State/private school university admissions

I understand the points that people are trying to make that private or state, postcode etc aren’t the only relevant contextual factors. I.e physical abuse, how much time a parent had to spend on their child etc also plays a role.

But how would you expect a university to measure this? Do you want a box which asks if their parents have ever mentally/physically abused them? As soon as people find out this is a way to get a contextual offer than that will become completely redundant.

Postcode, the type of school attended, household income etc are actually proper definitions on which to be measured and aren’t open for interpretation. This is why they are used in admissions.

@Xenia well the problem with the city employers is not that they should support white working class boys in the North instead of disadvantage London students. It’s that they should be supporting both groups.

@PatienceVirtue People have disproved the swapping form private to state at sixth form thing so many times on this thread.

Any university worth their salt ask if the student has only been in state education since they were 11 years old. Even if they were in private school for a month they would count as a private student for the statistics.

I have never heard of someone being given a contextual offer just because they are at a faith school? Where is your proof of that?

Finally I can say we at least agree on the grammar school point.

My children have got in where they applied to go so the system seems to work fine (none of my 5 tried Oxbridge) on the whole. It is just a bit of a blunt instrument and needs to be watched to see it does not become very unfair. My son's B is the highest grade in his school in that subject and I am very proud of him for all the effort put in. Who knows if he would have got an A star at a state grammar or a comprehensive but it was enough for his AAB Bristol offer, thankfully.

Some of the tools and schemes being used can feel a bit unfair eg to City employers helping children in London rather than white working class boys in Sunderland. (i am from the NE) etc.

Who has said woe is me? Dd doesn't want Bristol anyway, she's doing brilliantly at her school and its far better than the comp pastorally, sporting and in the arts/debating/travelling, otherwise we wouldnt be wasting our money! I am surprised to see it there as local parents do try and pretend it is just as good as the private schools, but clearly not.

@Trewser well then you believe there is a problem with Bristol’s contextual offer criteria, take it up with them then.

Their admissions email is on the website so you can give feedback.

I just cannot understand these ‘woe me’ attitudes from parents who send their children to private schools and say their child is disadvantaged at uni applications.

If state school kids have it so much better then withdraw your child from private, send them to state and save thousands of pounds a year and have them cruise into top universities with no effort like all the state school students do

I don't think Xenia is that bothered by contextual offers. I don't have a problem with them either but I'm surprised to see our leafy comp on the list. Every other uni apart from Bristol seems to take students postcode into account.

@Xenia

It was your decision to send your children to private school. Absolutely nobody forced you to. They are trying to level the playing field for those who would never be able to pay private fees regardless of what job they have.

Do you understand that there are some people who would never have ben able to get full time jobs which would pay private fees for their children because of lack of education, racial discrimination etc?

I think them and their dc are in a worse position than you and this contextual data should be passed into universities to level the playing field.

@Dilkhush oxford do not give contextual offers regardless of contextual data.

@TulipCat then I have absolutely no idea why someone would pay for private education in that case.

Where have I gone wrong? I suppose it was going back to full time work when ds was 6 months, rather than 2 weeks. It's meant I can neither afford school fees nor, damn it, 3 lovers and a flash car.

Bugger.

thehorse, I know and in my area when I was little (NE England) they abolished the 11+ in about 1970. Although it is not true that every child at a fee paying school has parents with more income than every child in a state school particularly here in the SE.

To be purer you either go entirely by exam results or you look at each child in context eg rich parents but they rape him every night or the parents are always drunk or taking drugs - gets credit for his getting over that or no money but has full scholarship to a private school. It is only the Bristol system I know as that is where my sons are and it has its unique list of factors including the 40% of worst schools in the UK.

It just feels a bit unfair that children of women who have not worked for 20 years whereas I have worked full time even when my twins were a week old get an advantage in cases where had the mother worked full time she could hage afforded school fees. Or she has worked full time but spent the money on her 3 lovers and flash car.

If people want to check you can put your postcode into the Bristol website for the postcode part of the test www.officeforstudents.org.uk/data-and-analysis/young-participation-by-area/young-participation-by-postcode/ On that I win over my parents' newcastle house except in ethnicity as we are more mixed here in London so that seems to give us brownie points for deprivation down here over up there.

If a school achieves excellent GCSE results in a POLAR 1 or 2 area, the school has done it's job

Comp is polar 4

If a school achieves excellent GCSE results in a POLAR 1 or 2 area, the school has done it's job. It's pupils still deserve to have their results considered in context, because they have gone well against the odds and regardless of social background.

