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?

Parentalunit - how much would you pay to educate your dcs privately if it did not confer an educational advantage?

Ig you remind me of an Oscan Wilde quote... "education is what is left after everything you learned has been forgotten."

You're not just paying for the grades.

In my day job I get people to discuss recent events and try to identify lessons for the future - what worked well...let's repeat it; what can we improve...let's do things differently etc.

I've become familiar with spotting suggestions that seek to address symptoms and those that address root causes.

Let me tell you - the root cause of this whole discussion is not the "unfairness" of private education (after all, it shows what is possible) but the inadequacy of state provision.

We should not be seeking to make up for the relatively poor teaching and support for our children by asking for lower entry grades - more we should be insisting that the quality of both improves.

Making allowances for mediocrity is what you do when you have given up the fight; c'mon, we can do this - let's not give up!

Shouldn't the focus be on making sure that state school pupils get a decent education, so that they don't have to be at a disadvantage?

I'm all for improving state education, but this isn't enough. We live in a society with massive inequalities and even bloody fantastic schools cannot make up all the difference.

A school cannot get a child a bedroom of their own to study in, pay for internet access at home or to provide educational trips every other weekends.

Clearly this isn't every child, but significant proportion of children live in poverty, and it isn't getting any better (see here). Schools alone can't fix this, but access to a good degree could secure their future.

I used to be against this idea but not sure now. My parents had a working class background but were easonable well off.
However I was never really pushed academically. My mum thought I was very clever and left me to it. They rarely sat down to do homework with me that I can remember much. When I started struggling in my A-levels she had no idea. I passed but I can't help thinking that if I had come from pushier parents, the type that get you extra tuition etc I might have done a lot better.

*reasonably!!!

Oh yes - my (privately educated) husband was struggling with one of his A levels and the teacher was crap. His mum sent him to a summer school to up his grades.

I'm not sure my parents even know WHICH A levels I was doing...

I wasn't just talking about grades either..

Truegent, what makes you think state sector teaching is poorer than private sector?

*I'm all for improving state education, but this isn't enough. We live in a society with massive inequalities and even bloody fantastic schools cannot make up all the difference.

A school cannot get a child a bedroom of their own to study in, pay for internet access at home or to provide educational trips every other weekends.

Clearly this isn't every child, but significant proportion of children live in poverty, and it isn't getting any better (see here). Schools alone can't fix this, but access to a good degree could secure their future.*

Presumable you are not suggesting that poor people stop having children, or that the rest of the nation subsidize people who have children but can't afford lots of bedrooms or internet access.

Ig the subject here is about lowering grades for state school pupils. Not sure why you are . I never considered not sending my children to private school.

TrueGent well put.

*presumably

Yep, I think we should subsidise those children. Not by buying them bigger houses! But by ensuring there are homework clubs, safe places to study after school (and away from siblings), breakfast clubs and well-resourced libraries and computer labs.
And let's spare a thought too for the 57 million children who don't get an education at all while we're at it.

That'll be where we differ, then.

"Truegent, what makes you think state sector teaching is poorer than private sector?"

If private sector teaching wasn't better, I struggle to see why people would pay so much for it! Not to say that the teachers are better per se, but I would assume that there will be smaller classes, less likely to be significant numbers of lessons covered by non-subject teachers, classes where a significant number of pupils are disengaged & potentially disruptive, et al.

Obviously lots of state sector teaching is excellent, but people choosing to pay for private school must feel that their dc will get a better education than they would in the state system . . .

"Making allowances for mediocrity is what you do when you have given up the fight"

Yes, that's why universities have so many cases of "Tim nice but dim" who have been coached to a level well above their ability

Actually, to be fair, my university experience is many years behind me. Maybe all those Tim nice-and-not-quite-dim-but-certainly-not-the-brightest-and-best no longer get the places they used to get.

Igggi, state employees' salaries are controlled centrally, with very little scope for variation according to performance. Private employers can pay as much or as little as they like, thereby incentivising better performance. Clearly, some state providers will be excellent and some private ones rubbish (I exaggerate to make the point) but, generally speaking, private education is of a higher standard than its state equivalent - for all sorts of reasons, one of which is quality of teaching.

