To scream, "Your Private School Children Are Not Being Discriminated Against at Uni"

[Triffid1]

Between work and social I seem to have a pretty diverse group of people who I engage with regularly but as my DC are at an age where we're thinking about high schools, there have been quite a few conversations around this recently. I have now had not one but THREE separate conversations with parents who are planning to send their children to private schools who have expressed concern that it might "disadvantage" them because the universities are prioritising state school children.

Clearly, every time someone says this, I immediately move them further down the pile of people I want to hang out with. But why is this so prevalent? Yesterday, talking with a client on Zoom, where he was ringing from his lovely home office in his leafy suburb of London I didn't actually know what to even say but I wanted to yell, "FFS, if there's a small shift so that the small number of private school children don't get the majority of places at the top universities, you'll have to live with it." Instead I simply changed the subject politely. Argh.

I think things are changing and rightly so. In our local schools, pretty equal numbers went to medicine/st oxbridge from state and private. I assume that the majority of parents with kids in private schools think their kid must be in with a shot at the top unis so ergo more will be disappointed? It is perhaps odd that a kid with As from a private goes to the same mid level uni as a kid from state with Bs. That was an expensive choice that led to same outcomes. I think it’s good that things are starting slowly to level up.

except we work in publishing and know for a fact that that is absolutely NOT the case

It seems to be the case though. Look at ads, museum exhibitions, the theatre etc. Some groups appear to be disproportionally represented. It's as if the majority of UK demographic has vanished

I have children in private school, they had zero tutoring before the entrance exams, they went to state primaries and we didn’t bother with tutors, they all had to sit entrance tests and interview to get in, they thoroughly enjoy their well deserved places and many sports and clubs, they work very hard, we could have spent the money on a bigger house and fancy cars but choose to spend it on our children, that’s allowed…they would likely do just as well in a good state school, that’s where they would be now if they hadn’t passed the entrance tests, that would be fine too, it’s just school, who knows what they will do in future but I know they are happy along the way, my eldest was teased mercilessly in her state sch for being hard working/geeky and wanting to join the few clubs on offer (which were often cancelled anyway who knows why…) we have the means to give her the chance to get away from that, why should they put up with that kind of atmosphere daily….up thread someone mentioned the soft skills like public speaking and debate etc, or museums that stuff is available in spades in my kids schools, but actually they already had experience of those things from us as parents….. where does it end? Should I not encourage my child to read newspapers and join debate clubs because it’s not fair on kids whose parents don’t provide those sorts of things when they are young? And I’m talking about free stuff like talking, reading ,
Visits to free museums…..

positive discrimination is dangerous

Positive discrimination is illegal. Contextual admissions is not positive discrimination.

I agree that this thread is riddled with prejudice and vengefulness

It's riddled with ignorance and incorrect assumptions.

I would understand it if every child's IQ (or any other measure truly independent from socio-economic background) was assessed again at the point of admission. But assuming that a disadvantaged child is automatically more apt than a private school educated one getting the same grades is wrong

You clearly don't understand how disadvantage works.
Nobody assumes that a disadvantage child is automatically more intelligent or capable than a child who os privately educated. However, recognising how advantage or disadvantage plays a part is important. This is all backed up by data and research....not guesswork.

RedMaurader no she won't get a contextual offer unfortunately as they are in temporary accommodation in an area that is not considered deprived. It is damp, falling apart and there are 6 of them in a 2 bed property. This is why the contextual data isn't always a good indicator. If she lived in the (quiet) adjacent council estate, where they wouldn't be overcrowded, then she would get one.

Publishing is so full of white male authors! Thriller writers, Richard osman, jamie Oliver, joe wicks, etc in all areas of publishing. We are so used to their faces I doubt we even see them on posters. Whereas a rare black female author jumps out.

Dillyjones72 - Oxbridge are very clear that they don’t give a monkeys about your extra-curricular sports or music (unless you’re applying for music). All they care about is your aptitude and engagement for the academic subject you are applying for. The personal statement should be 100% academic for Oxbridge or other unis a such as LSE. I wouldn’t say “well rounded” is what they’re looking for. Maybe that was the care once, but no more. You need to show you have read and pushed yourself beyond the curriculum. National / international essay competitions are online and easily accessible to all. If students are entering essay competitions from China etc, what’s stopping anyone in a state school here? Unis such as Durham or Bristol like to hear a very little about extra-curricular, but definitely no more than one or two limes and only mention it if it shows skills you can apply to your learning.

