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How a single mother with just four GCSEs beat A-grade pupils to a place at Bristol

Posted on: Wednesday, 12 March 2003, 06:00 CST

How a single mother with just four GCSEs beat A-grade pupils to a place at Bristol

Source: Daily Mail - London

A single mother with no A-levels has beaten thousands of privately educated students to win a place at Bristol University.

Divorcee April Baker, 28, has four C-grade GCSEs and an HND in computer science.

Her acceptance follows a string of cases of outstanding public school or top state school pupils being rejected, thrusting Bristol to the centre of a national controversy over accusations of social engineering.

Public school heads have accused the institution of adopting quotas which favour lower achievers over the best qualified candidates.

But Miss Baker was adamant last night that she won her place on the computer science degree course on merit.

'I was really shocked when I got offered a place. But no matter what anyone says, I deserved it. I worked hard to get in.

'I'm a single mum and was on income support when my husband left me but every time you try to get up the ladder, you are just beaten down. I think it's wrong.' Miss Baker, of Tuffley, Gloucester, left St Peter's comprehensive in Gloucester at 16 with C-grade GCSEs in combined science and business studies.

She returned a year later to retake maths and English, achieving the borderline C grade in these too.

In 1991 she trained as an optical technician in London.

But when her marriage broke down she decided to change her career and enrolled on a two - year HND computer science course at Gloucester College of Art and Technology.

It was there that teachers encouraged her to apply to Bristol and after a nerve-wracking interview, she was accepted.

Now in her first year, she commutes to Bristol from Gloucester every day, dropping off her children at the university creche. She fits in 16 hours work a week to help pay her mortgage and support her three children Emily, seven, Thomas, six, and three-year-old William.

'I took a two-year HND course in computer science and got distinctions, and that is why I got into Bristol,' she said. 'I've got to do a maths A-level this year to go on to my second year, which is extra study on top of my degree and which was one of the conditions of getting in.

'It annoys me when people say I have been given priority because I am not a private school pupil. I have worked hard. That's what I have been judged on.

'Why shouldn't I be given a place? Why should private school pupils be given every single opportunity in life?

My parents couldn't afford to send me to private school.' A spokesman for Bristol University said its admissions policy dictated recognition of academic potential as well as results, allowing those without the advantages of a formal education to succeed. ' The question is, are they people who can cope with the demands of an undergraduate course and thrive at university?

'Our computer science department is one of the top in the country. Everyone there is exceptionally able. There is never a question of us admitting a student who is weak.' He denied that the university favoured applicants from state schools. 'Bristol has one of the highest proportions of students from independent schools in the country,' he said.

However, the institution has turned down scores of academically brilliant, privately educated pupils without explanation.

The Daily Mail has highlighted more than a dozen cases including Rudi Singh, a gifted student at King Edward's School, in Edgbaston, Birmingham, who was rejected by Bristol, only to win a place at Cambridge.

Sushila Phillips, 18, daughter of recently appointed chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality Trevor Phillips, was turned down despite having an exemplary record at the pounds 12,000a-year Westminster School.

The university's admissions policy has seen the proportion of pupils selected from private schools fall from 42 per cent in 1998 to 39 per cent.

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