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

The wealthy can game the system I suppose. Blame your fellow private school parents. Lots of us want “the best of the best” for our children by the way; we just don’t have the funds or our own parent funds for it. He missed his offer, that’s that.

Not all state school students get contextual offers. Infact v v few do. Most Unis you need at least 2 contextual flags (eg PP, FSM, you cater). So your leafy comp kid needs to get the same grades as Eton

However, the kid who lives on the 13th floor of a shitty tower block, sharing a room with siblings and working as family need the money, deserves to be allowed to progress with lower grades. As they've fought harder for them. As does a child who has suffered a long term illness, loss of a parent or no food on the table from neglect.

Again, private school students are not being discriminated against, they just can't buy their way into Unis quite as easily as before.

It seems a lot of people don’t take into account the fact that anyone who needs coaching to get through A levels, or the 11+ where that exists, probably won’t be best served by the grammar system or Oxbridge. They’re likely to struggle and that’s going to have a detrimental impact on their self esteem, possibly for life.

Much better to play to your strengths and go somewhere you can have a well rounded education that also includes a decent social mix. Academic success isn’t better than vocational or practical or sporting success, we need all those talents and to stop thinking about academic skills as being superior to others. You just have to look at some of the mediocrity being rewarded in the upper echelons of our society to see that it isn’t superior at all once you’re outside of an academic context.

The problem is that an A at a state school means an A. An A at a private school could either be an A, or it’s a B/C student who with years of scaffolding, private tutors, extra help, can get an A in an exam. It isn’t as meaningful. Which is a shame for the genuine A students at private.

Honestly the angst about universities is stacking deck chairs
on the titanic. The real worry is the graduate jobs market. Met a friend of a friend recently at a party son private school graduated from Oxford 2 years ago he can’t get a job neither can any of his friends.

Give your head a wobble. Your son had every advantage and you have no idea how hard it is for students without those. Contextual offers do a little bit to try and level a very unfair playing field. He still has good enough results to choose from an array of very very good universities and I am sure with such engaged parents and wealthy grandparents he will do just fine.

Contextual offers did not exist when I was applying to go to university. I was from a low income family and both my parents had left school at 16 with few qualifications. My mum died when I was 16, I spent my A level years working part time and taking on the lions share of household work such as cooking and cleaning as my dad worked long hours 7 days a week to make up for losing an earner in the household.

I still got four A levels, three the at A grade, but did not get the A in the subject I needed for Oxbridge. I still got a place at a Russell Group university and 30 years later it matters not a jot.

However the idea that life is less fair for your very privileged child compared to people like me is laughable.

This is unintentionally hilarious OP.

I agree and it really won’t suit everybody.

A friend of my DS from a very well respected redbrick uni comes from a very disadvantaged background and DS said his school was in the contextual offer ‘group’. I’m not sure of the exact details but he was the first of his family to go to uni, and he’s now pursuing a career in academia w a view to getting a PhD . This would never had happened if contextual offers weren’t a thing.

DS also went to a ‘good’ comp and got his grades (3 A*), but cos of MH issues he got rest breaks and at uni he also had exam access arrangements. Is that ‘working the system’?

Your DS has chosen to resit, a year out isn’t a bad thing. DS did it too (deferred his place after results even though he got his grades). Your DS is privileged. We could never have afforded private school even for one child.

Totally agree. The fetishisation of Oxbridge on this site is ridiculous. Meantime in the real world, no one cares‘

No-one cares! I hear Oxbridge and think - your parents had money. You had privilege. The other candidate almost certainly had to have worked harder than you to get where they are.
If anything it’s a bit off putting. It’s certainly not the big whoop some parents think it is.

His school sound like they are giving terrible advice to be honest, resitting does not sound like the best option. I would try and talk to someone independent who won't be financially benefitting from your son resitting to get an alternative view.

I think that you should check your racism. Plus, universities are full of international students and their much higher fees basically subsidise the fees of home students.

Fewer international students are now applying to UK universities and, as a results, many universities are struggling financially.