@mustlovegin

Yesterday, talking with a client on Zoom, where he was ringing from his lovely home office in his leafy suburb of London I didn't actually know what to even say but I wanted to yell, "FFS, if there's a small shift so that the small number of private school children don't get the majority of places at the top universities, you'll have to live with it." Instead I simply changed the subject politely

OP, I would tread carefully with clients going forwards if I were you. They may sense your envy and disdain and may decide to take their business elsewhere. I know I would.

I'm not concerned at all, but thank you. I have no envy. I don't even have an issue with private schools and in fact, DH and I are looking v seriously at a few private high schools for DD.

I do have an issue with highly privileged people being outraged if their privilege starts to wane. And many of my clients are, in fact, working hard on some of these issues (to a greater or lesser extent and with mixed results, admittedly) so one poncey lawyer I need to speak to for a specific reason isn't a concern for me at all.

A pp pointed out that the thread is split into people who see this parental effort as something to aspire to and those who think government/society needs to work harder to level the playing field. I'd agree with that but I probably sit somewhere in the middle. I want to see things more level but I don't begrudge people making decisions that positively impact their children. I just do feel that I want those people to own it and not waft around thinking that it's a right. I'm very conscious that in our own experience, for example, DS is perfectly bright but because he has SPD and a few other minor issues, academically he's far far behind. But because we have the financial and other resources, we can help him and he is slowly but surely catching up. Those resources include the cost of occupational therapy and other specialists and tutors. It also includes the social capital we can rely on in terms of being able to engage with the school and the teachers etc and get support for him.

I don't take any of this for granted. I'm fully aware that my own education and network allowed me to be in a situation where we can do this because I earn enough money that while things can be tight, we can fund this stuff and it means compromising on holidays, not food or heating. DH, who doesn't have the same "professional" job as me and therefore earns less, nonetheless benefits from all the soft skills he learnt from his upbringing and private school education which has allowed him to build up a freelance business much quicker and more effectively than many others trying to do the same thing.

I think it would be ridiculous for me not to acknowledge that.

This is all backed up by data and research

It would be interesting to know who commissions this 'data gathering' and 'research'. Given the state of universities and which lobby groups fund many initiatives nowadays I would take any conclusions coming out of these studies with a pinch of salt TBH

DorotheaDiamond
it's the least good state schools who go onto the contextual grades admissions list - going to a highly selective grammar will not be any different to going private.

A friend's DD went to a very selective grammar school (not a grammar county) but still got contextual offers because of their home postcode. This year too.

OP I've had this exact conversation with 2 sets of friends - I couldn't believe it when they were having a moan. They might have a right to moan, but they've chosen to pay for private education and the benefits that come with it, we haven't/ couldn't/ against it in principle. I lacked the requisite sympathy

@mustlovegin

except we work in publishing and know for a fact that that is absolutely NOT the case

It seems to be the case though. Look at ads, museum exhibitions, the theatre etc. Some groups appear to be disproportionally represented. It's as if the majority of UK demographic has vanished

This is so ridiculous. There may well be a higher representation of people who aren't white men on posters etc these days, but that's because so many organisations are desperately trying to convince themselves and the world that they're not all about the white MC man. Which is hard because they might have lots of posters and pretty words, but when you get right down to it, white middle class men are still the ones with the vast bulk of the power and financial resources. And the relatively small gains we see in certain areas (eg crowing about the slight shift in the make up of our current cabinet) doesn't actually change the reality.

@mustlovegin

This is all backed up by data and research

It would be interesting to know who commissions this 'data gathering' and 'research'. Given the state of universities and which lobby groups fund many initiatives nowadays I would take any conclusions coming out of these studies with a pinch of salt TBH

It was HEFCE not Office for students.

Not mention the huge amount of very reputable research on widening participation and social mobility.

I'm a university academic and this was the topic of my PhD and is a subject I'm really familiar with.

The facts are there. Just because you don't like them doesn't make them any less true.

@mustlovegin

This is all backed up by data and research

It would be interesting to know who commissions this 'data gathering' and 'research'. Given the state of universities and which lobby groups fund many initiatives nowadays I would take any conclusions coming out of these studies with a pinch of salt TBH

The City of London Corporation has commissioned major research and launched a task force re social diversity in the City. Showing that privately educated types go further and faster than others. In my opinion, the campaign is useful but misses some key intersectionality issues and, for example, needs to be very careful that it isn't just a way for organisations to promote a whole lot of white men on the basis that they're "working class" but it's nonetheless interesting.

@fiveinfulham

Dillyjones72 - Oxbridge are very clear that they don’t give a monkeys about your extra-curricular sports or music (unless you’re applying for music). All they care about is your aptitude and engagement for the academic subject you are applying for. The personal statement should be 100% academic for Oxbridge or other unis a such as LSE. I wouldn’t say “well rounded” is what they’re looking for. Maybe that was the care once, but no more. You need to show you have read and pushed yourself beyond the curriculum. National / international essay competitions are online and easily accessible to all. If students are entering essay competitions from China etc, what’s stopping anyone in a state school here? Unis such as Durham or Bristol like to hear a very little about extra-curricular, but definitely no more than one or two limes and only mention it if it shows skills you can apply to your learning.

