Unfair contextualisation for uni entry

Online. There’s loads. You’re spoiled for choice.

Bristol is not an "eg", it's an outlier that casts an unusually wide net in their definition of disadvantage. Even then their contextuals are as @Ace56 describes. Grades are king in many subjects. Some unis and subjects look at the personal statement, others don't.

For the vast, vast majority it's standard offers for most and contextuals for a few who are disadvantaged by pre-determined criteria. If there is the odd niche counter-example I don't think that screams an unfair disadvantage that some of the most privileged kids in the country need to have corrected for them.

It isn’t just about lack of provision earlier in education. The issues go beyond that. And it isn’t saying disabled people can’t be as able as non-disabled peers.

That isn’t something that should be fixed with contextual offers. It’s an achievement gap based on poor provision earlier in education. Disability really is not an appropriate category for contextual offers and I’m surprised others can’t see why this is offensive tbh. There are loads of people with disabilities who achieve just as highly as abled people.

It’s offensive to say that students with disabilities can’t get in on our own merits. Believe me, we can.

@verysmellyjelly statistically, disabled young people are less likely to go to university, and where they do, they are less likely to graduate. Where they graduate, statistically, they are less likely do so with a first or 2:1 compared to non-disabled peers. Brilliant if it doesn’t apply to you, but it does at a population level. Hence some universities including disabled young people in their contextualised offers.

I don't see how the individual postcodes would work in rural areas. We used to live in a lane with some "ordinary" houses in, some tiny ex farm workers cottages and a couple of huge £Million++ houses. We all had the same postcode.

Actually the affluent children of graduates at comprehensive schools do get contextual offers the postcode does not drill down deeply

Agreed. I thought most unis only contextualise for looked after/estranged children and children from post codes that indicate social disadvantage. My DS and DD go to a college that is on the lists at every uni as being weighted for contextual offers… however their home address post code overrides it and so it is not taken into consideration, which is fine as they are not ‘disadvantaged’ vis a vis many of their peers (as far as I can tell, it’s not as if they wear bracelets indicating their social status… yet). However, they are both SEN… and that doesn’t get a look in!!

I thought it was only Oxford that contextualised GCSE grades against the kid’s school cohort in this way?

The Bristol example you gave is a different situation. The uni has identified whole schools to be eligible for contextualised offers. Presumably highly selective schools wouldn’t make it onto this list, so pupils at those wouldn’t get a contextualised offer regardless of how well or badly they did compared to their peers.

In any case, I think Bristol is a bit of an outlier in how it decides on contextualisation criteria.

Don't try to bring the actual facts into it

Yes, we did some kind of quiz online assessing eligibility and despite a tiny house, I think was the postcode.

Most contextual offers have several layers of contextualisation. It isn't just the school or whether parents went to university, it comes down to individual postcodes (not wider postcode areas) among other things. It is designed to create a level playing field so affluent children of graduates at comprehensives schools do not get contextual offers.

Moreover, the social group most likely to achieve a 3rd class degree are boys who attended private school. If that doesn't shout private education gives an unfair advantage, I don't know what does.

At what point does trying to make up for disadvantages stop because it means that awarding a place to a student from an unfavourable background becomes unfair if it means that we feel sorry for their hardship and give them a prize.
Having myself come from a less perfect background I understand the motives. But do we not need the brightest and best in our Universities from wherever.
My preference would be to put more resources into the later years education. Perhaps even 'cramming' so that the candidates meet on equal terms when at Uni.
There is I believe a high drop out rate of the marginally qualitied going into the second years of courses.

You could be right but in reality what you are talking about is years away and very complicated. HMRC doesn't know who your children are and it doesn't know what job you do (only how much you earn). How would you allow for situations where a child's parent is absent and therefore it's not reasonable to take into consideration their earnings or their job title?

Aside from that national ID cards / numbers is quite contentious so you'd have a legislative battle before you even embarked on the technical challenge.

Lots of things seem like a great idea until you think in granular detail about how it would work and then you realise it's incredibly difficult. Also, who pays for it? The universities won't pay for it, they are skint. Taxpayers won't relish the idea of implementing a complex new way to contextualise university offers for the benefit of the tiny minority of kids who might be slightly disadvantaged by the current scheme.

I appreciate the current scheme is not perfect but in reality it probably does an ok job in most cases.

And the percentage of that 46% who received contextual offers

But the 46% would only represent this middle class’ dynamic you keep mentioning if you broke it down in some way and took out groups such as care experienced children?

wait till you hear about the ‘poor money’ my two get from uni just for having the maximum loan - you’ll explode!