Thirty years ago, it would not have been unheard of for a housemaster at Westminster to ring up an Oxford college tutor and say: “I think you should take this boy.” An offer by return of post might well have been the response.
Nowadays, of course, housemaster-to-tutor telephone calls are well outside the rules, but if you want to go to Oxford or Cambridge, the path is certainly more direct if you apply from certain schools.
