I worked at a Russell Group university for 10 years in widening participation / recruitment / admissions.

[AngerIsAnEnergy]

Have a decent insight into this, working with academics and administrators in many subjects, student support services etc.

AMA.

I also worry that students who get a lot of adjustments at university will struggle to cope in work. Discrimination is rife, and in my experience I've never had a reasonable adjustment. I've witnessed people be terminated just for requesting one. I don't even disclose disability now.

Do you find that students who have a lot of adjustments manage to go onto full time work?

I know quite a few who have remained chronically unemployed years after graduating.

No questions op, but wanted to say you sound lovely and great at your job.

yes I think foundation years are good for increasing the range of possible access routes and there should be more.

I didnt work on any foundation year programmes though and I am not sure how the fees work, if the students have an extra year of tuition fee debt it seems unfair.

@howareyoutodayagain bless you! I've left the sector but in a related job and I learned a lot doing it.

@Anon1717 that is awful and I am so sorry. These experiences really show the limits of the Equality act: it says very clearly what employers' duty is for reasonable adjustments.

But if there is little knowledge of disability rights, little knowledge among employers, and not enough legal aid and access to justice for disabled employees who are discriminated against, it is not very meaningful.

I don't know the evidence in enough detail to answer your question. I know there is a disability employment gap between disabled and non disabled working age people. I think disabled people with a degree will probably have a higher chance of employment.

There is the wider question of education as a personal development and a benefit in its own right, aside from employment. If it gave those students a purpose, confidence, more skills etc is that a good thing anyway? If they never earn high salaries, they won't have to pay off the student loan anyway.

Your question also points to the fact that often organisations are better at accommodating disabled students than disabled staff. I had a professor say to me 'they assume the students need an accessible system, they never assume the professor marking the essays might need an accessible system'.

The private school would cancel out the other criteria for most contextual admissions programmes and WP summer schools. The view would be that the student already has the access to the private school education and support services, and the uni needs to prioritise their resources on WP students without these benefits.

However the financial circumstances that meant the student needed the private school bursary are still going to get them access to the maximum maintenance loan and possibly financial need bursaries and scholarships from the universities.

Thanks for detailed and interesting response.

I grew up in Scotland - a nice house, nice area, attended good school (local comprehensive) - I'd say the majority went on to higher education (this was late 90s). But the vast majority were the first in their families to go to uni. (I didn't realise it at the time but on reflection none of my peers at school had parents who were doctors, lawyers, high paid professionals.).

The vast majority of my school friends went to uni but almost all of us stayed at home and went to a local uni (3 unis in the city). Like a PP mentioned about her Scottish husband, I also had straight A grades (and went on to get a first class degree, Masters and PhD) but it never crossed my mind to go to a uni other than a local one (assuming I got a place - I did also apply to others). Financially it just wasn't feasible for my family. And my parents had no idea that there was any kind of hierarchy to universities.

At my local RG uni the vast majority of my fellow students were from backgrounds similar to myself. At the RG uni I did my Masters at, and the Uni I currently work at, the student population is very obviously much wealthier. In the tutorial group I teach, I had to stifle a laugh when all 12 of my first year students pulled out gleaming new Apple laptops in unison in our first session. It was like we were making an advert 😂 . (Whereas at home I have a 7 year old very slow laptop). That's just a small example but overall I just wouldn't fit in as a student there. The hobbies, holidays, clothes, tech....even topics of conversation 'where did you go to school?' - meaning which private school, not where are you from.

He really needs to speak directly to the courses he wants to apply for and get a read on their response.

For some they might be so oversubscribed that yes the B would rule him out in spite of A*s. For other, they might be more flexible.

Never forget he has 5 application options and it is good to go in thinking you might end up at any one of those five and to be happy with one of them. Instead of putting all eggs in one basket of one preferred course at one uni.

Oh wow yes the laptops is a funny example. It is the little things that like that really bring it home.

www.93percent.club/

Apologies if the 93 percent club has already been mentioned - haven't read all posts.

"The 93% Club, the UK’s largest community of state educated students."

I completely agree with you.

When you work with these students, parents, teachers and communities for years you see how all these incremental small and big factors add up to really hold back talented people.

This is why I get so annoyed by that reductive attitude of 'you are discriminating against private school kids! you are actually NARROWING participation' 'how very dare you give a WP kid an ABB offer when the private school student is predicted 3A*s' blah blah blah. Also 'this is just social engineering!!!' really annoyed me. What exactly are - private tutors, grammar schools, private schools, personalised oxbridge coaching - if they are not social engineering?

When I am thinking of:
kids whose parents maybe don't speak great English, or who have to work all the time so cant be around supporting their kids as much as they want to; parents who are lovely but do not have a clue where to start and end up pressuring their kid to just do law or medicine when it isnt the right fit and they probably wont get in; parents who don't give a s**t or who don't want their kid to go to uni; educational disruption like kids who've had several teachers leave through the school year; teachers doing their best but on the verge of breakdown; no quiet private study space; not having reliable broadband at home; having to work part time jobs alongside education; no spare £ for books, extra-curriculars etc; the experience of stereotype threat and imposter syndrome when your accent, face, clothes and experiences just 'dont fit'; the experiences of kids in care or who are estranged or went through abusive situations; the additional 'admin tax' in form of the research work that WP kids have to do into working out how they will run their finances.

