The Office for Students has the chance to shake up Oxford and Cambridge’s baffling selection process, perhaps with a lottery

The Office for Students, the universities regulator, has announced it is reviewing the admissions system as part of its efforts to “eliminate equality gaps in higher education within 20 years”. It is a laudable ambition. Admissions are still complicated and some universities are still more difficult for poorer students to access.

Nowhere is this more true than at Oxbridge, where the baffling world of academic selection reaches the heights of complexity. So far, discussion about reforming admissions has focused on the evils of using unconditional offers and predicted grades, and on possibly allowing students to apply with their actual A-level results (PQA, or post-qualification admissions). There has been little mention of England’s two ancient universities, breeding grounds of our elites.