to think this is a load of twaddle

[QuietContraryMary]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-46950952
"I'm mixed-race, is Cambridge University right for me?"

"Anoushka Mutanda Dougherty has been offered a place at Cambridge University, but she's mixed-race and from a state school - and only 3% of students who started at Cambridge in 2017 were black, or mixed-race with black heritage. So is it the best place for her? At this point, she's not sure."

"But I worry about what life would be like in a university which still admits quite a high proportion of pupils from private schools, and where I would be one of only a handful in my year from a mixed white/Black African family - in 2017 there were just 14. There's no escaping the fact that Cambridge is a majority white and majority posh (!) institution."

Her mum is "mixed Indian and Ugandan", dad is white.

That is surely 'mixed white, Asian, and black African', or 'mixed other', what is with the

Her mum has a massive self-promotional Wikipedia page, she went to Durham (which was certainly far more elitist/ethnically homogenous when she went there then than Cambridge is now) is a middle-class professional/TV talking-head en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anjula_Mutanda

Mum's website says

"Anjula is passionate about travel and fitness- and often manages to combine the two! She loved walking the Inca Trail in South America, and treated herself afterwards by munching down on chocolate cake at her favourite cafe in Cusco!

She cycled in Languedoc in France through challenging and beautiful terrain, and got back on her bike to cycle in the stunning surroundings of Southern Ireland. She`s not as ambitious as her husband though who cycled from Greece to Nepal! Instead she met up with him in Delhi, and they spent two months travelling from Jaipur to Darjeeling- a wonderful trip."

Which is all very nice, but not exactly some unique 'mixed race experience' - it's bog standard these days, if you're loaded.

Oh and btw, that 'state school'? All girls grammar school in Canterbury with just 2.9% FSM (national average is 13.6%), which is 85% white British.

My kids are mixed race, white & Asian, and have probably similar backgrounds in the sense of being inherently privileged - except I think Anjula's media contacts are much better than mine.

I would however find my kids leveraging race in this way a bit odd. They've had lots of advantages. and while they do have a mixed heritage which gives them some unique perspectives and so on, I think I'd be a bit embarrassed at this sort of posturing when it doesn't correspond to a lived reality - it doesn't make a lot of sense to complain about a lack of diversity when you've lived in that your whole life.

Though I suppose the magic numbers in that article are

"white/black Caribbean, 0.6%; white/black African, 0.5%; white/Asian, 3.9%; other mixed background, 1.9%"

'white/Asian' is much less homogenous than 'white/black Caribbean' and 'white/black African' combined are. I can't see that for example 'white/Thai' children would have much in common with 'white/Japanese' or 'white/Indian' but it's all lumped together (and that article complains about a lack of R&B clubs, really?). So a 'white/Philippines' child (or whatever other group) might have NO people with a similar background there.

But here we are expected to believe that moving from a middle class school in Canterbury, to Cambridge is some kind of culture shock.

🙄🙄🙄🙄 and that isn’t at you, OP!

YANBU.... not one little bit. Such a self promoting and cringeworthy article. Why on earth did the BBC publish it??

There are lots of interesting and important things to discuss about disadvantaged groups getting into University - this girls experience isn't one of them.

Agree 100% but good promotion for mum.

There are some good comments out there from students at Oxford and Cambridge who are from under represented groups and some important conversations to be had but something about this article was off for me - I couldn't quite pinpoint what though. Given the information above I wonder if the BBC went for the easy option in finding someone to write about their experiences.

I was most interested in the stat from Cambridge that the 59 students accepted from a particular background were a third of all those who got the required grades for Cambridge. That is a staggering level of inequality earlier in the system (and yes I was aware of this inequality but not of those numbers).

If you look at the last British census (2011) the only groups that are under-represented at Cambridge it seems are Black & White students. Black/Black British total of UK population (3%) Cambridge (2.2%). White total of Uk population (87%) Cambridge (77%).

Both mixed raced & Asians are actually over-represented at Cambridge.

"Given the information above I wonder if the BBC went for the easy option in finding someone to write about their experiences."

According to Mum's Twitter, her daughter is/was on work experience at BBC World Service, so I'm guessing yes.

I'm surprised someone who uses 'like' so frequently got a place at Cambridge tbh.