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?

No I don't think it is a good idea. Plenty of state school pupils are privately tutored. Also there are state schools and state schools. I am not against applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds being accepted with lower grades. But don't make it all state schools or else you will get the usual pushy middle class types claiming places for their darlings.

Special consideration for kids on FSM might be a good idea- although I await the standard Mumsnet flaming for the suggestion.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that sll state school students be given lower offers or that people eith 3 N grades are allowed to fo Medicine at Oxford.

What is being suggested (and I wholeheartedly agree) is that a raw A level grade divorced from the context in which that a-level was achieved is a poor measure of academic ability. Therefore it is sensible to make relatively minor adjustments to allow very bright students from schools who have low average a-level grades and no traditional of sendimg students to university to compete on a more evrn footing.

There is a world of difference between a state grammar school and a state comprehensive, and less difference between a state grammar and a selective independent.

tabvase the point isn't just to take students who are poorer though, but students who have the best potential but may not have had the opportunity to have had it realised. To a large extent, your playing field in being able to obtain top grades was leveled by winning a scholarship to a good school with excellent average grades, why not allow that for other similarly clever students who didn't have one? Your achievement in gaining a scholarship, and in doing so from a deprived area, wouldn't go unnoticed by an admissions tutor, so you (or someone like you) would still look impressive.

I think everyone is oversimplifying the process, there's much more to take into account than a state/private divide- and grades just handed out on the basis of these. It is not a quick superficial fix- this preferring of high achievers who aren't at the best schools has been going on for a long time- certainly this is why Oxbridge still interviews as well as looks at predicted grades, because they know once these students with slightly lower but still excellent grades from poor comps come to them, they tend to do very well indeed.

Hakluyt that makes a lot of sense! That way we are getting past "state school but well off" and "state school but privately tutored". If you're on FSM your parents are unlikely to be forking out bucketloads of cash for a private tutor, and you are also not particularly likely to be attending a beacon state school.

I think some universities already do this. I have certainly heard tutors from Oxford and Cambridge talking about it. And if you do it in the way they do - i.e. looking at the whole picture, taking into account predicted A-level grades, GCSE grades, type of school and interviews, I really can't see a sensible argument against it. They are simply picking the people they think are going to do best on the course. I fundamentally disagree with people who suggest that this is somehow "positive discrimination" in favour of state school pupils, or that it unfairly disadvantages independent school pupils. It is the admissions tutor's job to select the candidates who will perform best on their course. Of course they should take into account all relevant information - including where the candidate went to school, and what that is likely to mean about their A-level predictions/results - in making that judgment.

I think, however, that there is a potential problem if universities are selecting without interview and apply a blanket rule e.g. that a state school C is worth an independent school B. There doesn't seem to be research to justify sweeping statements of this kind, and it also fails to take into account the particular circumstances of the individual candidate (who, as people have said above, may just be a lazy git who is capable of achieving a higher grade but chose not to).

Why are some people assuming that state school children are coming from difficult backgrounds? Obvosly many will but equally many will come from average families who just can't afford to educate their 2.4 children (or whatever the statistic is these days) at £3K per term.

I went to a state school. I had educated, intelligent parents who had a lot of input into my education and dedicated a lot of time to my learning. My accountant dad coached me through maths and my mum coached me through english. This benefited me hugely. Should my grades have been adjusted accordingly?!

I went to a comprehensive. My Mum is a primary school teacher. I definitely got a head start with the reading! But by the time I was at high school I'd gone beyond the level at which my Mum could usefully coach/teach me, and I had to teach myself higher aspects of (GCSE!) maths that were apparently beyond my high school maths teacher. Ditto parts of the history and French syllabi at A-level.

We all have anecdotal examples, but it is obvious that, in general, the class sizes and financial limitations in state comprehensives at least make it more difficult to produce a teaching programme tailored to all members of the class. That means teachers often have no choice but to work to the average, often to the detriment of high-performing or low-performing members of the cohort. No system of choosing students for university courses is perfect, but surely one in which this general point can be taken into account is better than one where it can't?

As an admissions tutor, I would love to be able to take full account of contextual data, but average entry grades are a part of university league tables.

So if you admit students with potential on lower grades you are in danger of dropping places, and conversely if you want a higher league table place you raise entry grades.

I am perfectly aware that an applicant with BCC (with the B in a relevant subject) is usually perfectly capable of getting a a 2:1 if they work hard, yet our standard offer is ABB.

I would much rather take a BCC student who was really interested in the subject than an ABB student who is applying because going to university is just the next stage of eduction.

