AIBU to feel contextual offers are unfair after my son's results?

He's also been able to go to America and South America to teach and enter competitions. He's already getting the advantage of privilege.

You gamed the system by sending your DS to private school
It just backfired because he didn’t achieve the required results
Most DC from State schools fail the interviews for Oxbridge because they are ill prepared so suffer at the first hurdle. They don’t get any kind of practice for those interviews at all.

Remember that.
State schools don’t get prep after school every day unlike private schools or extra lessons during Easter holidays to pull up their grades.

If they're not getting the required A stars after all the many many hours of extra help they’re given then it’s no wonder state school DC are given a place with their well earned As and most will have still earned the necessary A stars too.

Your friends played the system which is unfair to all the state school DC and most certainly should not be allowed

Hopefully the Minister of Education will rectify that all DC who have taken their GCSEs at a private school will no longer be afforded contextual offers if they’re transfer for their A levels to a state school. It’s an unfair loophole

Mmmmm it’s possible that your son was being a little arrogant there, OP. I’m very surprised you didn’t sit him down for a serious talk about the importance of insurance places. Being myopic about Oxbridge is a path to misery.

@ThatQuickLilacOrca looking at it the other way, your son chose to not game the system.
You said he could have worked harder - it's a harsh lesson but a useful one for the future. You can't leave things to chance.
DD made the grade - her sixth form college fits the bill for contextual offers - still needed 2Astars and 2As.
She worked her socks off to ensure she achieved those grades and has had to work even harder still since getting there.
It's worth thinking carefully about resitting. The probability of increasing a grade on a resit, when you're not doing that subject for 2 hours + homework a day every day is low.
Are there any high ranking courses in clearing?
Is it engineering he's going for?

Universities, quite rightly, take into account the elevation in grades gained by going to private schools.
I’m sure most parents would admit that child would not have got the same grades had they attended a bog standard state school.

Your son missed his offer. Them’s the breaks. My son got 3 A stars and didn’t get picked up from the ARP (Cambridge’s widening participation pool for state school kids who meet WP criteria). The kids in the pool get no contextual advantage. They still have to get the grade requirements for the courses and in most cases have to exceed them, as well as perform well in interviews and entrance tests in which the private school kids have a massive advantage of being prepped over many years to thrive in that world which is utterly alien to many non-selective state school kids. If you think state school kids are gaming the system and private school kids (well their parents) aren’t, then you’re completely off your head. Or maybe just not that smart.

Charitably I guess you’re smarting from the upset of your DS not being able to get everything he wants. Well mine didn’t either and he’s okay with that. Maybe state school gives you more humility or resilience or gumption to make the best of it without blaming everyone else, especially those less well off than you. You’re kidding yourself if you think you’re some average joe with 3 kids in private school. Seriously, wake up to yourself. Hopefully your son will learn something from all of this and be all the better for it.

He sounds extremely arrogant. Why did he think he would definitely get in?

Pretty sure my maths teacher was drunk 90% of the time ... oh and there was that time I was enjoying a business studies lesson and the police came in to arrest the teacher for sleeping with a sixth from pupil. That was fun!

Guess what? I become an accountant... some fucking how!

But you do know there is no guarantee he'll get into Oxford next year?

C’mon folks - this has to be a spoof. No one is this self deluded. Surely????

The majority of parents want the best for their children but don’t have rich relatives to pay for private schooling. You paid for an advantage and didn’t end up with it paying off. I feel sympathy that your son is upset but children who went to state school have known life isn’t fair many years before they completed their A Levels.

I think the "hes so hardworking, he summered in s america / Romania/Dads firm/ yaucht crew /safari lodge staff /etc" is a very different world from "he shares a room with disabled sibling/ gets up st 5am for the cows/ has to cook for himself coz am on back shift"

And thats before class sizes, extra tuition, etc.

Exactly. Mine didnt qualify for contextual offers, average state school. Only schools in deprived areas or where there are other personal circumstances eg a child being a young carer will qualify. It’s by no means all state schools

I know numerous state school applicants that didn’t get in if
it makes you feel any better 🙄

I think it might be.

Contextual offers, while they vary between universities, are not at play with grammar school applicants. There may be specific reasons an individual who is at grammar school qualifies for a contextual offer but these would be significant eg a looked after child.

What did he apply for and what were his subjects? Have you explore a remark on the one he was closest to A* in?

I think this country likes to discriminate against children whose parents just want the best of the best for their children

Do you? How unobservant of you.

This is a really valid point

You “wanted” your son to go to private school

you “want” Oxford/Cambridge

he got brilliant grades anyway - why waste a whole year when there are other options available -
im not understanding the logic here I’m afraid

but this thread has reminded me - even if we could afford it - of yet another reason to not send my kids to private school.

There is clearly a flaw in the system if it so easily gamed and people can use these contextual offers when they are actually wealthy and have largely educated their children privately.

However, it's a bit rich to complain about people gaming the system, when that's exactly what you did by buying your child a better education. So you are being unreasonable, and I say that as someone who is paying for part of DGS school fees.

I laughed out loud at the idea in your op that ‘life is unfair’ !! Your son has had every possible advantage to date. He got an A with small class sizes, quiet lessons, excellent facilities, day in day out. That is no where near as good as the kid who manages a B in a class of 30 where some kid at the back is throwing chairs around. I wholeheartedly support contextual offers and wish there was more of them.

While I understand what you’re saying, it is an active choice you and your son made to stay on at private school. We looked at our local 6th form college for our daughter and did talk her through the potential advantages there - I have friends who have sent their kids there and are using the access to Oxbridge packages to their fullest advantage (spending a week on Oxford studying which is only available for state school kids, for example). My daughter decided that for her emotional wellbeing she was better staying where she was (a decision we support 100%). She knows she would get lower offers if she’d gone state for 6th form, but at too much cost overall for her if she had to move somewhere new.

Is this satire 🤣🤣🤣

You sound absolutely unhinged.

My father was head of 6th form in a state school every year he would comment on how x or y hadnt got in to oxbridge despite flawless academics. It’s just the way it’s always been. Think it’s a 1 in 11 chance.

Try going to a school where the teachers regularly don’t show up, when they tell you at parents evening that the can’t help your son because he is likely to pass and they are busy helping kids that will probably fail.

The contextual offers recognise those kids overcame significant challenges and did well. It evens the playing field and makes it fair.