Autumn. Sixth-formers are sweating over university applications and the “personal statement”, that hideous introduction to the grown-up world of self-promoting spin. Innumerable websites sell readymade ones: my favourite begins “Whenever I have set a goal in life, my mind has always drifted to the example of Lester Wunderman . . .” You can even download a matrix saying “I have spent many hours reading the works of [names of authors] . . .” as if anybody who really had would need help saying so.

But overlaying it all is the usual poisonous smog of bitterness over “top” universities, primarily Oxford and Cambridge. There certainly is a problem: the latest report from those excellent stirrers at the Sutton Trust showed that a hundred elite schools — only 22 of them state schools — account for a third of the intake. This was immediately interpreted by idle, chippy commentators as private schools being “favoured” by those universities. Will Hutton, misquoting the figures to say that only 2, not 22, were state schools, wrote a class-war diatribe accusing “biased” dons of “recruiting in their own image” and schools of exploiting “deep networks . . . to schmooze”.

This journalistic response is reminiscent of Gordon Brown’s ill-informed rant about Laura Spence (beaten to a medic place by several other state-school candidates). It is easy, it is enjoyable, it panders to the legend of posh, tortoise-faced dons sneering at chavs (although most of today’s tutors probably came through state education in the days of grammar schools). It also gives no credit to the report’s affirmation of the “huge effort” made by the universities to widen their intake.

Look at it properly, and more solid reasons for this discrepancy emerge. For one thing, nobody can let in a candidate who doesn’t apply. State school applications to Oxford and Cambridge have fallen in the past three years by nearly 5 per cent. Of students with three A grades, far more independent pupils apply; when 75 per cent of Cambridge applicants are from “upper or middle classes”, no wonder more of them get in.

And who is putting pupils off applying? Often, their schools. A recent National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) survey of teachers who advise on university application showed that many wrongly believe that Oxbridge costs more, and ignore information about bursaries. Eighty per cent said that “able students from disadvantaged areas would find it difficult to cope socially . . . the teachers questioned were operating under considerable misconceptions about the backgrounds of students at Oxford and Cambridge”.

The Sutton Trust report reiterates the problem. Go — as I did this summer — to their Cambridge summer school and you find bright state students telling you that teachers were so unenthusiastic they had to ask several before they found one even to sign the application. Visit — as I have also done — a middling comprehensive sixth form to talk about journalism and you may be told, as I was: “Don’t mention Oxbridge . . . we don’t encourage them to apply, it’s setting them up to fail.”

This is toxic, and perpetuates social injustice. The “pushy” ethos of elite schools may be unattractive, but at least it does not dissuade brave kids from aiming high and chancing their arm at the risk of a knockback. Inverted snobbery is as bad as the other kind. The fact that Oxford and Cambridge conduct interviews — and should be praised for this laborious carefulness — is another cited reason why many teachers avoid them. The forms have to be in earlier: it’s extra work.

Read on in the Sutton report, and other inconvenient truths emerge. Elite schools’ pupils may “demonstrate a deeper and broader understanding of their subject beyond that required to achieve the top exam grades”. They are also more likely to be doing shortage academic subjects — such as physics and languages — needed by top universities. Sutton says firmly that its report “should not be read as being in any way critical of this level of excellence”. But face it: if a school advises a bright girl (a real example) to opt for drama, tourism and media instead of French, history and English or physics, maths and chemistry, then she is not likely to make it on to an Oxford or Cambridge course. You can’t blame the admissions dons for that. You can, on the other hand, blame education ministers for not providing enough science teachers, and for creating a league table system that tempts schools to push the fluffier subjects.

So what does the Sutton Trust report suggest, apart from its own successful summer schools that break the ice for both pupils and teachers? Well, it wants early intervention, to raise the aspirations of younger children. It wants better guidance over subject choices, and more universal teaching of shortage subjects like maths, science and languages. It wants to “spread good practice in preparing students with breadth and depth of skills”.

It wants, in other words, to make the majority of clever students not only keen to try, but fit to do so. The angry populism which demands that top universities adapt themselves to a defective education system is nowhere in the Sutton Trust report, nor in that of the NFER. It is all very well to suggest — as the Government is doing — that private schools earn their charitable status by “coaching” state pupils for interview. Fine. The universities are already trying: Cambridge sends out DVDs about it. But interview coaching is not magic: if your A-level subjects are wrong, your horizons narrowed to exam- factory levels and your teachers sneer at “posh” universities and say you won’t fit in, then an hour with Mr Chips of St Toffs won’t help you.

So yes, there is a big problem with class balance at elite universities. But no, you can’t shuck all the blame on to “schmoozing” schools and “biased” dons. It’s lazy, it’s unfair, it won’t help.

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