To be upset about ‘university blind’ recruitment

@Newname576 this won’t have any impact on your DS in the long term.
It is an amazing privilege and achievement to attend Cambridge and I would have loved it. I also did well at (an ex-Poly) Uni and have become very successful.
Please remind your DS to see this is an amazing opportunity, he has worked hard and will make a good future for himself regardless of blind interviews.
When I interview, I look for whether the person can do the job and are qualified and have no interest whatsoever in which university they studied at.

So it’s not enough that your precious lambie goes to an elitist university and rubs shoulders with all the toffs there; you feel hard done-by because he can’t flaunt it further?

so are you expecting him to be shortlisted/walking straight into a high earning job just because of getting a degree from Cambridge
when someone from a 'lesser' uni may fit better

@Newname576 congrats to your DS. The Big4 are university blind yes. But the really prestigious consulting firms (McKinsey Bain BCG) do have a heavy Oxbridge bias when recruiting. Your DS will be fine. Also he has the Cambridge alumni network to help him.

Well you would say that wouldnt you? this is a BBC article Oxbridge 'over-recruits from eight schools' - BBC News not where I got the figures from but will seek that out later.
The crux of my original comment is that blind interviewing should be the norm, which is pretty easy if you are interviewing John Brown, a little more difficult if you are interviewing George Windsor or Wilfred Rees Mogg.

I recruit across all levels in my organisation including graduates and the source of the degree rarely influences me. Most graduates I see are all very capable and have lots of academic success.

The differentiator is in their enthusiasm, engagement, communication, work experience, personal ambition, asking questions, having an opinion on things going on in the industry...... That's what gets people jobs, not the name of the institution on the top of your certificate!

Does he care as much as you, OP? He’ll have a wonderful time, hopefully, and he’ll be set up for a cracking start to his career.

I am still absolutely flabbergasted at some of the attitudes here. It’s silly to pretend that nothing happens to the A* student during their time at Uni. They are going through development and education. it’s what the TEF (Teaching Excellence Framework calls ‘value added’)

Also Universities do not all teach the same things even in the same degree. Learning Outcomes, though having to keep Subject Benchmark Statement in mind, will have variation. Teaching modes might vary. Support might vary. Marking might vary. This is why external examiners exist!

We know even have the TEF to measure how good teaching is at a Uni. Some lesser known Unis do fantastic at the TEF and it will show in their graduates. Top unis have to also demonstrate the value they are adding.

It is not unkind to say that some teaching is better than other teaching. Just like it would not be unkind to say that food at one restaurant is better than at another one.

Exactly. Bar eligibility to apply for the role, it's pretty much utter nonsense. Just ticks a diversity box and means that they have more low calibre applications to sift through which is easily done, and worth it because it means that they come across as modern and forward thinking.

what the hell is the point of going to a top Uni if no one will know about it

For the quality of the education? The networking? The beautiful surroundings? The opportunities while there? 😳

You can always get a bumper sticker and some merch if you want to make sure everyone knows. Plus they’re not really university blind, anyway. Prejudice, positive and negative, runs deep.

Of course. It's a multi faceted issue with the biggest barrier being getting people from less advantaged backgrounds to apply to elite universities in the first place!

This was the focus of my PhD so I could go on for hours!!

“To some extent” yes. But the %’s speak for themselves that it is only ‘to some extent’.

I have found over the years that a lot of people that haven't had part time work while at uni get a little bit of a shock when they start.
I work in a lab and they expect perusing data while pottering about and get full on high pressure and deadlines.
Unfortunately most of these type are from the higher rated universities. (though it is getting more common)

So if all this is true, why aren’t the interviews and entry requirements adjusted to accommodate for the fact that experiences and outcomes between state and public schools are totally different?

To some extent they are, it's called contextual admissions.

If your youngest wants to go to university to ‘have a ball’, then fair enough, let them pick which one they want. Some children go to uni for that reason, others go because they want the best learning experience they can get.

