FURTHER to my article in Monday's edition of The Bolton News about league tables, I present a classic illustration of what is referred to in the piece as "no account is taken of prior admission experience" came into sharp focus.

Many of my friends' 17-year-old children, most of whom are studying at some of the academically best (often private) schools in Britain, are preparing, on 'study leave', for their A2 A level final exams.

The comfortable homes of these privileged few throughout the country are dedicated to their studies, spending, in my own children's experience, upwards of 10 hours per day on uninterrupted revision; often, if not always, with nutritious food on tap prepared for them by doting and committed parents.

Is is surprising that such cohorts, from the academically strong schools, achieve the highest A level results?

Similarly, it is no surprise that they make progress ready to succeed in the elite universities which ration admission by selective interview to secure their next crop of the very best to make the job of the university itself much easier, and thus league table success is assured? (The very tables which give credit for high a level scores on entry, ultimate degree honours grades and of course employability).

Contrast if you would the young woman (call her X) similarly aged 17, but from a working class low income family and studying at the local academically poor 'comprehensive school' for the same A2 A level exams whom I actually met by chance this morning.

She was on her way for her second eight hour shift this weekend (as is usual for her) as a cleaner at the local NHS hospital.

At a time when X's privileged comparator (but richer) students are putting in another well organised and well paced revision session, X is earning the money she believes that she will need to support herself during her studies at the university she aspires to study at in September.

Is it any surprise that her likely A level grades will not meet with the expectations of the highly selective universities?

Yet for me she, above the others, deserves and will have earned her place; probably at what one of the league table calls one of the 'worst universities in Britain'.

At the proud University of Bolton, (who some try to categorise as a 'struggling university' at the bottom of the tables) we have some of the most able hard working individuals who we take, like student X, in their hundreds each year, from circumstances such as Student X and who then triumph.

Need I say more?

George Holmes

Vice Chancellor

University of Bolton