Discussion with DH and some friends last night, triggered the boat races being on telly today... We reckoned you needed to be top 5% of your birth cohort, academically, to stand a chance (most of us went there, so clearly it must be a near-genius thing...)....but then we started picking it apart.
Our analysis went a bit like this:
Oxbridge take, very roughly, about 1% of kids turning 18 each year. But their recruitment and selection processes would have to be pretty awesome to find the top 1% and only the top 1%....and clearly these systems are not that great at all.
Apparently half of all schools don't put anyone forward for Oxbridge, so if you're at one of those schools, you're out. So, Oxbridge now need to find the top 2% from the remaining schools.
However, half of all kids don't apply to University at all. This may be a sensible, self-aware strategy from many people - aware that their skills lie elsewhere, but I'm willing to be a fair few of our 2percenters get lost that way. Let's say that Oxbridge now need to get the top 3% of those remaining in the pool to fill their places.
Now remove all the kids who think that Oxbridge is 'not for the likes of me'. I reckon there's loads of them - maybe half of all potential applicants? So now Oxbridge is fishing for 6% of the remaining pool.
Now get rid of anyone who wants to study Drama, or Dutch, or Dentistry, or one of the myriad other subjects that Oxbridge don't offer. And forget anyone who is burning to go the Big Smoke, or must follow their girlfriend to Hull, or wants somewhere you can do fell running. I reckon we're now down to fishing for 10% of the remaining candidates.
Now to interviews. What is the ratio of interviews to offers? 1:4? So, to fish the top 10%, even assuming a perfect shortlisting strategy on Oxbridge's part, you've got to invite the top 40% to interview.
And then we have interviewing error. All the evidence that has ever existed on utility of interviews for selecting the best candidates for anything, shows that they're crap. Let's be generous and suppose that, with aptitude tests thrown in, the efficiency of this final stage of selection is 50%. That would mean that offers are made to kids who are, largely, in the top 20% of their cohort. That, roughly, gives an IQ of 113.
So, ignoring all debate about what 'clever' means, what do you reckon?
Ps go gently - bit hungover...
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How clever to go to Oxbridge...? (Navel-gazing discussion).
66 replies
justlumpingalong · 27/03/2016 13:48
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