TOP universities are to step up efforts to “socially engineer” their intake amid evidence that attempts to attract more applicants from poor families have had only limited success.

Those involved include Durham, which has announced “urgent” action to raise the proportion of students from “lower social classes”.

Others — including Glasgow, Manchester, Sheffield and York – have said that for the first time they will use information on whether an applicant’s parents attended university to help them decide whether to offer a place.

Universities have spent millions in attempts at “widening participation” – awarding more places to applicants from state schools and deprived backgrounds. However, documents released under the Freedom of Information Act show some of these schemes are faltering.

The papers show that at Bristol one programme has failed to yield a single successful applicant out of 117 who took part. At Sussex University the dropout rate for students through “access” schemes is 50% higher.

Leading universities have long been under heavy pressure from Labour to curb the dominance of independent schools which take more than 40% of places at Oxbridge, despite educating just 7% of the population. In 2000 Gordon Brown, then chancellor of the exchequer, described it as an “absolute scandal” that Oxford had not offered a place to Laura Spence, a comprehensive pupil from Tyneside.

The measures used to widen the social mix range from publicity campaigns in state schools to complex points systems to compensate applicants who have been badly taught.

Oxford, where 47% of students are from private schools, is trying to increase its state school applicants by 270 a year.

Cambridge has a target of reaching 60% of students coming from state schools by 2010. It has hit 59% thanks to measures ranging from encouraging more applications to giving extra points to pupils from poorly performing schools.

However, Professor Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education Research at Buckingham University, said he was opposed to “cooking the books”.

“I’ve never seen widening access as a worthwhile objective in its own right,” said Smithers.

“The key thing for universities is ensuring they are admitting those in the best position to benefit from their courses while ensuring no one misses out because of their circumstances.”

The released documents detail the limited success of many of the schemes being employed by universities.

An admissions strategy recently passed by Durham, whose vice-chancellor is Chris Higgins, says: “The proportion of applicants from the state sector is declining each year . . . we need to take action urgently.”

It calls for the employment of “sharper tools” to attract state school applicants. Already, candidates with high GCSE grades are treated more favourably if they attend poor schools. Such measures may now be extended.

The pressure is continuing to build. This autumn the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service for the first time asked candidates whether their parents attended university.

While some institutions have said they will use this information to help to decide whether candidates deserve favourable treatment, others will not. Reading University said: “We do not believe it [parental education] should have any bearing.”

At Bristol 117 school pupils attended Higher Education Summer Schools, funded by the European Union and the government. None won a place there, although other such schemes at Bristol were more successful.

At Sussex an analysis of dropout rates found that while overall 10.3% of students gave up degrees early, this rose to 15.8% among those who had entered through “access” programmes.

Universities are often torn between contradictory aims. Minutes of an Exeter University admissions meeting say that some schools need “a leg up” but a “delicate balance” has to be struck between raising standards and widening participation.

Universities contacted this weekend denied discrimination. They said schemes helped to ensure that they did not miss out on bright applicants simply because of social background.

Carolyn Fowler, acting registrar at Durham, said its falling proportion of state school applicants could be because the university was “incredibly competitive” to get into.

“Candidates from schools that do not send many students here may assume that it is easier to get in somewhere else,” she added.

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