Internships raffled and auctioned at independent schools give unfair advantage to privileged students

[Vagabond]

I think so.

Life and career-changing internships are regularly auctioned and sold for raffles by Old boys and Old girls at top independent schools giving students an unfair advantage. I know it's normal..... but that doesn't make it right.

Are you sure? How do you know?

I saw a segment about this on TV many years ago. They got to work at top firms which is obviously a boost for their career.
If Madonna is your mother and your father is Guy Ritchie then you're not going to struggle with networking in the future.

Private schools exist to perpetuate unfairness. That's what they're for.

Yes, and they're raffled by charities and both of the two biggest political parties (and I expect the list goes on). Plus many are dished out nepotistically.

And they inherently favour those who can support themselves (or more likely be supported by parents) without pay for the duration, and have no dependants as the hours/locations can be long and variable.

Internships are basically just not fair.

You could also say that it's not fair that my eldest who is considering a career in medicine has asked me to ask my friends who are doctors/dentists/nurses for some work shadowing or work experience in the future. Am I going to tell him no, that I won't use my connections to help him because it's not fair on some other theoretical child somewhere may not have parents who know nurses or doctors?

Like hell I am.

I also think it's really unfair.

I work in the charity sector and routinely see internships auctioned at fundraising balls. Personally I hate it, coming from a working class background and a very average state school I've had to work really hard to build a career and it really niggles me to see wealthy parents 'buying' an opportunity that other young people have to try so hard to obtain and still don't most of the time. Unfortunately money talks in every area of life!

I'm quite surprised, although maybe I just went to the wrong sort of private school. We didn't have any sort of auction, let alone internship auctions. Anywork experience had to be applied for properly and most decent firms should have policies on that sort of thing anyway to stop people using nepotism.

People working in graduate recruitment routinely ask how students got internships in order to filter out purchased privilege.

LunaLoveg00d - I can't see anyone blaming you for that but I do think the system is wrong if knowing someone working in a role in the hospital give you a route in - there should be a fair application system.

If instead of auctioning them, they went round state schools in deprived areas offering them to all and sundry, it would still be unfair and only open to the same small minority. Because to take up an internship you need to be privileged in the first place, so how they are allocated makes no difference. At least by auctioning them it also raises some money.

I worked for a huge corporate for a while too, don't want to name them, but most of the senior management gave their children internships. I used to look at these already really privileged children and think how lucky they were to go to fantastic private schools and to now be given internship opportunities without having to even apply for them.

Yes, it's unfair. Personally, I wouldn't allow it in my company but as others have said, internships are inherently unfair.

Yes it happens, but it's the tip of the iceberg. A huge number of people I know found internships/jobs through their parents or friends of parents (not me I should add!)
It's just life. Not fair, but not worth getting upset about - sadly nothing you can do to change it...

Nepotism is unavoidable i'm afraid. Even small business owners hire their family members first, rather then strangers.

No, it's not right. The best thing they could possibly do is look at awarding these internships to the local state school kids - and I'm surprised that they don't, because increasingly the public schools are giving themselves some sort of remit to reach out to the local community. Presumably they think free cricket lessons will be enough.

nataleejah I think there's a lot of difference between a small business owner choosing a family member who they know and may well be trained in the business, over a stranger; and a city law firm only taking the children of parter sad interns.

Partners as interns. Nobody's sad!

Yep it's shit. But realistically most of these firms will want a lot of intake from the top schools - because there's enough people in the city with that background so they want people who can network with them and that's always going to be easier with individual connections/ shared background/confidence coming from privilege/etc. it's all about this fucking bullshit, sadly.

Big or small business, if you own it, you'd put your family first, you'd want your children to continue your work.
However, in state sector it should be against the law

Yes, it's certainly unfair. However, I wonder if the private schools are perhaps more proactive in requesting these opportunities from charities and companies? It may be that some state schools wouldn't think of it as it would seem like too big an ask. It's either that or the companies and charities somehow favour private schools I suppose.

barbeque- I don't understand what you mean by he link between private schools and charities could you explain please?

Internships should never be auctioned (to private school pupils or anyone else)- I'm surprised any companies still do this.

As Hermione observes, it goes on at every level. Let's say your dc wanted an evening job in a local takeaway. Do you really think they'd get to work there when there were family members/friends who wanted the job?

It's not really wealth, either, but location. How can you take a placement in London if you don't have free accommodation and have to pay ££££ for travel? A "poor" young person from Tower Hamlets would definitely trump a mc kid in that regard if the mc kid lived in, say, Swindon.

Take note and take it up with the companies or charities concerned, for example on social media: their policy decisions to allow nepotism or payment for opportunities are bad ones! And these things are becoming things large organisations can be publicly challenged about.