PA -- A-level and GCSE results cannot be relied on to identify the best university candidates, leading academic AC Grayling has said.
The professor warned that there are students achieving high numbers of top grades who are "no brighter" than other youngsters who look "less brilliant" on paper.
Launching an attack on the UK's exams system, Professor Grayling said today's schoolchildren are subjected to a "tyranny" of testing.
Addressing the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference annual meeting in St Andrews, Professor Grayling said: "We are subjecting our young people to exams every single year.
"From GCSEs through to when they leave university: GCSEs, AS, A-levels, first-year module exams, second-year module exams, third-year module exams. This is a tyranny and distorts the education process. It distorts it in a way that narrows the uptake of what people get from their education.
"They are so focused on getting an A* or getting a first in their first-year modules that they lose the point of what they are doing and they don't read around it and see it as something that they can take up and make use of themselves."
Professor Grayling is to become president of a new private independent university, the New College of the Humanities (NCH), which will charge students fees of £18,000 and is due to open next September.
"We intend to interview personally every plausible-looking candidate because we can't really rely as much as we would like to be able to on A-level and GCSE results," he said.
He told headteachers that they have been interviewing candidates for the first intake, among them one girl with three A* and two A grades and another with two As and a B: "The girl with two As and a B was a much more interesting and lively candidate, much more thoughtful."
Professor Grayling said that higher education should be "accessible to all who are gifted and suitable for it".