There’s been rampant growth in unconditional offers for university places

I wonder if it’s too soon to write the eulogy for conditional offers of a place at university? An unconditional offer of a place at a university of your choice reminds me of Japanese knotweed – once a rare thing – now rampant in the land and popping up every time you read an article about university entrance. Commonplace, in fact.

I understand that most gardeners would say the knotweed is a bad thing in the garden, an alien beast, and its invasion marks a radical change in the garden. I wonder if that will happen to the universities which have jumped aboard the unconditional-offer gravy train? Will they find themselves with large numbers of students with mediocre grades taking a very relaxed approach to their studies because it was easy enough to get in, and now you’re there, it’s no sweat doing well – look how many students get first-class degrees now, way more than 20 years ago, chill man, let’s start a rock band, ’cos you gotta find something to fill the days, actually you could get a few shifts in a fast food outlet…