Granite city elite

It may be a cliché but the picture of Aberdeen university’s privileged elite at “ceremonial play” (your report, 11 June) says it all. It is worth a thousand words of explanation of why working-class young people don’t go to university.

Sociologists of education seem to have forgotten the power of expectations and the influence of social perception.

Arguably, working-class parents don’t expect their children to go to university and perceive them as “posh places”.

Isn’t it an old sociological adage that “if people define a situation as real, it is real in its consequences”?

Ellis Thorpe

Old Chapel Walk

Inverurie

It’s good to see the Duchess of Cornwall being welcomed as the first female chancellor of Aberdeen Univeristy.

It seems people have finally forgiven her for not being Diana.

R THOMAS

Ferry Road

Edinburgh