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.

@lottiegarbanzo Yes they did exist. If you went to a state school who didn't have a history of sending students to university you could end up with a lower offer than schools/colleges whether state or private, who had a history of sending students to university.

A separate issue to private school is the negative impact of being someone with a contextual offer.
It was challenging enough for me as one of only two standard state school pupils in the year, the only one with a strong regional accent and the only student with SEN allowances ( the first the department had ever had I was told by them).
But at least I knew I was there with grades as good as everyone else's and a demonstrable passion for the subject.
Being someone's pity project wouldn't have been good for my self esteem.

I don't think discrimination helps anybody either positive or negative.

@spicedappledonuts how would you know you got a contextual offer?

There was a problem a few years back where universities were giving low unconditional offers to students but not all those students were from disadvantaged backgrounds. (Well I worked with a few parents of some children who had those offers.)

A separate issue to private school is the negative impact of being someone with a contextual offer.
It was challenging enough for me as one of only two standard state school pupils in the year, the only one with a strong regional accent and the only student with SEN allowances ( the first the department had ever had I was told by them).
But at least I knew I was there with grades as good as everyone else's and a demonstrable passion for the subject.
Being someone's pity project wouldn't have been good for my self esteem.

There is often a similar conversation around students who go through clearing. Once you get there it's pretty irrelevant and nobody knows unless you tell them.
Contextual admissions aren't a pity project and that's really unhelpful language. Often it's a difference of one grade or a guaranteed interview. You still need to perform well and meet the minimum requirements.

I don't think discrimination helps anybody either positive or negative.
IT'S NOT DISCRIMINATION!!!!
It's really important to emphasise that point as it undermines the excellent work being done.

I had stronger grades than many of my fellow students, so while I don't know I wasn't offered a place out of pity for my dreadful accent I suppose, no one thought my academics weren't up to snuff.
That wouldn't have helped me while I was a student there.

It seemed a point worth making as there was a lot of conversation about the merits of lower offers based backgrounds.

It was a small department, with nowhere to hide, everyone knew everything as basic as people's grades.

What can seem helpful maybe actually wouldn't always be was the point I was making.

Also I think this thread is just looking at the negatives of attending a pretty bad school and what often goes with that alongside the positives of private education.

My dc attend an international school, there are lots of people who have come from very hard scrabble backgrounds and done very well.

One regular topic of parental conversation is the lack of drive in their dc compared to them.
Yes our dc have the advantage of great educational opportunities but they don't have the hunger for escape that powered so many of us. It was a powerful motivation that our dc just can't have.
Advantages come in more than one guise, it is quite patronizing to only see them in one section of society.

'well no point worrying about it now,' is the kind of thing I say. It's annoying, people need to keep some of their thoughts to themselves.

Interesting thread this, but the thought that resonated with me came from a poster who noted that the DC of everyone who has opened this thread has some privilege by dint of being born to a parent who is interested enough in education and outcomes to read and contribute. Our children are fortunate to have supportive and concerned parents with some cultural and intellectual capital. Contextual offers are a bit of a leveller, in a positive way, if they tilt the playing field to give a hand up to promising students from less advantaged families.

Also I think this thread is just looking at the negatives of attending a pretty bad school and what often goes with that alongside the positives of private education.

But that is the topic of the thread .....

I don't think anyone is suggesting that where you went to school is the only defining factor in someone's life. It can have a huge impact though which shouldn't be ignored.

Agree XingMing and that careers advice/initiatives to level the playing field/contextual offers/financial support need to start much, much younger.

Pupil Premium is supposed to help 'fill the gaps' but it's such a pitiful amount of money added to an already under-funded pot that it just doesn't touch the sides.

I got a string of grade A 'O' levels from Crappy Comp and 3 Grade A 'A' levels from SinkTown technical college in the 1980s. It was unheard of.

I had, for example, no idea that Oxbridge admission was a separate procedure to the usual UCAs one. I wouldn't have applied anyway - knew I wasn't posh or confident enough, but there could have been another kid in the same boat that would have liked to give Oxbridge a go but had no-one to tell them how to do so.

What is really interesting about this thread is that we all tacitly accept that achievement doesn’t matter. We all tacitly accept that top universities are there as a social clearing mechanism as much as to educate. We all tacitly accept that improving state education is hopeless and therefore the only fair thing to do is to lower the bar.

There is a lot to unpack.

@spicedappledonuts

A separate issue to private school is the negative impact of being someone with a contextual offer. It was challenging enough for me as one of only two standard state school pupils in the year, the only one with a strong regional accent and the only student with SEN allowances ( the first the department had ever had I was told by them). But at least I knew I was there with grades as good as everyone else's and a demonstrable passion for the subject. Being someone's pity project wouldn't have been good for my self esteem.

I don't think discrimination helps anybody either positive or negative.

A contextual offer isn’t “pity” It’s a statement that the individual has potential. That in different circumstances (context) the organisation believes they would have excelled. Therefore they have the qualities to keep up with the course and contribute positively. It’s not charity.

Years ago now but remember an Oxford interviewer calling dad as a candidate hadnt interviewed that well but was otherwise a really strong candidate. Dad was able to fill in the background (single parent family mother a cleaner) so the college were bloody hell right she is in! With that information quibbling over lack of confidence in an interview seemed rather unfair considering odds overcome to do as well as she had done.

