The universities of Oxford and Cambridge should scrap interviews and instead pick applicants from a lottery of top-performing students, professors argue.

In Born to Rule: The Making and Remaking of the British Elite, two sociology professors called for a “radical” overhaul of the Oxbridge admissions system to break their “stranglehold on elite recruitment”.

Prof Aaron Reeves and Prof Sam Friedman, sociologists at the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics (LSE) respectively, suggested the current admissions model puts off pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.

“We therefore recommend removing the application process to Oxbridge entirely for academically-able students,” they said.

Arguing that “it is time for change”, the professors suggested the universities should instead introduce a lottery-style system to select their intake.

This would see Oxford and Cambridge randomly choose students from the top five per cent of pupils across the country based on their A-level results, they said.

The academics said a similar system had been introduced in Texas in 1997.

It guarantees Texas students who graduate in the top ten per cent of their high school class automatic admission to all state-funded universities.

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