@fiveinfulham This is the kind of statement that totally demonstrates the divide. I come from a very deprived background. My mother was a living in domestic worker in another country (she is from Spain, had to leave to work as domestic worker at 14, first to Barcelona, then abroad). My father worked looking after cows since he was 5 and also migrated at the age of 16.

I was always academically gifted, always pushed courses ahead and there is NO WAY I would have enter an international competition or I would have been able to pass a grammar school exam.

I have been lucky later in life to meet people who actively helped me and I have done things I would have never imagined. It is difficult to know if it is really possible to help everybody institutionally or we have to trust that exceptional people get a push somehwere and get lucky.

This is not the fault of private schools. Private schools are a subproduct. However, it is incredible that intelligent educated people actually believe everyone can make it and participate in the system if they really want to

Yes, some of the schools are selective and the kids need to be smart to get in. So what? If the kids are that smart, they'll do just as well in a decent state school anyway, so why waste all that money if you don't think that it will somehow give them additional advantages?

Exactly my point. Why pay now? It used to be a privilege to put your child in a school where they would be taught the full curriculum to a high standard giving them the opportunity to work hard, apply themselves, learn the material and hopefully get good grades.

That looks less and less worth bothering with, especially for families who aren’t super wealthy, but are on relatively high salaries and are choosing to put their money into education rather than larger pension contributions, home improvements, holidays, cars etc. A lot of families are rich enough to pay for private school, but not rich enough to pay for it without having to make choices. With the stigma against private school children (this thread and other threads prove my point) and the handicapping at university entrance, I think a lot of families may make different choices in the future.

I say handicapping, because the perception amongst the private school crowd is that good universities feel under pressure to align their student body composition to mirror the number of children in state and private high schools without consideration of the selectivity within those two separate populations. These parents are not whinging about deprived children on free school meals being given special consideration. They are whinging about other middle class kids at grammars and leafy comps being given preference. I look at it and I think, why whinge? Read the room. When the situation changes, change your strategy. I think that is what will happen.

The facts are there

I'm yet to find research in this and similar fields that's not biased one way or the other

However, it is incredible that intelligent educated people actually believe everyone can make it and participate in the system if they really want to

Absolutely.
This is a really important point.

But grammar schools did so much more harm to the “just missed the grade” kids that ended up at the secondary modern in many cases, whole life chances decided by one exam.

^^
This! You were a bit ill on the day, or just nerves got the better of you, and that was it, whole life changed ruined.

My dad passed the 11+ and went to a grammar, but it was unusually linked to a secondary modern on the same site, and bright kids could move up into the grammar if they did well. That was really unusual, but seems much fairer.

The City of London Corporation has commissioned major research and launched a task force re social diversity in the City

Well, it's a clear example of having started out with a bias to begin with, isn't it?

And for those who say affirmative actions (positive discrimination) is dangerous, they should really do some research. As pointed above, it is illegal in this country.

However, countries where it is not, have not shown EVER that it is dangerous to establish measures to promote the presence of people who are underepresented in certain sectors of society due to entranched historical discrimination.

Affirmative actions try to remedy discrimination. It is also well-documented that wide gaps in society between those who have and have not is really dangerous.

@mustlovegin

The facts are there

I'm yet to find research in this and similar fields that's not biased one way or the other

You clearly aren't looking hard enough!!

What do you actually think the agenda is? Why are you so against levelling the playing field for those who are from disadvantaged backgrounds or where we know there is inequality.

@mustlovegin

The City of London Corporation has commissioned major research and launched a task force re social diversity in the City

Well, it's a clear example of having started out with a bias to begin with, isn't it?

In what way?

@mustlovegin

The City of London Corporation has commissioned major research and launched a task force re social diversity in the City

Well, it's a clear example of having started out with a bias to begin with, isn't it?

This is funny. The data is there. There are issues, of course, but ultimately, they can see that people who come from independent schools get promoted faster. That's just a fact based on numbers. The reasons for that and interpretations of what it means or what should, if anything, be done can, of course, vary. But the facts are the facts.

In what way?

Someone is biased and believe there is not enough diversity in the City, hence they commission a study. One has to be very naïve to believe the study will not be tainted by the original assumption

The conclusions coming out from research should not be taken as gospel for this reason

It would also be helpful if someone could explain the difference between positive discrimination and contextual offers, as it's not clear