University offers

SIR – Together with 30 or so others in November 1969, I listened to an admissions tutor telling us that we would all receive offers to study physics at University College London but that some of us would be asked to achieve just two grade Es, about as close to an unconditional offer as you could get ahead of the A-level examinations. The only requirement was that we should accept the offer above any others.

Taking such risks was not an altogether unusual practice among admissions tutors in the 1960s.

So when I read about universities making unconditional offers in order to attract students, I am unimpressed by the view that this may represent a “rush to the bottom” and that a return to rigour is needed (Leading article, August 12).

It may well be that in this highly competitive marketplace there has always been intelligent risk-taking and that the excellent international standing of our leading universities is at least in part a consequence of this. Dr Christopher Ray

Former High Master, The Manchester Grammar School Manchester