Universities don’t have unlimited places available  Universities cannot take every student who applies. They have to balance the number of applications they get with both the number of teaching staff they have and the time they need for research. In the UK, almost a third of applicants do not get places as it is, [1] and those that do often find they have less contact time with staff than they had expected. [2] Simply put, if you want to have academics doing useful research, you can’t expect them to teach all the time.  If universities have a finite number of places, it makes sense that they should be allocated to the people best suited for them. Currently, universities are so overwhelmed by demand that it isn’t possible for them to test this properly – in most cases, they will take a cursory look at predicted grades, and perhaps an interview with the candidate. Discouraging applicants would lower the stress on admissions departments, making the process more accurate. It will also allow them more leisure to reach out to and target students with the right personality, improving the quality of applications.  Forget all of the discussion as to whether or not academic courses are useful – it’s simply not practical to have everyone do them.  [1] ‘UCAS End of Cycle report 2012’, UCAS, 13 December 2012  [2] Paton, Graeme, ‘University teaching time ‘fails to rise’ despite fees hike’, The Telegraph, 15 May 2013