University tutors are being encouraged to offer places to poor students over their middle class counterparts, under new systems which flag up their applications for special consideration.In a move that critics claim filters out middle class students, admission tutors at leading institutions are being told to give interviews and make offers to working class candidates who have attended low performing schools or who live in postcodes where few go on to higher education.It comes as more universities, including Sussex, Worcester, Dundee and the University of East Anglia, have decided not to use the new A* grade at A-level in offers from 2010 amid fears that independent school pupils will win more places.Admission tutors are told that they should use their own judgement when deciding to "make standard, or slightly lower offers, to applicants who appear to have potential but whose predicated grades are lower than standard offers because of contextual factoCritics said the systems being adopted by institutions were driven by Government pressure and could represent a systematic bias against other candidates."The Government and universities are rejecting the A* because they say its effect has not been evaluated," said Geoff Lucas, the secretary of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference, which represents top private schools.
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