Another Private/State question

[FiveHoursSleep]

If you knew of two school leavers, both of whom had the same marks and got into the same University or course, but one came from a good private school and one came from a good state school, would you consider one student to be brighter than the other?
Or would they both be equally as intelligent, since they have both ended up with the same marks and have been accepted to the same course?

[PrettyInDecadence]

No, they would be equal surely? When two students have the same grades, some universities (e.g. Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol) have their own assessments. Most go on the quality of your personal statement and extra curricular achievements. Interviews also determine stronger candidates.

[Tortu]

Depends how 'good' the state school is, I think and what sort of students would normally be expected to go there.

I work in a state school in a deprived area. We have evidence this year of several different universities giving our students lower offers than they normally be expected to do e.g. we have two students who left to study Medicine and did not get 3As. One of the boys had been through the care system.

As one of the admissions tutors at Oxford explained (we've never sent a student to Oxford), a student from our school who shows the initiative to apply to a good university and manages to stay on and get decent grades at A-Level is actually a safer bet than a student from an elite boarding school who gets 4 As, but has had every educational opportunity given to them. The majority of our parents do not have a post-16 education and the majority do not have a job (seriously!). Any student who can therefore stay on and get good grades has already shown that they will work hard in an unlikely environment.

My vague understanding is that universities, I think, seem to have some sort of postcode measure, but that they also seem to look at the past record of the school for getting students into university?

[PooshTun]

Apparently the government is pressuring RG universities to pursue an admissions policy along the lines of what Tortu has outlined above.

This is why some parents are taking their DCs out of GS or Indie after GCSE and putting them into a state non selective 6th Form.

[Colleger]

If they both got 3 A* then it would be difficult to tell which one was brighter. Whose to say the state pupil hadn't been tutored for three hours every night?

[creamteas]

Universities have always been able to make their own offers. They are supposed to be about potential (as well as achievement) although that of course is difficult to measure. This is not a new idea. I have a friend who had a 2 E (seriously) offer from Cambridge back in the 1980s when he was the first ever to apply from his school.

[PooshTun]

Nobody said it was a perfect solution :)

[StillSquiffy]

It depends entirely on the school.

But of course it goes without saying that a student from a poor school who has the same results as a student from a good school will of course be either more driven or more capable than his advantaged peer. Unless they both got A*, in which case you would need further evidence to make a call.

Don't get that anyone would question that really. The problem is how to differentiate, measure, and hold down other factors.

[gelatinous]

I think students from poor schools with the same grades as students from high achieving schools have been shown to go on the achieve better degrees on average. But that doesn't really tell you anything about two specific students.

[Lfs2126]

The 2E offer from Cambridge that cream tea was talking about is a 'qualifying offer' which means that as long as a student achieves the universities minimum official eligibility criteria they are accepted. It is a very rare thing where a uni is so keen on a student that they make an offer that the student can't refuse.

[gelatinous]

back in the 80s a 2E offer from oxford or cambridge was commonplace, nowadays it is rare (I think just one college in Cambridge still offer them to about a third of their applicants), but they are not confined to people from poor performing schools, one lad I know from an independent was given one about 4 years ago.

[Metabilis3]

@creamteas In the 80s most people had 2 Es offers to cambridge, if they did the entrance exam. None of us got 2 Es though (at least, I never met anyone who did).

[didofido]

I had a 2E offer in 1986 - but from Cardiff not Oxbridge! P'haps I should have applied there...

[Elibean]

My Dad was an admissions tutor at Oxford for years, and always said he relied quite heavily on interview and gut instinct.
He thought the privately schooled tended to be more confident, overall, but he would always look deeper - as his experience taught him that the less confident changed hugely after a year or two at Balliol, becoming more confident just from having been accepted.

[cory]

I'd wait until I'd read their essays before I developed an opinion on the subject.

[Bingandbear]

Did anybody ever read this? I thought is was a real eye-opener.

www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/jan/10/how-cambridge-admissions-really-work

[Sympathique]

"In the 80s most people had 2 Es offers to cambridge, if they did the entrance exam. None of us got 2 Es though (at least, I never met anyone who did)."

D, E, fail was the closest I knew. He did stunningly well in his degree so A levels aren't everything, never were

[Elibean]

Thankfully. I failed mine spectacularly (parents in mid divorce) and then did well at Uni.

[wordfactory]

I'd be more interested in the students' backgrounds than their schools to be honest.

If both were middle class with professional parents then...meh...nowt between em.

But if one was very a very disadvantaged background then I'd certainly think they might be more of a self starter.

[TheWave]

I thought moving to state school in 6th form was "too late", you would be judged as if you had gone to private if you did til Year 11, which is right as you used that system to get your great GCSEs.

Also all state schools are not the same in terms of judging whether the state school pupil gets an "advantage". Needs to be one with very little tradition of getting anyone in, and very "poor" catchment area/post code.

[Hulababy]

I would assume they were equally as bright with the same qualification.

Often people would have no idea on what has actually gone on in the individual schools and the individual pupil's home/life. The state school may be excellent, the independent school not so good, a pupil may have had a lot of tutoring, the pupil may have had no parental support (or vice versa), a pupil may have challenges in their home life or health, one or more of the school may not be academic or selective (not all independents are)...the ist goes on.

I just assume that the qualification is the same so the child involved must have put in the efofrt and both done equally as well.

[EdithWeston]

I'd assume they were equally capable of passing A levels, and very little beyond that. A levels, since the abandonment of bell-curve marking, no longer tell you enough to distinguish between candidates.

And that is aside from the major confounders, such as bursary (or other third party) funded private school children and pad brats; and the yawning differences in performance between comprehensives.

[TalkinPeace2]

I would assume they were equally as bright with the same qualification

Over 50% of the entrants got an "A" in Chemistry A level last summer.
So an A grade just means they are average or above from that cohort.
Not much reassurance

[teacherwith2kids]

I would say that two grauates from the same course at the same university with the same degree class were "equally bright" - actually no, I would describe them as "equally capable", though one might achieve their level of capability through a decent level of intelligence ('brightness') couple with a strong, focused work ethic, and the other might achieve it through very high intelligence but a less diligent approach.

By the end of a university degree, when young adults have been (usually) living away from home for 3 or 4 years, developing their own study habits and with few other complicating factors like differences in home life or out of school tutoring, then I would say that degree class is a fairly good measure of 'true' capability.

At the point of being accepted into university, on the basis of A-level results, is I would say too soon to make a judgement - the complicating factors of differential schooling, home lives, tutoring etc have too big an effect.

The above of course doesn't apply to people who are ill / endure difficult life events etc when at university.

It also goes without saying the different degree courses, even at the same university, are too different to make cross-course comparisons.