'State schools are creating amoral children'

fwiw, the industry she has gone into and wanted to get into, are not that interested in Cambridge. Not so far, at any rate.
Whether it will matter as she progresses, I dont know. Not nesessarily.

That would have been brilliant.

I have since learnt that part of what they may have been looking for was some sort of deep thinking?
If it was that, I could have helped her in that way of thinking. But to be fair, she probably isnt the deepest thinker, so in essence she may not have been what they were looking for anyway.
[fwiw, even if she had come from a feeder school, I am aware that she still may not have got in realistically]

Also, she may not have had a wide enough range of extra cirricular activities. Especially debating?

I dont know. But it would have been at least useful to know the sorts of things they might have been wanting?

Probably, ggogle can only do so much, and up to date info, and definitely the mentoring, particularly about her specific course, would have been useful!

I think that having gone to Cambridge is definitely what gave me an edge work wise, not just the line on the CV, which does mitigate against some of the negative strokes I have to live with (dyspraxia mainly. And being dead common), but much more, the feeling which has helped me all my life that if I could do THAT, go THERE from where I started out, then I can do anything. This has lead me to pursue and accept opportunities which I might otherwise have been too timid to go for, and to push for things like simpatico working arrangements that fitted nicely with family life at a time when such things were very unusual. S I think it has been a huge advantage. In terms of contacts - zilch, professionally. On a personal level I have a highly exotic and interesting array of friends and acquaintances which I generally speaking have to keep quiet about in a professional context.

Jojo what is thought by some to be a good idea (but has n't been formally implemented) is some sort of central bank of 2nd /3rd year students at the appropriate university and of the same subject are who are happy to be contacted and mentor students from schools like your DD's, usually from year 11 onwards.

Level playing field, no?
Am I bitter, definitely not. I am well aware that life isnt even, and fully accept that. And she was not applying for one of the main degree choices. And, as I knew she would, she is doing fine elsewhere. At a uni that has an excellent course in what she is doing. With excellent contacts.
Will it be better had she gone to Cambridge, work wise, may be not.

word I was in that situation too and I don't feel untethered. It wasn't easy but, honestly? It wasn't hard either.

I have nc from a name I have used on this thread, as details are personal.

Martorana has some points.
My DD applied and got an interview at Cambridge. She didnt get in.
She is from a state comprehensive, which I am not sure has ever had students get into Oxbridge. They may do, but it certainly isnt advertised. I even had a problem with the Head and her year yead, in shivving up whatever they had to do their end to support the application. If I had not gone in and kicked up a bit of a fuss, the application woudl not have got there in time. My DD knew that there was one other pupil applying too, so we sort of worked together. The Year Head had other things going on in his teaching life and basicaly wanted to do all the uni applications together or something, and I dont think they even realised the early deadline.

But my other main point is this. Together with them not really having a clue, I realised that they were completely unable to help us two parents with any knowledge about our applications whatsoever.

I had to do what I could via googling for tips[I dont knwo anyone personally well enough to have asked for help with the application.

As I said she didnt get in. And I realise that not a lot do, even with an interview.

But I do think we would have had a lot more help from a school that regularly had pupils there. Not to mention tips I could have picked up from other parents.

rabbit AAT is an entry level qualification. It can in theory lead to better things, in practice it usually doesn't. It limits people.

Yes. That is why I asked whether you were working with school as generally sixth form heads are quite protective of their students and needs. I did this job for a number of years and then worked on the other side in the very early days of widening access, a long time ago. I find some of the rhetoric around this a little rouseauian and it irritates me. But perhaps what I perceive as pragmatism, others see differently.

martorana

Because that's what they are more comfortable with, Herc. It's not a good idea to give that sort of people aspirations- it'll just mean they won't fit in anywhere. The toffs won't accept them because they won't have the appropriate cultural capital, and they will have grown away from their own kind. I think that's the argument, anyway. It's like being in an episode of Downton Abbey..........

Oh god. Nobody sent me the memo. Shit. Should I hand my qualifications back, D'you think? Should I resign from the various international committees I'm on?

:(

Like many WC people I have shitloads of cultural capital. More than you could shake a stick at. More than most of my toff colleagues. That having said, there is a difference between people like me and people like them.

We're usually brainier.

Mentors would have to be chosen carefully, selecting people who can help children see what is possible and then let them make their own choices. This has got be about informed choice for the child.

Neither of those phrases came from me. But yes, I am interested in learning what you think it is important I know.

So nothing else to say about how patronising I am? Not interested in learning any more? No more about the "colonial attitude"?

Well good luck. She is lucky to have such a committed supporter.

Yes.

Is your mentoring officially through a school Martorana?

I'll bet they don't suggest they join the ranks, though, happy.

Mart I'd like to be an idealist and in fact when I was young I was bit, but out here in the real world if my friends and I don't sending our DC's to independent schools it not going to have that much impact, and certainly wont send out a message to the people you would like it sent out too, because the sort of people who can cheerfully stump up £35k+ a year will either not care what others do, think we've hit hard times or think we've simply gone off our chumps.

I believe the Army comes to my DS's school!

One of the ways we can help level the playing field with the world as it is now is to provide support and encouragement and mentoring to kids that don't get it from home. And by pushing hard for schools to do the same. And for aspirational further and higher education providers to think about way to broaden their intake. Oxford seems to be doing a lot in this area- I wold like to see far more of this. The only people who come to my ds's school are the Army. Significantly, they do not go to the school where the middle class kids go!

Obviously an individual taking their child out of private school is not going to change anything. I don't think I ever said it would. But, idealistically, the sort of people who would normally choose private education choosing not to would be great. And as that is obviously too big an ask for most, at least not scaremongering and bad mouthing state education would be pretty good too.

I am happy to talk about this for ever, but I suspect that people are just going to take the piss, so I won't spend any more time until I can be sure that people are actually interested.

No one on here has said it's a level playing field.
But what you won't answer is how do we make it a level playing field and how does sending your DC to a state school make it a level playing field?

Come on Slip haven't you worked it out yet it obvious. Of course Mart just practices the arguments in her own head and just writes it down. She tars us all with the same brush, if she can't answer a question or doesn't like what we say because it's blatantly and obviously true she says she ignores it or says she doesn't wish to insult our intelligence or something similar and never answers a question she knows she can't answer.

Yes, I do read what people write. Do you?

Do you read what people write or do you practice your argument in your head and just write it down?

Oh,I give up.

Yes, the playing field is completely level. There are no barriers at all to children from disadvantaged backgrounds accessing any further or higher education they want. Everybody is just born with the knowledge and confidence and awareness they need to do whatever they want in life. And anyone who thinks differently, or thinks that the gap needs to be narrowed or the playing field levelled a bit is patronising. And the overwhelming numbers of kids from private and selective schools at the elite Universities just proves that privileged children are inherently brighter than disadvantaged ones.