Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #honourtheoffer
Most recents (3)
🧵 As we race towards the end of a really tough year I thought I’d do a thread for the campaigners - the people who believe we can organise our way past any problem. We’re normally right and that’s both our superpower and our greatest weakness. This year we hit a wall. Hard.
I don’t think the activist community gave ourselves a whole heap of time to process, we just got to work. I love us for it, but if you’re trying to carve out some time to think about the year and campaigns ahead here are some resources and reflections in the hope they help.
This is one of the best bits of analysis I read all year, about what changemakers need to learn about power. If you’re in organising, philanthropy, politics, advocacy or think tanks I think you’ll like it a lot. niskanencenter.org/what-democrats…
Applications to Cambridge these days come with a certain amount of contextual information. This lets admissions tutors know, for example, if applicants come from a school with particularly low GCSE grades or from which very few students have applied to Oxford or Cambridge before.
This info is used to generate what are called "flags" on applications, to highlight students for whom this contextual information should be taken into account:
undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/applying/conte…
undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/applying/conte…
Now here's the thing: I know it may be practially impossible to #HonourTheOffer for every Cambridge applicant who has missed their grades in the #AlevelShambles. However, I believe Cambridge can and should offer places to students whose applications included contextual flags.
This is correct. Universities and colleges have the discretion to admit all offer-holding students despite this mess. Yes, it will be a challenge due to over-offering. But overseas graduate numbers will be down this year, perhaps longterm, so it’s a problem that could be solved.
If logistical problems (eg accommodation) really were impossible to overcome, then make offers for 2021 entry. Yes, a percentage of students not getting their grades is built into the admissions process. But the exam system has failed and there’s a pandemic on. #HonourTheOffer
And in terms of logistics certainty now, with 7 weeks in hand, would surely be vastly preferable to a protracted apppeals process that could wind up with a very similar outcome?
