To think - yes, universities should take state school applicants with lower grades

[Lemiserableoldgimmer]

.. than applicants from private and grammar schools, on the basis that this new research suggests that as a group, state school pupils appear to be more able than private school applicants with identical A level and GCSE grades. More likely to get a good degree, less likely to drop out.

here

What do you think?

I think it's fine to assist those whose education has held them back thus far. However, they still need to arrive at university with a decent skill set if they are to thrive, particularly in the most selective places. Raw intelligence is not enough.

Agree people do need to be able to cope with the course!

But really good people can make up a lot of ground very quickly.

I remember someone who got in for Classics despite knowing no Ancient Greek - on condition that they got up to speed over the summer holidays between offer and starting university. Which they did, because they were (as the interviewers recognised) exceptional.

And some Cambridge colleges would make EE offers (yes, 2 "E" grades) to some as far back as the mid-80's. So dropping to very low offer levels has actually been done for some time.

I agree ark that some people can make up a lot of ground. But equally they might not. It serves no one to have students struggling with basics.

As for the old EE offers, well they were made when Oxbridge still had entrance exams.

The low offers were usually made to those with sterling O levels and who had performed well in the entrance exams and interviews. Most achieved well over the EE offer .

These days, contextualised offers can and are made, but applicants will have shown their promise via GCSEs, AS, interview and many will have sat the new aptitude tests etc.

Yep wordfactory I agree it's in no-one's interest to get students who can't cope.

So I would not argue for "sympathy offers" to be made to people who are missing great chunks of necessary presentation that seem impractical to make up, just because their school is rubbish.

But I don't think that the admissions people make such offers in practice - why would they?

The truth is that almost every offer is a calculated risk (unless you have someone obviously exceptional, but truly exceptional people are rare).

After all there is more than one way of not coping - for a demanding course you need a combination of preparation and ability/interest. You can make up a certain amount of missing preparation but no amount of tuition can compensate on the ability front.

Take maths, which has a fairly definite filter - there comes a point (unless you're Alexander Grothendieck) where things just Get Too Hard and people have to drop out if they hit their personal filter point. For some it's O-level, some it's A-level, some it's halfway through their degree.

All the degree-level maths faders I saw had excellent A-level results.

But I'm not saying that universities should ignore A-levels and general preparation levels. It's just that some on this thread (not you) seem to have the idea that taking other considerations than A-level grades into account is somehow intrinsically inappropriate or unfair, and I don't get why.

Im a state school product, I went to Portsmouth in late 90's (a former polytec) and we had lectures everyday, through the day, and wednesday afternoons too. So you had to make a choice between sport and their studies if that was your thing.

I probably wouldn't have gone if todays fee system was in place, i was first of family, I had forces planned if I hadn't got into university as my parents were very clear that going on benefits wasn't an option, and there didn't seem any decent non degree career paths as already university students were being dropped into supervisor roles that people historically could work up to and cause a kind of glass ceiling.

I blame the universities a lot as they abused the governments assistance by putting on degrees in Madonna etc just to milk state money which then just gave later governments ammunition to scrap fees and grants.

I do believe though that industry needs to cough and sponsor places if it wants talent. I dont think wages have jumped in light of the fees etc, well not in my sector.

Oh god, the 'degree in Madonna/David Beckman/ Miley Cyrus' canard.'

Can anoyone point to the University which offers a BA in Madonna?

I think the poster is talking about Media Studies courses, which do have a relatively poor record in terms of employment for graduates.

Many would like us to offer more hard science type courses, in part because they are more valuable economically. So there is genuine concern, eg: Number of universities offering media studies degrees 'tripled in past 10 years' (Guardian, 2012)

But the universities are responding to demand here. Not sure what the answer is TBH.

ark I agree that no university wants to make offers to applicants they don't think will thrive, but they do come under a certain amount of pressure to do so.

Oxbridge in particular comes in for lots of scrutiny and there is pressure from the public, the media and the governemnt for them to increase their state school intake by whatever means.

Durham, Bristol, LSE et al face less pressure, of course, despite having poor ratios and making less effort to widen access.

Setting quotas rather than making contextualised offers on a case by case basis will, IMVHO, mean a higher drop out rate or the downward movement of standards to deal with drop out rates (which is something you definitely encounter in establishments who make low offers).

Youths either get the grades, or they don't. Why should those with lower grades get into University? I don't agree with that at all. My DDs didn't go to private school. 1 started Uni last year, the other starts this September. They worked hard and got the required grades.

This just sounds very archaic. Apart from the usual suspects its not as if Uni's are swarming with private/grammar school educated students anyway, there are people from all walks of life there.

Or is this is just about reverse snobbery - not being interested in most Uni's really, just wanting DCs to get into the ones deemed 'posh'...?

Durham, Bristol, LSE et al face less pressure, of course, despite having poor ratios and making less effort to widen access

As pointed out above Bristol does have contextual offers and Durham does take into account school when making offer.

Meant to say because of the contextual offers from Bristol, DS and several friends have Bristol as their insurance.

'As pointed out above Bristol does have contextual offers and Durham does take into account school when making offer.'

Durham also offers a foundation year in many subjects for those who need to get up to speed.

ComposHat during that time period there were those types of 'degrees' on offer.

Yes Bristol etc make contextual offers but the effort they put in to widening access isn't as great as Oxbridge

"As for the old EE offers, well they were made when Oxbridge still had entrance exams."

Not necessarily - I went to Cambridge when there were no entrance exams (late 80s), and they were definitely still giving matriculation (ie EE) offers then based on interview, aptitude tests etc.

Somebody in the year above me at school got an unconditional offer on interview. That would have been 1997.

I got an unconditional too (mid 80s) after an interview. I was 17 and had stayed on an extra year after my Highers to mess about in the art department study some more until I was old enough to go to uni.

Apologies, I didn't mean to give the impression that Oxbridge stopped giving double E offers all together.

But they were pretty standard when there were entrance exams and they certainly tailed off when entrance exams were abandonned. Not defunct, but not common.

Far more common now, is a high offer, even for those who did extremely well at interview, aptitude test. Cambridge are very fond of the A* offer!

I think mine was the last year of the Oxford entrance exam, and I did my A levels in 1996. The general paper was really interesting, and I remember two of the questions I answered were "Can a pile of bricks be art?" and "Is it rational to fear death?" The interview was terrifying when my future theology tutor got me onto the subject of free will and I eventually ground to a stuttering halt, convinced I was going to get rejected. Knowing I only had to get two Es to get in took some of the pressure off! Although I did get AAB in the end, at a state grammar school in one of the more deprived areas of my town.

Unconditional offers have not been allowed for many a year. The government would not fund a place unless a minimum of EE, hence the oxbridge offer.

Been thinking of something my tutor telling me how things could change when fees come in as your no longer a pupil being sponsored by the state, you would now be a consumer of which you have paid money for a service.

Caroldecker
on the UCAS support thread this year there were a few unconditional offers to students with good AS levels from Birmingham, Nottingham and Leicester and probably others.

Two of my dd's classmates got AA offers from Oxford this year. Which, frankly, for a potential Oxford candidate is practically an unconditional offer!

"Youths either get the grades, or they don't. Why should those with lower grades get into University?"

Because there is a world of difference between

1. an A from a private school pupil who has had excellent teaching in a class of say 8 all working at B/A/A level, and

2. an A from a pupil at an overstretched state school with an A level class of 30, where many are going to do well if they get a D/E grade, and said pupil ends up teaching themselves most of the curriculum from revision books.

Its bloody obvious when you get to uni which is which, hence why the latter student is more likely to get a 1st or 2:1.