Universities have known this for a long time, both based on formal quantitative research and our own experience of teaching. The same set of exam results can indicate a quite different level of ability and motivation depending on the school and social background, though it certainly isn't as simple as private versus state. An applicant with less than perfect grades from Eton is unlikely to get a second look unless there were exceptional personal circumstances. An applicant from a state school in special measures will almost perfect grades certainly would as that is still an outstanding achievement. For the most part there is no official, formal formula for this as it would need to be very subtle and complex.

What I don't think most top universities are doing is 'social engineering' in the sense of admitting less able candidates from poorer backgrounds. What we are more likely to be doing is aiming to admit those candidates who we expect to be the highest performing by the end of the degree, based on all the information we have available. We don't necessarily always get it right, but that's what we are aiming for.

Takver like all schools I think private schools vary.

It's interesting as my dp was one from a poor family at a crap sink state secondary modern school(parents never entered him for the 11+) who got into two red brick unis for his degrees.He ended up doing his Alevels at night school in a year whilst working!

His dc are now doing the 11+.They're at the end of a previously Satisfactory state primary and competing against kids at private schools and those who have been heavily coached from year 3!They've been doing mocks with some of their privately educated friends who are struggling to get a pass mark and they are by contrast rocking them.

I think private schools vary hugely and there are crap and good(1 prep school near us allegedly has a highly successful pass rate at 11+,it's why people send their dc there) others are pretty awful and I wouldn't send my kids there if you paid me.

The 11+ rollercoaster has been an eye opener and I am beginning to change my mind re this coached in myth.Many A levels are hard and I'm not sure any Tim's who get As can be dim.Also I'm not so sure you can get good results out of average kids however much cash you throw at them.That said children having parents who have literally 100s of thousands of £s to spend on their dc's education is something to think about even if some are foolish enough to waste it on mediocre or worse private schools.

I don't know what the answer is tbf.

I think universities, especially academic ones, should select by potential. This involves complex thinking, not merely churning out formulaic answers in what are still fairly dumbed down A levels (although starting to get harder again). I think you need to be reasonably bright now to get AAA at A levels, but far from brilliant. The corollary is that the top universities somehow need to sift through a lot of candidates with the same grades and choose between them.

I guess it is up to universities to decide how to select this potential. I think an interview will often tell more than grades alone. It does strike me that someone who gets AAB from a school whose average grades are CCD is statistically likely to be brighter than someone with AAA from a school whose average is AAB. Surely, it is reasonable for a university to select this candidate on the basis of higher potential?

What is clearly not right is taking lower potential candidates deliberately to make up numbers for social engineering purposes.

Because there are all sorts of advantages some have and others don't you just can't compensate for.

I wonder what other countries with better social mobility do.

X posted.

"private education is of a higher standard than its state equivalent - for all sorts of reasons, one of which is quality of teaching."

I'm not agreeing or disagreeing- but can you support that statement? Or those statements.

Well if we didnt accept that private education was advantageous, we wouldn't be having this discussion ...

That said, I think we need to be careful of generalisations.

97% of DC attend state schools and the vast majoirty are not living without a clean quiet space to revise or without access to internet or without parents who can read and write.

We're all trained in the same colleges.

I have to say seeing some of the work from friends with kids in private schools the work and standards from my dc's satisfactory state was streaks ahead.

I also think state educated teachers are often kept more up to date,kept on their toes more and have more spent on their professional development.

A teacher capable of keeping 30 challenging 15 year kids interested will surely be more creative and used to working out of a comfort zone more than say a teacher with 15 kids in a classroom their parents are paying thousands for.

There's much to be said for improving state provision in terms of teaching and general management but it goes further. A significant issue is a lack of information given or even available to parents and children to enable them to make informed choices about the level of commitment needed by the whole family to school work.

For example, I was surprised to learn that a local superselective tells parents nothing about the UCAS process.