Oxbridge 2021: another 6 months of fretting

[DahliaMacNamara]

Will they make the grades? How will grades be awarded anyway? What the hell are Cambridge up to with that nasty little clause?

So it sounds like the Times need to print a correction to its article linked above as the article said (we now know completely wrongly):

"Its new terms state that it could withdraw places in the event of “circumstances outside the reasonable control of the university and/or your college”. This would be when “the number of applicants meeting the conditions of an offer of a place on your course exceeds the number of places available”. For those not allocated a place, Cambridge would try to find alternative colleges or courses, or let them defer their place."

Instead it should have said it might ask candidates to choose to defer (a very very different thing).

That’s just the usual sloppy journalist wanting a more interesting story line Xenia

The media, including the Times, have form for negative spin re unis in general and oxbridge in particular IME. Obviously sometimes their criticisms are correct but it's an observable phenomenon.

To be fair, the Cambridge clause does say exactly that; that if oversubscribed, the university would try to offer 1 of 4 options, which would include moving to another institution.

I'm v pleased for all offer holders if Cambridge have had to clarify that that is not the case, but I do think they have been insensitive to students, who are already living in a world of horrible uncertainty.

Bilberry the options are listed in that order for a reason and it was fairly clear to me just by reading the clause that the nuclear option would never be imposed but would be consensual.

I disagree. I think if an option is there, then it can be used.

Admissions policies need to be explicit, for any institution. What Cambridge wrote in that clause was against UCAS rules and if it wasn't what they meant, then they shouldn't have written it.

Well I read it correctly Bilberry. It's just that you're reading it in a way that wasn't intended so perhaps Cambridge should have set it out in a way that everyone could understand, then journalists wouldn't have been able to try to make something out of nothing and Cambridge wouldn't have had to spell its intention out in large letters for those who didn't get it first go.

Okay I have gone back up the thread to find the Cambridge clause

Oversubscription

1. If, as a result of circumstances outside the reasonable control of the University and/or your College, the number of applicants meeting the conditions of an offer of a place on your course exceeds the number of places available at the University or at your College, the University and your College will allocate places on a fair and reasonable basis. If you are not allocated a place at your College on that basis, the University and your College will, wherever possible, try to offer you one or more of the following options:

(i) assist you to move to another College where places are available; (ii) offer you the opportunity of deferring your place to the next academic year; (iii) offer you a place on another appropriate course; or (iv) support you in moving to another institution.

1. The University will not be liable for any loss or damage arising from any inability or failure to admit you

to the University or your College as a result of oversubscription that is outside its reasonable control. "

It does not say if you do not agree to defer we will offer you a place at Cambridge. They are now saying they meant to say that all along but I cannot see that it says that, does it? After (iv) they probably should add "However in accordance with UCAS rules if you have met the terms of your offer and do not agree to defer or take a place at another institution your place at Cambridge is guaranteed in the usual way".

I would say that it was clearly implied that they would go down the various options in the order listed and that nothing would be imposed but that those saying that they didn't want to defer and so would move institution can't expect to come back and slap Cambridge with a claim for loss of earnings etc in future years. That was what I said my reading was all along didn't I (haven't checked back). But it's the reasonable one. I think Cambridge could have been a little more obvious in its wording but some of us got there.

I think if an option is there, then it can be used.

Well, quite.

The version on the website still has the help you to bugger off elsewhere option in, but it is the weekend, I suppose, and it may not be the version with which the actual offer holders are now being presented, but if it is, there's no rush for them to accept the possibility by firming, as the deadline for offer holders' decisions is still 4 months away.

It just seems to be a very odd thing to have put in, with no indication of how it would be achieved. Guaranteeing you a place on the same course, at the same college, for 2022 entry and Giving you a place on Course Y instead of Course X, and / or a place in College B instead of College A, but still starting in 2021 are obviously totally within Cambridge's control. But getting the student a place somewhere else? Or have other universities popped up with, It's okay, Cambridge have approached us about this and we've agreed to take their overspill, on the course of the applicant's choosing, with guaranteed accommodation (even if we don't guarantee it to our own insurance entrants)?

Yes the first three options listed are clearly within Cambridge's control to offer and the fourth is there for those who don't want to accept any variation along the lines of one, two or three. And if they make that choice, the fourth, they're not to expect any success if they sue.

MarchingFrogs you've just added in the guaranteed accommodation bit all on your own.

And no - which brings me back to the point I made at the outset - a clause can't be used if unfair in the legal sense which is why my reading of the whole makes sense (ie fourth nuclear option consensual only).

Official policies cannot contain implied options. They are there precisely for those difficult corner cases. In school admissions they are very tightly legally controlled, and the absolute basic requirement is that they are precise and easy to understand. You certainly would not get away with ‘you were supposed to realise that we probably certainly possibly might not use one of them’.

I think we are all in agreement. Cambridge has now made clear you will get your place you don't like the other options (and that is UCAS rules too). I don't think that clause says that so it is just as well they clarified it.

Lol, given that one of the things I do is write policies like this I might offer Cambridge my services for future years!!

I expect that Cambridge is perfectly capable of writing clauses such as this without anyone else's help and this is was left loose quite intentionally.

And that is the point, that this sort of thing can’t be left loose.

Did anyone get out for a nice walk in the sunshine today?

DS and I had a lovely walk; lots of talking about how much he is looking forward to three years of history and how he is excited about having tutorials (he will talk endlessly about history) .

The clause was very poorly drafted. Lawyers spend a long time drafting contract terms to prevent or enable loopholes to be exploited. Whatever Cambridge’s intention was, the clause did as drafted allow them not to offer students a place if the university so desired. I don’t know how it would have worked with UCAS rules, so it’s good that they have clarified it.

Had they only wanted the first two or three options to be real possibilities, they surely wouldn’t have included the fourth one? Or they would have phrased it so that the last option would only ever be used with the student’s consent. But they didn’t.

I don’t think anyone should feel foolish for interpreting the clause in the way that it was drafted. The opposite in fact. So I disagree that posters interpreting it so were in any way wrong or misguided.

It was a bad move by Cambridge, I think. Had they not explained it, I think quite a few students would have gone with their second choice university instead.

(Another boring MN lawyer here, specialising in unfair/unenforceable contract terms ).

Yes but it's not a point everyone would universally agree on Bilberry.

I think any lawyer on the thread would think the clause crystal clear - no where does it say if the student does not like the options but has made their grades they definitely can force the university go give them a place. Cambridge were trying to do something probably in breach of UCAS rules. Clarifying it in letters is not good enough legally. They need to alter the clause to say if you do not like the options we offer you you can insist on your place.

Whatever Cambridge’s intention was, the clause did as drafted allow them not to offer students a place if the university so desired.

It was all about ability to provide places, in the event of circumstances beyond their control, not 'desire' (they've made the offers they 'desire'). This isn't about whim, it's clarifying what the options would be if something beyond their control happens - more of a Force majeure situation which could make the UCAS rules unenforceable anyway, I'd have thought?