A “myopic focus on cherry-picking the most academically accomplished”, is how Time magazine has recently described Oxbridge’s approach to student admissions. The disparaging tone of an article, ‘Britain’s class divide: can Oxbridge solve its privilege problem?’ featured at the beginning of January has forced the publication into an embarrassing climb-down, and prompted strong criticism from both Oxford and Cambridge universities. referring to former Cambridge vice- chancellor Alison Richards’s comments that Oxbridge should not be “engines for promoting social justice”, Time suggested Oxford and Cambridge had been deliberately slow to make their intake more representative.

The article, published on the website of the popular American weekly magazine, said Oxbridge’s grip on posts in top professions was “bad news for Britain, which draws its elites from an artificially narrow pool that is largely cut of from the country at large”. Time referred to Oxbridge’s poor record at taking students from areas with low higher education participation rates, with Oxford recruiting 2.5 per cent and Cambridge 3.1 per cent from such neighbourhoods in 2010-11. Next, citing disputed data obtained by David Lammy MP, the article suggested Oxbridge was failing to admit a representative number of students from ethnic minorities.

Time pointed to a 5.3 per cent increase in state school acceptances at Cambridge in the last year and a number of other improvements, but claimed that “much of this is due to pressure from outside”, attributing these improvements to the efforts of politicians, prodding the universities in to action. The article also cautioned that, while Oxbridge has been accepting more state school students, around 90 per cent of its state intake comes from above average schools, including what it termed “elite” grammar schools.

In the days that followed, both Cambridge and Oxford made representations to the magazine, requesting changes to the article. Time was forced to publish an astonishing 545 word paragraph with “corrections”, “misstatements”, “amendments”, “mistakes” and alterations, subsequently described by The Guardian as “one of the longest, if not the longest, correction in publishing history”. This embarrassing list of edits included the scaling back of several of the article’s stronger claims, as well as the softening of the article’s language. The alterations to the article range from factual updates to questions of semantics, with words perceived to be unfavourable to Oxbridge being challenged by the universities.

Vigorously defending the university against the magazine’s allegations, Jon Beard, Cambridge’s director of undergraduate recruitment, responded that “Cambridge’s commitment to widening participation is wholehearted and of long standing”. In his letter to Time’s editors, Beard wrote: “Our commitment stems from our desire to recruit the ablest and best-qualified students with the greatest academic potential from every background. It is a matter of social responsibility and enlightened self-interest, not a consequence of external targets or political pressure.”

Oxford University has joined with Cambridge in criticising the article. Oxford’s press officer, Julia Paolitto, told Varsity the university “was very concerned about a number of inaccuracies in the initial piece in time magazine, as well as some aspects of the article that were misleading overall”. Oxford acknowledged requesting “a number of factual corrections to the article”.

In a critical letter to the magazine’s editors, seen by Varsity, Mike Nicholson, director of undergraduate admissions at Oxford, disputed the claim that the university had only had a recent conversion to access work.

“Oxford devotes more time and resources than possibly any other UK university to diversifying its intake and ensuring bright students from all backgrounds can come here, and we will continue to do so. That is not because of ‘external pressure’, and it is not only because it is the right thing to do – though it is. It is because it is entirely in the interests of a world-class university to seek out the very best talent, wherever it comes from.”

CUSU access Officer Vicky hudson sided with the universities. “The article as initially published was simply incorrect”, hudson said, “and CUSU supports the university’s response and request for corrections.”

“It is disheartening that such a widely read publication would choose to publish such an inaccurate article. Perpetuating these negative stereotypes and providing misleading information is highly damaging to the access work into which both the university and CuSu put a great deal of resources.”

in december, a series of articles in the national press highlighted the issues Oxbridge continues to face. The Independent featured one writer arguing that Oxbridge is portrayed by the media as a “nightmare-ish caricature of a place populated by arsey sloanes and unhinged tweedy tutors”,which “can easily put” state schools pupils “off applying”. But the next day another writer responded that the “rich kids stereotype its perfectly”, explaining “it is no myth, for instance, that Oxford is rammed to the very gunnels with floppy posh hair and bright red trousers, because it really is”.

Even with Time magazine’s climb-down, Oxbridge’s problematic image, whether caricature or not, seems set to remain a media favourite.