Oxford don’t even do contextual offers. Did you even bother to research in your resentment towards other more deserving children.

https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/applying/guide-for-applicants/decisions/contextual-information

Oxford does not make lower-grade conditional offers at all. All applicants must meet the exact standard entry grade requirements for their chosen course.Instead of lowering grade boundaries for specific schools or groups, Oxford uses contextual information during the application review process to evaluate achievements fairly. Contextual data helps admissions tutors decide who to shortlist for interviews and how to assess performance in light of individual circumstances. Factors they look at include:Whether a school achieves lower-than-average exam results or has little history of sending students to Oxford.Your home postcode and local progression rates to higher education.Experience in local authority care, eligibility for free school meals, or being from a low-income household.

Which is all as it should be.

Good lord OP don’t make him resit. Let him move forwards. Durham is a great uni. And I say this as someone who teaches at Cambridge.

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

This is insulting on so many levels, the idea that the 93/94% ( and growing) of us who use normal schools somehow don’t want the best for our children?

This is why we need to get rid of all private schools - this snobbery and superiority from those who use them. Luckily they seem to be pricing themselves out of existence.

You think it’s bad now OP - just wait until your DC is out in the real world, most people ( and employers) are going to be a lot less interested in your DS privilege then.

The best thing you can do is to stop trying to buy his way through life, bulldozing every obstacle out of his way. He’ll be the better person for it.

His offer recognises he has had a massive advantage being privately educated. It’s not about how much money his parents have, it’s that he had all the benefits of private school (which 90% of kids don’t have). He didn’t make the grade. That’s a shame for him but that’s life. He can retake or go somewhere else. Stop trying to put the blame on someone else and accept that either he didn’t work hard enough, didn’t have the ability or was just unlucky. But it’s not the system’s fault.

Assuming it's a spoof post because Oxford doesn't make contextual offers.
https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/applying/guide-for-applicants/decisions/contextual-information

Wow so much ignorance and entitlement with the OP. Firstly contextual offers aren’t for all state schools just for some in specific poorer areas. There is a list.Grammar schools are unlikely to be offered contextual.

Contextual offers are very much needed and go some way to sort the over representation of the privately educated in the best unis.

Finally privately educating MNers like to tell us that all state schools are completely shit so As from state schools that are attained despite this are an awful lot more worthwhile than As from a child who needs classes of 15 and a private education to achieve the same.

Oxbridge are very unlikely to give a place to somebody privately educated that needs three years to achieve what others from state schools do in two.

I don’t know what you’ve been reading but I promise you that Oxbridge and top universities aren’t stuffed full of kids who didn’t get the grades. They’re full of private school kids who did better than yours.

I just don’t have a violin tiny enough for you, OP. Sorry.

You are not doing your son any favours by reacting like this. Sometimes life doesn’t follow the exact path we want and this is a lesson. You are teaching him to get a chip on his shoulder and blame under represented students rather than to adapt to what in the greater scheme of things is a fairly minor setback.
.He has been hugely privileged when it comes to education, got above average results and was offered a place at one of the most prestigious universities in the country (Durham). The fact that he never wanted to go to Durham yet put it as his insurance choice shows he doesn’t understand the UCAS system very well at all.

Apparantly so! My mistake.

Slightly ironic OP - you've gamed the system by choosing to send your son to a private school for a privileged education and are now complaining others have gamed the system..

OP while I don't agree with the premise of your thread, PPs are totally out of order saying resits and trying again at a waste of time. He might get in, or not, second time around but it's a great lesson in perseverance and anything but a waste of time.
As you say he's still young and will have time to investigate other unis he might be interested in too.

There was a recent article this week about someone doing exactly what your son is doing and getting into Oxford with resits. It's far from impossible.

Your son sounds more mature than you!

It is the disappointment talking and that's understandable. You clearly heavily invested in him and it hasn't paid of just there and then. This is a choice YOU made though.

I debated long whether to send my eldest to private school because she had very high potential and dreams that required very high grades. In the end, I decided it wouldn't be fair on her because even knowing it would be wrong, the sacrifices I would make to pay for her private education would come with high expectations and that is not something I wanted on her shoulders.

You are also confused about contextual offers. It is not just about the school. Your address also comes into it and sometimes parental income. My DD went to a school that was on the list but still didn't meet the criteria for a contextual offer.

Of course there is some unfairness. A friend of my DD got such an offer because her parents divorced and her dad temporarily moved to an address that fell into the criteria but that's life.

You DS will do fine. Even the most successful kids sometimes hit a hitch and that is a lesson they need to learn to face adversity. Be more like your son. Focus on him rather than talking about the unfairness of the world when you've only started to care about it when it affected your family directly.