By Mike Baker BBC education correspondent

Is so, listen to this, from the head of one of Britain's elite universities.

"It's absolutely crazy that we admit students to university on the basis of predicted, rather than actual results."

In typically trenchant style, that is the view of Sir Colin Campbell, vice-chancellor of the University of Nottingham.

As the newly-formed taskforce on university admissions prepares to start work, this view could carry some weight. Sir Colin is, after all, a senior member of that committee.

The main purpose of the taskforce is to restore confidence in the university admissions process.

It is charged with recommending a set of admissions principles to be adopted by all universities with the aim of demonstrating the fairness and transparency of the way applicants are selected.

Confusion

After the recent complaints by independent school head teachers about admissions at Bristol and Edinburgh universities, there would appear to be a job to do.

Whether or not these complaints were fair, there clearly is confusion over just how universities decide between applicants.

The selection process at most universities is a mysterious black box. The applications go in via Ucas, and they come out as "conditional offers" to students.

Since the vast majority of 18 year olds apply before they have taken their A-levels, everyone is stabbing in the dark.

The students must apply without knowing how good their grades will be and the universities must make offers in a similar vacuum. It is the campus version of ITV's Blind Date.

You can almost hear Cilla now: "So Admissions Tutor, will you take candidate A who did well at AS-level but who may have reached their peak, or Candidate B who did less well at AS-levels but is now responding well to the higher challenge of A2s?"

It is just as difficult for the applicants. Will the under-confident, but very able student risk going for the university whose prospectus says it requires 2As and a B? Or will they set their sights lower to avoid rejection?

Students who subsequently get top grades may regret not having tried for a more prestigious place. If they had applied after the results were known they might have done so.

Rejections

So the university admissions maze is partly guesswork for both the students and the admissions tutors.

The University of Nottingham receives about 50,000 applications for some 5,000 undergraduate places each year. Like most universities today it cannot manage to interview all candidates.

So tutors make their decisions on the basis of a number of factors: GCSE and AS-level grades, predicted A-level grades, head teachers' recommendations and the applicants' personal statements on the Ucas forms.

Is this really the best way to decide which are the most able, and most appropriate, students for that university or that course?

The GCSE and AS results are at least hard facts. However they are based on examinations taken well over a year before students start university.

They do not show how students have done on the more testing, second half of the A-level, which probably provides a better guide to university performance.

Eloquence

But what of the other criteria? How objective are they? Predicted A-level grades may be optimistic, realistic or pessimistic.

Some students may have reached their peak at AS-level, others may respond to the challenge of the tougher A2 and go on to improve on their AS-level performance.

Similarly, there must be some doubt about the objectivity of both the head teacher's report and the applicant's personal statement.

Head teachers are under pressure to get as many students as possible into the best universities. It is the "unique selling point" of many independent schools.

So some head teachers may prove more eloquent than others. They are not bound by a Trade Descriptions Act.

Likewise, some applicants will write their personal statements without help from anyone. Others will receive help from both school and parents.

Even the most ethical parent will find it hard to resist casting an eye over their little darling's efforts and correcting the odd spelling or grammatical mistake.

Term changes

So, to come back to Sir Colin's point, why do we still conduct university admissions this way?

He favours two other routes. First he would like to see university applications moved to after the A-level results are published.

The problem is that this requires a shift in either the school or the university year. The much-discussed six term year could help in this respect.

Sir Colin thinks it is perfectly feasible with a relatively small adjustment in both the school and the university calendar.

There is currently a four to five-week gap between A-level results day and the start of the university year. Universities would need longer than that to sift applications, but maybe not that much longer.

Alternative tests

The other avenue Sir Colin would like to see explored is use of the American-style Scholastic Assessment Tests (SATs).

The most vocal supporter of these university admission tests is the philanthropist and chairman of the Sutton Trust, Peter Lampl.

He is also on the admissions task force. So watch this space.

For now, though, change is not imminent. After the change to A-levels, and the troubles last summer, the government is particularly wary of making changes to the timing of examinations.

Ministers have sat determinedly on the fence in the debate over the six term school year.

But the status quo has many faults. Sir Colin estimates that each year Nottingham has to reject 10,000 to 15,000 students who could successfully take their degrees there.

With such intense competition we really need something better than a version of Blind Date to decide university admissions.