At Oxford & Cambridge applicants still have to have a high number of 7s, 8s and 9s at GCSEs, the more grade 9s the merrier. They still have to meet or exceed the standard offer ranging from AAA to multiple A*s. They still have to get top marks in the entrance exams. However, their application is considered in context, as they may not have been able to access work experience in a top teaching hospital or university masterclasses to include on their personal statement. They may not have had the support on preparing for interview which many private schools provide. They still have to interview well and show as much academic potential as their private/grammar school counterparts.

Globaliser and Xenia, you're both talking absolute nonsense, with a pre-GCSE level understanding of society, history, psychology and economics.

The primary privilege that child at any independent school has is financial. It doesn't matter how clever you are if your parents (or someone else) can't afford the fees or even know these types of schools exist.

There are plenty of grammar schools in the state system, some extremely selective, more so than many independents.

They are generally full of the children of highly motivated parents, who can afford and facilitate books/educational days out/tuition etc etc. The FSM numbers for these schools are very low.

The nearest selective grammar to me has 3% of children eligible for FSM, compared to 30% at the comprehensive down the road.

Grammar school entry WAS strangely more meritocratic in the mid-20th century, when children were just told one day that they were going to take a test which was the 11+.

It's very different now.

Globaliser is right - it has become more meritocratic eg look at the difficulties the Beckhams had in getting their children into good (i.e. very academic most children are rejected and do not pass ) schools.

When the MD of a company used to marry his secretary who may not have been very bright but knew her place at home etc there was more genetic mixing even between classes and IQ levels.Now people tend to marry someone similar eg both went to godo universities, both are accountants or whatever.

Abraid, that is true. i was looking at my father's old state grammar school in NE England (now a comprehensive as the NE stopped the 11 + in about 1970) - in my father's day he and his brother went to Durham university and became doctors from that state school. I looked at its A level announcements last year and the few people they were praising were going to particularly poor universities and the A levels they were praising were grades which are not very good at all in state or private schools outside of that area. My father moved from there to Newcastle and we all moved from there elsewhere - I to London just as some of his ancestors moved to the NE from lincs. in about 1870 because it was booming with lots of jobs.

Tbh I'd rather my dd got excellent A level results at her uncontextualised school than poorer ones with a lower offer, so wouldn't want to 'game the system' in that way. Someone will take her!

The uncomfortable truth is that the switch to a meritocratic society, in which the best jobs go to the brightest people, leads to the brightest people then meeting and marrying each other, and having more bright children, who they send to highly selective schools, and so on and so on

It also means there are some areas where anyone with any get up and go has got up and gone. I don’t know what the answer here is.

This list 40% of schools which get the worst exam results and if you go to one of those you may well get an offer 1 or 2 grades lower than my sons had to get

A friend’s son got in to Bristol with a contextual offer. The school may be mediocre but his parents are both highly devoted professionals who have given their children every opportunity apart from private school. They live in a large house and have lots of holidays. And private tutors are used.

The schools I referred to admit boys and girls on academic merit, according to highly selective criteria. You cannot "buy your way in", or expect a place because your father and grandfather went there. By any definition they are highly meritocratic. They educate the brightest children. Unsurprisingly, they then send those children to the best universities. You cannot buy privilege for your child in this sense - the boy or girl at Westminster, for example, already has privilege in the sense that they were very clever before they started at the school.

The uncomfortable truth is that the switch to a meritocratic society, in which the best jobs go to the brightest people, leads to the brightest people then meeting and marrying each other, and having more bright children, who they send to highly selective schools, and so on and so on. Which is why the parents of the brightest children are also able to pay the eye watering fees.

The state could participate in this process if it chooses, by running its own selective schools, that do not charge fees, and which will feed the brightest children into the best universities on merit.

it’s about the school where you did your gcses , not the school you moved into for A levels?

Can't find it now, but I read a detailed report which said that, for data collection purposes, applicants are recorded as state educated if they have only attended maintained schools throughout secondary education. If they attended an independent school at any point during secondary education then they are counted as privately educated. Thus, trying to "game" the system by switching to a state sixth form wouldn't influence the stats. Whether it would influence an institution is a different question.

I'll see if I can find that report - will post a link if I can.

At the end of the day, everyone is sitting the same exams. Just like admission experts on this and other threads have said - Oxbridge only care about academic results. It's just a question of whether private schools are able to facilitate an easier and nicer learning environment, so kids can achieve those results. The exams are the same and anyone can revise for them and achieve top marks.