The Elusive Search for the Best and the Brightest: Many Are Called, Few Are Chosen

All prestigious clubs will control their membership - who joins and how they join, and it is no surprise that college control of the admissions process is integral to the collegial tradition. To be an undergraduate at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge is to be a member of a college. While this involves very pragmatic considerations, most notably that college membership requires the payment of college fees, more than money is at stake. If a university is truly collegial then all its members should have dual allegiances, to belong both to the University and to a college. Without such a requirement rapid polarisation into separate and potentially hostile camps is not difficult to imagine.