State/private school university admissions

I think that some (non-selective) state schools are better than some private schools. Paying a fortune for your child's education doesn't guarantee that it will be better than if you didn't. This can be very hard to stomach for some people when it comes to university admissions so I guess they need something to blame it on.

Don't know the policy, but my DD did not get a contextual offer for Oxford. Her giant comprehensive, which was rated RI for most of her time there, was not bad enough academically for contextual offers to be considered appropriate (c. 60% got A-C in 5 GCSEs including maths and English).

I was told by a Cambridge admissions professor that his broad line was that he would normally only consider students with 8 A stars at GCSE from most schools, and 6 A stars from academically poor schools. (Different parameters can apply for Maths and physics.)

I laugh when I see people complain about bias against private/selective school kids. Admissions people analyse their data and know that an A star AA pupil from a shitty comp gets a better degree than the triple A star student from a top public school. That's the reason they give contextual offers: the professors are greedy for those students with potential and don't really care where they were educated.

People game the system here too: top local public school then to the ace local sixth form. It does backfire for some people because the local sixth form, as good as it is, does not spoon feed in the way the public school does, so a small number sadly do crash and burn spectacularly.

The Bristol list is based on poorer than average A level results / progression to university. Not GCSE results. Maybe Fortismere et al have a lot of kids that don't go to university?

Xenia I don't know when you went to university, but I went late '80s - 90s and received a full maintenance grant and tuition fees paid.

My parents weren't in a position to contribute financially, nor were they expected to.

I worked part time and left without a penny of debt.

Rent and living costs were much cheaper than now. Expectations were lower. Debt wasn't the norm.

I would not swap this experience with those going to university now, and I can't imagine that many young people entering HE think they're better of than a couple of generations ago.

Being male isn't a structural disadvantage. Quite the opposite, in fact. Your understanding of equalities and disadvantage isn't very good, is it?

I've just checked out comps gcse press release and its hard to get any direct figures, but one of the students got 11 grade 9s and they had 80% grade 4 and above, with a national average of 68%

Come on Bristol

Gcses or a levels?

Anyway I'm glad i moved dd then if the comp is in the bottom half for exam results!

The Bristol list is the 40% worst schools in the UK by exam results I believe so presumably changes year by year a bit.

In my day 85% of people could not go to university and if your parents did not make a minimum grant up to a full grant you usually could not go so I am not sure loans you may never have to pay back are worse.

if we tihnk boys are disadadvantged - 10% fewer go to university in the UK - then applying the same logic we should make it 10% harder for girls to go and adopt an equalising for boys and girls as used to be uysed for the 11+ exam to get equal numbers of each into grammar schools (girls did better than boys in those days not surprisingly as they mature younger than boys around that age).

It does seem strange. I wonder whether schools nominate themselves to be included on these lists and then the HE institution applies some sort of criteria?

I don't know. I just wish it was still more like my day ('80s-90s) with maintenance grants, fees paid, fewer wealth differentials between students.

I worked during the holidays and left with not a penny of debt.

That's what made it possible for me, and so many other people, to attend university.

I understand that. But only Bristol doesn't use postcodes. Just schools. And lots of schools on their list are good schools in leafy areas. It seems strange.

Sigh. Contextual offers/levelling the playing field/increasing access/widening participation - call it what you will - isn't meant to be 'fair' across the board.

It uses data about factors that are known to reduce the likelihood of educational success ie low socio economic group, English as an additional language, disability etc etc to try to reduce the disadvantage these factors afford to individuals.

It is a broad brush approach that cannot possibly, and doesn't pretend to, offer exactly the same level of opportunity to all.

How could any centralised system know for example that Y12 in School A had a string of supply teachers so were disadvantaged?

There is little that children 'choose' about their circumstances, which can often be said for adults too. No-one can choose not to just forget about their disability, or change their sex, ethnicity or age, or choose to dramatically change their socioeconomic group if they don't have the necessary advantages and support to do that.

And contextual offers also use broad data ie that from whole national cohorts, not just the other children in a particular child's class!

Well, that's a lot more than I know then. Anyway, we live at a not very affluent area, no grammar school system, not many students going to Oxbridge from the whole city, still We rarely heard anyone have received this contextual offer except from Bristol.

Some contextual offer employers will outsource it and I believe the typical system is post code and exam results from that particular school. I suppose if you have thousands of applicants for 100 jobs and everyone has 3 As you need something to differentiate them and that blunt tool is as good as any but a bit unfair on children who don't choose their address and don't choose their school.

LoveAutumn, you really aren't an expert 'of this contextual offers thing', I'm afraid.

First, there are not that many university offer this contextual offers, I only hear Bristol and Southampton so far

That is just plain wrong. Pick any 5 UK universities and then put the words 'contextual offer' after their name and you will be taken straight to their contextual data pages. My ds and his friends are all currently going through uni application so I can tell you that Bristol, Cardiff, Warwick, Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle, St Andrews, Bath, Sussex, Cambridge, Oxford, York, Nottingham, Loughborough, Royal Holloway, Surrey, Glasgow ALL do contextual offers. You just have to google a university you can think of and then the words contextual offer and it will come up. Some universities call it Access, some Widening Participation but you will find most of them have a way of checking - either by sixth form and postcode or by Y11, sixth form and postcode and they then lower the offer if you are eligible.