Universities already do this
On the University of Bristol's website it states: "We may make lower offers based on whether an applicant is deemed to have experienced an educational disadvantage."

from here www.theguardian.com/education/mortarboard/2013/may/16/universities-are-right-to-accept-state-school-students-with-lower-grades

That would be to admit that children in State schools underachieve en masse would it not?

"There is a world of difference between a state grammar school and a state comprehensive"

No there isn't. A state grammar school is simply the top set of a state comprehensive school being educated in a different building.

a university's job is to educate, not provide social engineering. get good grades, you get in.

"No there isn't. A state grammar school is simply the top set of a state comprehensive school being educated in a different building."

Hakluyt I don't think that's quite right. It's the top set of a state comprehensive being educated in a different building, and split into sets there, meaning that the ability range within grammar school sets is going to be much narrower than within the comp sets.

I met a retired grammar school teacher at the weekend who told me that teaching in a grammar also involved teaching a range of abilities. I agreed with him, but pointed out that in small comprehensives you could well be looking at a GCSE history class ranging in ability from A* pupils to kids who are going to fail the exam. Put like that, he agreed that there was a big difference - and there often is.

Very few comprehensives fail to set nowadays. I wold be amazed if anyone likely to get an A* in history is ever educated with anyone likely to fail.

And actually, none of the grammar schools I know set for anything except maths.

"No there isn't. A state grammar school is simply the top set of a state comprehensive school being educated in a different building."

I could not disagree more. Grammar educated children are at an advantage to children educated at a comprehensive school.

What about a bright child who wins a full scholarship to a private school?

Or an 'outstanding' grammer/state school kid versus a child at a 'failing' normal state school.

Or the child who is sent private by parents who work like mad to afford to send their only child private as the local state schools are failing and they can't afford to move (or have any more kids) versis a very well off 'right on' and well connected family who send their kids state (like David Cameron) and probably spend their money on tutors/fantastic holidays/ clubs/ trips/ oxbridge nannies etc?

Or a child given a flying start going to private prep then whose parents scour the league tables to move to the catchment area of a 'top' state school?

Or those who can afford the £million+ home next to a very good/ourstanding state school.

Its not cut and dried.

A friend's son, studying at a state sixth form college in a relatively deprived area, got a lower offer for a highly rated course several years ago. What the university didn't take into account was that his parents were both university graduates, and one was a professional in the subject the son was going to study.
I am in favour of some level of tweaking to favour state educated candidates from schools with lower rates of university applications/students with disadvantaged backgrounds. Not in favour of generally extension to all state school candidates including those at highly selective grammars/sixth form colleges.

No one has mentioned that there are varying degrees of private school, some far worse than an excellent state school.

My private school was good, had a great mix of children from different backgrounds eg my best friends mum was a nurse who worked her arse off to afford it (I think but don't know she got some funding). We all worked very hard and continued that ethic at Uni. Whereas the private my cousins went to was full of "dumped" boarders, behaviour was atrocious and actually academically a very small % went on to university. To do well out of there was an achievement in itself. Another set of cousins basically went to one that fit the typical private stereotype and their results were very much "purchased" as have their careers been ongoing through social contacts.

You can't blanket private as you can't blanket state, that isn't the solution. The 1st set of cousins grades would probably have been more "valid" than mine but mine far more valid than the second set.

All state schools are not equal.....

All private schools are not equal....

I went to a non-academic, takes everyone private school because my parents lived abroad and it was the only option. 8/100 in my year went to University and we had classes of 30+

I now teach in a tiny, remote rural school where my son is in tiny classes (2 for French, for example) and 25% go to University. My DD is there too and even in younger years classes are tiny.

I have some concerns as well with penalising adults (18+) for decisions made by their parents when they were too young to know the consequences and ask for different choices. Although, on the other hand, many parents don't have a choice..

Aah confused.

The single most accurate indicator of academic achievement is parental income. There are no children from poor backgrounds at private schools.

(Apart, obviously, from the battalions of kids personally known to mumsnetters who are at private school on full bursaries that cover all trips, extras and uniforms)

There were sets in my small rural comprehensive for English and Maths, but not for subjects like History or Geography at GCSE because the numbers of pupils taking those subjects were too low to allow for setting.

By contrast, in my husband's grammar school, there was setting in most subjects.

OP your argument appears to be that students who perform worse at uni should have a higher A level grade to get a place. Based on your assumptions this suggests black and Asian students should be forced to have much higher grades than white students as they perform less well.
Is this your argument, and if not why not?