In terms of recruitment it’s been shown that more diverse companies have increased productivity and profits. If you constantly employ white middle-class men from oxbridge you are likely to keep getting the same ideas, responses, etc. I work in a highly male dominated industry with traditional degree/masters/doctorate backgrounds. We are having huge recruitment drives to find employees outside of the traditional backgrounds (but obviously highly competent for the roles). I’ve noticed the change immediately. So many more ideas, different ways of looking at the same problem.

So if all this is true, why aren’t the interviews and entry requirements adjusted to accommodate for the fact that experiences and outcomes between state and public schools are totally different?

If Oxbridge really is a cut above and not just a way of perpetuating privilege and the old school tie network then even if the recruitment process is university blind then oxbridge candidates should stand out and get the job. So nothing to worry about

Top universities don't necessarily produce the best future employees. I for one am glad they recruit blind, why should jobs go to those fortunate to have had the circumstances to get into a handful of universities?

Couldn't agree more - I once attended an in-house diversity course, where everyone spent the lunch break discussing that they couldn't possibly advertise in 'The Voice' (yes, it was a long time ago) because it would attract applicants without degrees. I laughed & said I didn't have one, why did every applicant need a degree, and why assume that because someone read the voice, they didn't have a degree?
I knew, & they knew that I was on a higher grade than anyone else in the room.

& there was the twat from Oxford who put in a formal complaint that he should not be managed by me because I wasn't a graduate.
He was 'let go' from the graduate training program.
I've got an MSc now.

AIBU to be sad that companies are recruiting blind?

Basically, yes.

It's a good thing. If your child is good enough to get into Cambridge then he should be capable of performing well in an application process, and if he's beaten by someone who attended a less prestigious university then that is meritocracy in practice.

What a depressing AIBU. Quite apart from the weird view that you seem to think Oxbridge grads should be favoured even if their education doesn’t actually mean they outperform others in assessments, it’s sad that you don’t value the education for its own sake.

I went to an RG uni and thoroughly enjoyed my humanities course. But when I did a masters I made a friend who’d done a very similar BA at Oxford. Where I’d studied, for example, a representative work of each author for a particular course, he has studied ALL of their major works. The handle he had on the subject was far deeper than mine and it made me see what the Oxbridge difference is. As someone who loved my subject, I’d have got so much from it.

That friend went on to a graduate scheme with many people who haven’t been to Oxford or Cambridge so in that sense it didn’t help him achieve more than them. But nobody can take away that education and experience.

Have you got a source for those figures? The Econ article above agrees with @BonjourCrisette

You're also wrong about the "old school tie". Academic staff at Oxbridge are generally not ex public school and have no interest in accepting disproportionate numbers of their kids- in fact, they are trying extremely hard to recruit more state applicants. The issues are that a higher proportion of privately educated children achieve the necessary grades and perform well at interview, which is due to a combination of better resources at school and the fact that a higher proportion of private schools than state schools are academically selective.

Another one talking nonsense which only helps to put off potential state applicants.

Grad schemes recruit ‘university blind’ - once she’s past that stage most other employers, but especially consultancies, do look at both the university and grade. An Oxbridge degree is so valuable to get your 2nd early job and you can usually get a highly paid one too

Posting things like this is just rude tbh OP.

Your DS has overcome lots of hardships to get there - very well done him. Other people may not have overcome them but be equally capable, you don’t know everyone’s story and who is more/less deserving. Have some empathy.

Funny you should say that, I met up with a friend after we both finished uni who had studied the same language as me. He studied at Oxbridge and I studied at a relatively new university which was close to home (and nowhere near as prestigious obviously).

I tried to hold a conversation with him in the language he had achieved a 1.1 in and he could barely speak it. Said they mostly just focused on written grammar.

What use is that for a language student? Not being able to converse in the language you spent 3 years studying?

Just because a university has good teaching it doesn't mean that what you learn is necessarily more valuable.

Exactly!