Can you tell if someone is privately educated?

[bye2020]

Without knowing what school they went to?

@sashh

Many of the girls at my school had parents who were self employed & worked incredibly hard to afford the fees

Well obviously no one who's children go to a comp have hard working parents do they?

I hate the, "My parents work hard to send me here" attitude.

Always. They are more entitled, less understanding of diversity and inclusion and less well rounded generally.

OMG. After working in hospitals in Oxford you can spot the privately educated. No Mrs X can't leave her 4 children with, 'the nanny' she doesn't have one.

Why do yo want Y? I'm on call. Oh you thought that as Y has brown skin she could speak to your patient. What language does your patient speak?

So much prejudice it’s hard to know where to start.

@PhilCornwall1

You most certainly can tell a privately educated person, because they or their parents bang on about it at every opportunity.

Doesn't make them more intelligent than if they weren't though. You can't buy intelligence, as we have seen with our Prime Minister.

Wrong. Trust me, you have spoken to many many privately educated people who have not mentioned it, and therefore you didn’t know.

@sixthtimelucky

Well generally yes because of posh accents. My husband has a strong regional accent from north of England and went to private school - people are amazed if it comes up in conversation.

But haven’t you disproved your own point — that being privately educated doesn’t necessarily magically convert all comers to RP?

• Wrong. Trust me, you have spoken to many many privately educated people who have not mentioned it, and therefore you didn’t know.*

And have also spoken to many who have gone on about it.

I don't think that having been to a private school, or sending your child to a private school, is anything to boast about

Conversely, it is nothing to be ashamed of either.

@Madeupwithit

They'll tell you 9 times out of 10

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻!!!

You most certainly can tell a privately educated person, because they or their parents bang on about it at every opportunity.

Utter nonsense.

And have also spoken to many who have gone on about it.

So, a handful of people have mentioned it.

Hardly the same as stating it as fact that they will "bang on about it" is it?

I love these threads.

I really wouldn't know there were so many chippy people out there otherwise.

Quite. Also, it's good to know that no state educated person is confident and well spoken (amongst other things!) 😂😂

Anyone that claims to "always know" can only be so confident if they ask everyone their educational history and google the schools to check. So they are either lying, nosey and rude or utterly mad.

I think it can be an assumption, based on snobbery.
One of my friends got through to Oxford on a scholarship. Without wanting to sound like the "Four Northerners Sketch", he was on free school meals, raised by a widowed mother who worked as a cleaner.
He was there on his merits, he worked hard, made friends. I guess his accent was altered by his training as a chorister, but it was never affected.
One of his new acquaintances asked him one day, "Where did you school?", clearly expecting him to name some eminent institution.
When he told her of his true origins, she genuinely replied, "Oh, I thought you were one of us!"
I suspect that he was better prepared for the big wide world after uni than she was.....

I know. I think a lot of people have just made up their mind without ever meeting anyone from private school so just regurgitate their opinion as fact. Sad really.

I suspect that he was better prepared for the big wide world after uni than she was.....

Why would you think that? There are many, many successful snobs out there!

Wow some people have a real chip on their shoulder about private schools. I went to a grammar and it was actually much posher than some private schools. It was predominantly people who could afford private and would have paid out had they not passed the entrance test.

Likewise DH went to a leafy lane comp and while probably not quite as high earning on average it was decidedly middle class. Lots of private schools aren't particularly posh and are mainly filled with people who scrimp and save to get their kids there. (Which obviously still makes them better off than most).

I went to a uni where about 50% of people were privatedly educated. No for the most part you couldn't tell who was and wasn't - apart from incredibly posh people who usually went to a top public school (although a fair few of these people went into more worthy careers than the rest of us - one is teaching at a very rough inner city comp now). Regardless of the actual school we went to we did mainly have educational advantages though in that we came from stable homes with parents who encouraged us educationally.

@twoshedsjackson

I think it can be an assumption, based on snobbery. One of my friends got through to Oxford on a scholarship. Without wanting to sound like the "Four Northerners Sketch", he was on free school meals, raised by a widowed mother who worked as a cleaner. He was there on his merits, he worked hard, made friends. I guess his accent was altered by his training as a chorister, but it was never affected. One of his new acquaintances asked him one day, "Where did you school?", clearly expecting him to name some eminent institution. When he told her of his true origins, she genuinely replied, "Oh, I thought you were one of us!" I suspect that he was better prepared for the big wide world after uni than she was.....

I went to Oxford and half the students were privately educated and half weren't. There may be the odd snob as there'll be anywhere but to imagine that the majority of people behave like that is just untrue.

One can generally tell

@Theo1756

One can generally tell

How? And how do you know if you are right - do you ask everyone what sort of school they went to? No one seems to be prepared to answer this.

"People can put accents on to make themselves sound well spoken."

Anyone who's watched actors on TV and films will know that it's not particularly easy to put on an accent. Yes, spies can do it and some talented actors, but the average person can't carry it off very well.

@Madeupwithit

They'll tell you 9 times out of 10

The same as a vegan then

"My inner city deprived state primary teaches the kids Latin- I wouldn't rely on that too much as an indicator."

Of course there are some state schools that teach Latin and people who learn on their own, and older people who were taught it, but IN GENERAL, it does give a clue.

A quick google gave me the following. No link to the original stats unfortunately, but I'm sure you could look them up if you really think the average state school still teaches Latin/Ancient Greek.

"In 2015, it was reported that the last non-selective state (publicly funded) school still teaching Greek A-level was about to drop the subject.

In their final year, only 3 pupils chose the subject.

In 2013, only 367 State schools out of 3,268 taught Latin A-level (though a somewhat larger number taught “Classical Civilisation”.)

So basically, if you want to study Greek and Latin to A-level, then it’s time to get out the cheque-book."

and here:
"As confirmed by a spokesperson from the [Cambridge] Classics department, only “a bit over a thousand” UK students study Latin A-level, with the vast majority of these coming from private schools. "
www.varsity.co.uk/news/18274

"I can tell who definitely didnt go to private school, but not who did."

1 - as I mentioned before, it's very easy to guess who is part of 90% of the population

and

2 - if you can tell who didn't then obviously the other ones did, or am I missing something?

No one was talking about Latin A level though.

I think judging by this thread the easiest way to tell is mention private schools and those who didn't will immediately be judgemental about people who did.

@Theo1756

One can generally tell

Is it because they use 'one' when they mean 'I'?

I think you can, in that they wouldn’t start a thread about whether one can tell if someone has been state educated or not.