By Glen Owen, Education Correspondent

OXFORD and Cambridge are turning their back on A levels and reintroducing their own entrance papers after being overwhelmed by candidates with top grades.

A new two-hour paper for medical students, to be introduced this autumn at both universities, will be used as the template for entry tests in a range of other subjects. The move follows last week’s rise in the A-level pass rate, which has produced a record number of students with straight A grades.

The universities have also held meetings with other members of the Russell Group — an elite group of vice-chancellors representing the top 19 higher education institutions — to discuss rolling it out around the country. It represents a concerted effort by admissions tutors to find an alternative to A levels as a means of selecting students.

The Biomedical Admissions Test (BMAT) consists of a 60-minute test of aptitude and skills, a 30-minute test of scientific knowledge and a 30-minute writing task. It is intended to identify those students with the most potential.

Colleges often produce their own short, informal test papers before interviews, but this is the first attempt by the two oldest institutions to reintroduce a single, university-wide examination. It will be taken by pupils at their schools in November, for entry the following year.

Top universities want to attract the top 1 or 2 per cent of the ability range: this summer, the pass rate rose to 95.4 per cent, with 21.6 per cent of papers receiving an A grade. The number of straight A candidates has more than doubled over the past decade, prompting criticism from those who believe the system has been “dumbed down”.

The surge in top grades has also placed the Oxbridge interview system under intense strain, and led to growing allegations of injustice. On Friday, Tsz Fok, a pupil at Solihull School in the West Midlands, became the latest complainant when he criticised Cambridge for rejecting him, despite winning seven A grades and two B grades in his A-levels. The university has stressed that it is not necessary to amass multiple A grades — it would prefer candidates to get just three, but know the subjects well.

The University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES), which developed the BMAT, said the new test was designed to be adapted to other subjects.

Susan Stobbs, the director of admissions for the Cambridge colleges, has been working closely with Oxford over the new procedures. At Cambridge, law, computer science and Oriental studies are next in line for the tests; at Oxford, consultations are under way with the departments of law and PPE.

“We do not wish to overburden candidates, but we are faced with the problem that the national examinations are not helping us all that much,” said Ms Stobbs. “We need to see if we can refine our methods. We are looking very actively at this and would welcome an open debate.”

Cambridge abandoned its entrance papers in 1987, followed by Oxford in 1995. The universities were responding to pressure from some head teachers, who had argued that the system unfairly advantaged carefully-coached pupils from the independent sector. They also claimed that preparations for the papers took too much time out of A-level studies.

The new examination, which is also being used to sift applicants to the medical school at University College London, was developed during three years of trials at Cambridge. The first students to take the pilot tests have just completed their finals, and their results are currently being analysed.

The test is being used in medical faculties first because admissions tutors there have the greatest difficulty in distinguishing between applicants: the medical school at Cambridge received 1,157 applications this year for 278 places, most of whom had perfect A-level scores.

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