit); and the sight of all those famous people, their heads floating in a limbo-confusion, as society decides how much damage this peculiar business will do to their careers.

“I don’t understand,” UK academic Prof David Andress remarks: “Why these rich people didn’t just make strategic donations, perfectly legally, to achieve the same end …” You couldn’t get away even with making a donation in return for a place in the UK, where it would be so unusual as to be immediately seized upon. But that doesn’t mean you cannot blag your way into the right university; you just need to start further up the pipeline …

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Uy9iV6