To shake hands or not to shake hands, that is the question. Along with the conundrum of whether you turn up wearing a suit, or go all out Oxford in brogues and cords, clutching a teddy bear named Aloysius under your arm in homage to Sebastian Flyte. Or perhaps all you need is a conspicuously well-thumbed copy of Das Kapital just to show that you’ve been there, done that, and not yet turned eighteen… Oxford had a milestone moment when it recently published a press release detailing sample questions. Good move given that it’s easy for prospective students to feel fazed by the grandeur of a university, whose reputation precedes it by nine solid gold centuries. Libby Purves wrote elegantly in the Times this week about the need for the state sector to encourage more children to have a bash: to understand that they are as entitled to try for a place as anyone else. That said, even students...