Your school does not have to be Requires Improvement to get contextual offers for students. A school can be Outstanding in a difficult area and it might have students who qualify. If you live in London, though, and you know that Camden School for Girls is getting contextual offers, you might well try and buck the system and save nearly £50k of school fees if you can get your child in to the sixth form - but that's only if you have your heart set on Bristol Uni.
Manchester, for example, does not offer Camden contextual offers.

Perhaps the only way that contextual offers will be fair is if unis finally wise up and make it solely dependent on where a child did GCSEs.

Of course, I am not an expert of this contextual offers thing, but I really don't think that there will be a huge benefit to switch from private to state for university entry. People just exaggerate it.

First, there are not that many university offer this contextual offers , I only hear Bristol and Southampton so far.

Second, for people who can afford private school, will they move their DC to a really need improvement college to qualify for this contextual offers and risk for their children to not get the needed grade? I think it's unlikely. I do know lots of people move their children from private school to state college, because the private school fee are so high, when there is a good enough state six form, they move to relief themselves from the big burden. Will this good state six form qualify for contextual offers, I doubt it is rarely the case.

When people mention the private school privileges, sometimes I think people mixed the really privileged private schools like Eton, St Paul's etc with the ordinary private school. I believe that those supper private school do has connections with the top universities, so they can send more students to these top universities. However, for vast majority ordinary private schools, they only have the privilege of a good education the same as the other grammar school and good state school.

Yes, although some pay for religious reasons - there is a ersidential girls Saudi boarding school in the UK and I doubt that is an educational advantage - more a purdah and indocrination advantage (and a parently right of course just as other religious schools operate). I just thought if no one got higher than my son's B at A level in the school for that subject that was probably unusual even amongst some comprehensives so perhaps it should be contextualised - not that it bothers him - it just shows how when you try to go beyond raw A level grades achieved you can end up being unfair to some eg the child beaten every night from a posh home or who is carer to a sibilng in the family but happens to have money or whose mother works night and day in low paid work as do 4 other family members to pay one set of school fees so has no time to read to the child. It just can become a bit of a slippery slope to try to even things out. The new exam for solicitors as to its first part SQE1 in tests recently found that BAME applicants obtained worse results in essay quesitons so they have decided to get rid of all essay questions and just make it multiple choice even though that was partly because some of those people were foreign born with poor English - yet English is really important for lawyers as one word wrong in a contract and the meaning is changed with sometimes mililons at stake. So just also seemed a rather unhelpful way rather than for example having those pupils do an extra year of essay writing and learning English.

Does choosing a few years of private make us morally ineligible for a state 6th form? Of course not, you can send your kids where you like. I just don'T think that you should be getting the special contextual treatment that is given to state school pupils in general.

Xenia a private school IS a massive advantage! That's why people pay for it.

hoodiemum as others say, do what you think best for your own children.

The point people are making about 'gaming the system' is that it isn't an indication of how much you love your child, or how much you value their education.

Being able to pay for private education, pay for tutors or move into a desirable catchment to do so rises from fortunate economic circumstances, meaning that you have options that poorer people don't have.

Do what you think best for your own child, of course, but don't confuse having money with loving your child more or wanting any better for them than less wealthy people.

Or you being cleverer than poorer people, if you can't work that out for yourself!

flora, that is consistent with what one of my sons said - those he knows at Bristol with contextual offers often exceed them when the exam results come out. (mind you my son's private school B was the highest result in his subject in the year, but I doubt anyone would ever contextualise that B as they just think private school - massive advantage !)

hoodie, that is perfectly okay - doing the best for your children is a moral good, not a wrong.

@hoodiemum I personally think parents have to make the best choices fir their kids within the system. It's not "gaming the system" - it's doing the best for your own kids and family. It's only to be admired that you care so much about your kids' education. I see nothing at all wrong with it.

Do you really care?

Just wanted to pipe up as someone who might be considered 'gaming the system'. DS in private for y7-11, and will go state comprehensive for y12-13. We look at the results of private and state, and they are the same (in fact, slightly better for state). We look at our finances and see that not paying private fees would make a big difference to our lives. We look at uni applications and see, if anything, private school students being held to higher standards. Why should we be obliged to keep paying school fees when they give us nothing? Our other 2 kids went state all the way. We never intended to keep DS in his current school beyond y11. All state school kids in our area change school at 16 anyway. Everyone who pays private fees, or tutors, or moves house to get into a school, are gaming the system up to a point, of course. But is moving out of private school at sixth form more reprehensible somehow? Does choosing a few years of private make us morally ineligible for a state 6th form?

My sons at Bristol had reasonably high offers (AAA and AAB) from a private school (which offers they met).

You say that but AAB is the same as the contextual offer that mine received but didn't need as they got A AA compared to the standard offer of A * AA