The phrase 'I'm playing the world's smallest violin' comes to mind.

I hadnt seen this - thanks.

I think schools should do more, but universities need to do more as well.
But it is also a problem of resources, you cant jsut say 'do more', doing decent careers advice, WP work costs money, mostly in staff salaries and therefore pensions.

I think many schools do the absolute best they can in almost impossible situations.

I think the government needs to do more but it is down to what voters choose and what messaging is getting fed to voters by the media.

Ultimately I think I would personally get rid of private schools, gradually, starting with removing their charitable status. I would want all schools to be a decent standard of education from which someone could progress to all kinds of destinations. I would want schools to have a mix of social classes in their intake, I dont think it is good for our society to be so segregated and stratified.

But i am not PM and this is not likely to happen.

It was founded by Sophie Pender, who is from a very disadvantaged background and went on to study law at Bristol Uni.

An inspiring woman:

www.theguardian.com/education/2021/mar/06/bullingdon-in-reverse-working-class-student-93-club-taking-on-elitism

I would not worry. Your daughter sounds very smart and like she has her own mind which is great.
The Russell group / not RG is a bit misleading as there is a range within the RG and also 'not RG' is a massive range. There are some elite unis that are not in the RG and many excellent well regarded non RG unis.

I didnt want to worry people with my comment and I am not a careers advisor but some competitive / elite employers do have a RG / elite uni bias, I am thinking of the Magic circle law firms, the big consultancies and so on. They would still accept applications but it is hard from the outside to know what internal selection processes they use. It is basically the next step in the problem isnt it.

It really depends on what career and employer she wants to go into. Also I think doing stuff to develop employable skills at uni is really important.

If you had a 2:1 applicant who had done summer internships, part time office work, worked in student media and organised events through a student society, they might be stronger than a student with a 1st with no experience outside the course. but it depends what the individual employer is looking for.

@FlemCandango has your son applied for disabled students allowance?

There's a lot of generalisation going on around adjustments and subsequent struggling at work that I find surprising.

Here are the adjustments that would have benefited me, a working-class applicant with no disabilities but very little exposure to the middle class rules, in the future workplace:

• professional/academic communications skills ("polite" codes, how to make requests in a formal workplace, presentation skills, how to dress/mannerisms)
• etiquette: what topics to discuss and which are best avoided in a polite setting
• how to get through a formal dinner (never had seen a corkscrew nor heard of certain foods before uni)
• how people introduce each other and how to network, including why people bother networking in the first place

@AngerIsAnEnergy such an interesting thread, thank you. I wanted to ask whether admissions teams really pay much attention to personal statements? Is a quick skim read, or the content really matters/can sway an application? When I’m recruiting at work I only have time for a topline read of covering letters and I’d assumed it was the same, but is that correct?

Here’s the thing as a private school parent. We all agree that a student from a deprived background (free school meals, single parent, sink school - however you measure it) has potentially shown way more ability with 3As than a private student with 3 A+s (can’t use stars) and that absolutely they should get places.

So how can our Dc show their ability is equally good? More A levels? How many extra A+ do they need? None of us would mind seeing something like “standard entry requirements AAA, WP entry (with criteria) ABB, private entry A+A+A+”…then you’ve allowed for the advantages of private by expecting higher performance. And everyone would know what they need to do.

But it does feel that there is now no way to show ability if the assumption is that all the exam performance comes from being private not innate ability.

Being privately educated is not expected to be a guarantee of a Oxbridge/RG etc place - but our Dc (who didn’t choose where to go to school) shouldn’t be excluded from them either. And I’m afraid at the moment it feels like their applications will be binned the minute the school is seen.

In my experience, going to a top university from a large comprehensive -first in family to go to university, poor background, etc etc - you have to have better grades than those from other, more privileged backgrounds. “Have to” is the wrong expression, but without a school suggesting to aim even higher etc, I went to my local (RG) university, where I had better A level grades than most, and I did get a first and was somewhat a bit of a star in the department. It’s lack of confidence and believing absolutely that I wasn’t good enough for elsewhere. I didn’t really think I was clever, despite being a top performer at school throughout. Also, it is known that private schools give higher predicted grades than other schools, getting their pupils those university offers in the first place.

Well said creamedcustard this has been my problem all my life 🤣

An insightful and witty post! There are loads of 'unwritten' middle class rules at uni and in the professions. I think you will really enjoy this book.
www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jan/30/class-ceiling-sam-friedman-daniel-laurison-review-pays-to-be-privileged

Personally when I say 'adjustments' I am only referring to reasonable adjustments for disability in the sense of the Equality Act. Not broader, vaguer definitions of adjustments. These are a legal right and there is a clear definition. It is not about WP or class as anyone - upper middle or lower - can be disabled.

I've worked at several RG universities over the years, working class background, and don't have any questions per se but just wanted to thank you for this thread OP. Your answers are so well considered and insightful, and as someone else said, you do sound lovely.

Yes that is interesting. I had a student on a summer school say her mum and aunty tell her: 'you have to be at least twice as good as the rest. You are black, you are poor and you are a girl.'

@AnElegantChaos Aww shucks. that's nice