@Empressofthemundane

What is really interesting about this thread is that we all tacitly accept that achievement doesn’t matter. We all tacitly accept that top universities are there as a social clearing mechanism as much as to educate. We all tacitly accept that improving state education is hopeless and therefore the only fair thing to do is to lower the bar.

There is a lot to unpack.

Contextual admissions aren't about lowering the bar.

I intellectually understand that a contextual offer isn't pity, but it would definitely have felt that way to me and I would hazard a guess to my year mates.
Who already thought I was one of the oddest things they had come across.
They were lovely people but they had all the confidence that public and private education gives one.
To ask a student to fit into that group without the certain knowledge that they are the academic equal of the rest of the group may seem thoughtful or even kind but I don't believe it to be either.

It isn't the main point of this thread or even why I started commenting on it. But when I was thinking about it I realized that I actually had experience of what it was like to be a potential contextual offer and how much harder that would have made my undergraduate experience.
( which didn't mean that the University didn't make allowances, it actually did because I couldn't attend my first interview date because I couldn't afford more than one trip to see the universities I applied to. So I wrote to them all explaining this and they rescheduled my interviews for me so I could see them all in one week)

Being supportive in terms of giving equal access to interviews and similar seems sensible actually lowering expectations of what is expected may not the help it is imagined to be.

@Empressofthemundane

What is really interesting about this thread is that we all tacitly accept that achievement doesn’t matter. We all tacitly accept that top universities are there as a social clearing mechanism as much as to educate. We all tacitly accept that improving state education is hopeless and therefore the only fair thing to do is to lower the bar.

There is a lot to unpack.

I don't accept improving state education is hopeless.

I am state educated and so are most of my family.

The younger generation in my family who are state educated have done better than their privately educated peers due to the social and cultural capital of their parents and extended family. Plus their geographical location which means they had a wider choice of schools/colleges.

And as SkinnyMirror said contextual offers aren't lowering the bar.

@spicedappledonuts they may say have given you a lower offer but then wouldn't have been surprised if you exceeded that offer.

Also - though not in the last few years - some students come through clearing with lower grades in total. However this doesn't mean they have a lower grades in one or more of the required subjects.

It seems to be so difficult for some to grasp that contextual offers aren't about lowering the bar. It is simply defining what high achievement looks like within the context in which it was achieved. We are hardly talking about huge adjustments here. Let's keep perspective please.

So about 7% of students go to private school, though this increase to about 18% for sixth form (according to The Independent). 37% of students at Oxford have been privately educated. So, privately educated students are 'overrepresented', but it is common sense that many of the private schools get better results than state, so one would expect this statistic.
If the admittance was blind, purely based on results, I'm sure there'd be an even higher percentage of privately educated students. But it isn't blind. So there must be some positive discrimination going on, be that socio economic, race or other or a combination.
Interviews, personal statements, extra curricular all weigh in to some degree, as there are bound to be dozens of A* applicants so something must be used to pick between them.

@HarrietsChariot

It's one of those situations where trying to "level the playing field" makes things unfair. Like usual, there's a straightforward and fair solution - give the university offers and places to the students who get the best results, regardless of whether they were at a private or state school.

I faced this discrimination myself as it happens, when I was applying to six universities for offers I got five fair offers back and a rejection. The rejection was from the uni that I'd been warned not to bother with because they didn't like taking people from my type of school. (Won't say the university's name but I think the town it was in used to be called Snottingham.)

My belief has always been "equality through equality" - you don't get equality through discrimination.

But you see HarrietsChariot the university admissions people know that getting let's say AAB when you went to state school in a high IDACI postcode doesn't represent the same as AAB when you have been privately educated and have educated involved parents who CAN help and know the system. The first student has probably demonstrated greater commitment and has arguably greater potential. Contextual offers = "social Engineering!!!" Private education = not social engineering??

Location is a very real factor in the context debate. There's not much similarity between our two rural comprensives serving huge catchments where the per capita payments are about 65% of what's spent per head in London. It is not common for students to go to RG universities here, much less Oxbridge, except for the handful whose parents are professionals; they dominate the A stream or go to the grammars in the otherwise economically rundown local city. But the A stream from the Devon comprehensive where I did my PGCE placement would probably be the beneficiaries of contextual offers, yet most were already well set by virtue of their birth and upbringing.

@opoponax yes, you put it so much better than me!

Both schools were in special measures then..... in fact for a few years, almost every local comprehensive for miles seemed to be. It was a nightmare, and we ended up paying for an independent for A levels to buy back a year when the wheels completely came off! But DS had no idea what he wanted to do, and f*cked around massively, then worked as a chef for two years and only started university at 21. Cheffing taught him a lot about work.

I really wish people would stop throwing around the term positive discrimination and using the term interchangeably with contextual admissions.

Positive discrimination is illegal in this country. There is no positive discrimination going AT ALL.

What we have is positive/affirmative action which is supported through clear and robust data.

It's not positive discrimination
It's not lowering the bar
It's not pity
We're not going to see huge numbers of high performing, privately educated young people without university places or jobs.
Universities are not allowing 'poor' people in with no qualifications

It's equality. It's trying to make sure that the best people have access to the best opportunities and that people aren't at a disadvantage because of where they were born, their parents education or the school they attended.

@opoponax

It seems to be so difficult for some to grasp that contextual offers aren't about lowering the bar. It is simply defining what high achievement looks like within the context in which it was achieved. We are hardly talking about huge adjustments here. Let's keep perspective please.

Perfectly put!