Weak link is the false comparison not a weak tail

In Opinion (THES, September 20) Richard Barry uses the fact that 37 engineering faculties require lower grades for admission than all but two in the humanities as evidence for the existence of a long "tail" of weak engineering faculties that somehow weaken the reputation of the remainder.

However, this ignores the large and growing body of evidence that standards at A level in chemistry, physics and mathematics -the typical qualifications held by those seeking to study engineering at university -are, in a real sense, pitched about one grade more severely than those in arts and humanities subjects.

If average A-level points scores are to be used in order to compare departments in different disciplines (surely a dubious prospect given that A-level grades are not particularly good predictors of degree class, let alone of graduate quality) then a fairer comparison would be to equate an average offer of ten A-level points for science subjects with one of 16 points for non-science subjects. Fairer still would be to give up entirely on the idea of comparisons of this sort (immortalised in Robert Wood's classic essay "Your chemistry equals my French"), which are probably meaningless, and almost certainly irrelevant.

DYLAN WILIAM Head School of Education King's College London