Basketz That poster was smug. No doubt about it, dearie.
And really, get your own words. If I'm going to have to read psychobabble and poorly done amateur psychology, I prefer it to be original. Otherwise it's like reading a 'Pick-Up Artist' forum while playing a drinking game- you have a shot for every use of hypergamy, neg, etc, and by the end of page 5 of a thread, you're utt...ly sh...loshed.
Now, try again with the reading comprehension. You keep building little strawmen that claim I deny that HE can ever work. Yes, I'm criticising something you have emotional investment in. That's the time when it's most important to listen. I do deny that certain types of H "E" can work, jjust as I am doggone certain that the biscuits in the biscuit jar disappeared through the children eating them. Not because a poltergeist mashes them into a carpet.
I am happy to accept some forms can work, and I have done so. I have repeatedly acknowledged the Oxbridge graduates. I do not pretend they do not exist, because to do otherwise would mean denying the evidence of my own eyes. Nor do I belittle their achievements by taking them for granted and refusing to acknowledge the work they put in.
However, claiming it always works would also mean denying the evidence of my own eyes. Again, I'm not just referring to my own circumstances here. If I had one particular friend's circumstances and had chosen the latter course of action, and was on this thread, defending HE, how would you react to my posts? I suspect you'd all love it, and I certainly wouldn't hear anything about how I was 'banging a drum'. 
Before I continue, check your John Holt books and brochures about HE-ing and how it produces independently-minded people who don't response to peer pressure. Turns out that bit came true. 
Right now, this is a tad unfortunate for you. You can throw 70 HEing parents making passive-aggressive remarks about bitterness at me, and I'm going to be pretty much as bothered as when Louise Fergus* said cool girls smoked. I may well take the opportunity to be patronising back, though. Fair warning!
Yes, I have worked out that my mother had some degree of free will in her educational decisions for me, and that she was not a marionette controlled by mumsnetters years in the future through the internet that hadn't been invented yet, and the computer we didn't have. Similarly, you also have free will. You have free will to type the things you do (many of which I've heard before), and you can choose to read or not read when I point out the flaws in any posts here. At the moment, there seems to be a lot of compromising, in that you half-read my posts. In the best traditions of compromises, the result is that everyone's dissatisfied.
I do wonder if you'd be reacting to my posts in such a way if I was male. At present, sounds like you're one step away from asking me if I'm hysterical, hormonal or suggesting I seek counselling. I'm rather happy with honesty, as previously mentioned. I am neither the Rah-Rah-Everything IS BRILLLIANT teen I once was, or the My-Life-Is-OooovEEEER young adult I was.
As mentioned, I'm not feeling inspired by the reading comprehension at present. Something's rotten in the state of Mumsnet! I did not say that HEed kids couldn't become doctors, I said 5 GCSEs would limit their choices of medical schools, and that if the wrong five GCSEs were pursued, you then have a bit of a hurdle to take science A-levels. A breathless "HEers can even get into med school" does not really contradict that point. Unless you're going to hold up post-graduate medicine up as an ideal, now? A route that should definitely exist, for the profession's good, the good of wider society, and the benefit of individuals, but if any of my children decide they want to go into medicine, I'd like them to have a crack at getting in for their first degree.
Access to HE courses are great, and have improved social mobility, and allnthat jazz, especially for those wanting/needing a change of career or whom were failed by their school, mand I am very pleased your friend's DD achieved her goals. But seeing as you brought them up, would you mind giving the audience a complete list of commonly available access courses and areas of study covered?