Employers hate private schools?

[5329871e]

In the fortunate position of choosing between one of the best private schools in the country, vs one of the best non-selective state schools in the country. Private school is affordable with sacrifices, which we’re happy to make, and it has all the expected advantages of better funding and selective intake, but the state school is also lovely.

To avoid this thread being bogged down by all the nuances of our choice, I’ll keep the question simple:

DH is convinced that employers dislike privately educated applicants. All things being equal, they’ll pick the state educated person. In other words, job applicants are disadvantaged by a private education.

Is this true? If so, how much better does a privately educated applicant have to be, for you to pick them?

@notanothertakeaway Agree with you 100% - private school kids do better at university applications and job applications, much of it is causation (private schools giving better education) but much of it is correlation (exams selecting intelligence, fees selecting the type of parents who support education at home).

Teasing this apart is difficult.

Our kids will always have the privilege of parental education and attention. What we’re trying to figure out is whether the private school adds enough value to outweigh the social prejudice that comes with it (as well as the cost!) Judging by this thread, probably not…

DD is currently at Oxford. She is the only one of her friendship group who went to a ( inadequate rated )comp . Her friends at uni went to either private ( about half of them) or state selective.
DS attended another RG uni also noticed most of his peers attended either private or selective state schools.
So yes definite advantages to private or selective state. That said I was happy with my children's comp and the outcomes for them.

I am responsible for early years and graduate recruitment and have seen lots of organisations looking at their social mobility agenda over the last few years.

Attending a private school, for the majority, would mean coming from a family with money, resources and a great network. All organisations are trying to do is to give kids who don’t come from a privileged background a level playing field.

Some examples - Grant Thornton’s are offering a priority place on their summer work experience programme to those students who: have been on free school meals or attended a school with a high number of pupils on free school meals, neither parent have been to university and they live in certain postcodes. Just as an example, if they have 50 places for work experience, then 35 would come from that group.

Manchester Uni have a programme for the same student demographic and offer a 3 day summer school, a mentor, assistance with doing a personal statement and a £1000 bursary if they then go on to take up a place at the Uni.

A lot of the law firms and professional services companies are doing similar.

This doesn’t disadvantage those who have been to a private school. As my Director found out recently. She was concerned that her child couldn’t get onto any of the work experience programmes that were being offered because she had been to private school, both parents have degrees and they live in a very affluent area. It really was irrelevant, as she just got in the phone and spoke to friends who were Directors and partners and used good old nepotism to get her child work experience.

The company I work for specifically chooses schools in areas of high deprivation and those with high numbers of pupils on free school meals to partner with. We don’t partner with any of the private, independent grammars in the area.

Being privately educated brings many, many advantages. For other students, most of us just want a level playing field.

@notanothertakeaway
It's not done in a particularly scientific way so just generally would look at state vs private rather than how good the state school is, although I suppose I would group selective with private. But it's also about trying to get a balanced and diverse staff so we try to make sure the team is a good mix of backgrounds, including gender, race and personality types (as much as you can get a feel for that at interview). Worth saying this is just at graduate level -with senior staff the experience is much more of a factor. In case it's relevant it's a multinational professional services firm with offices in all uk cities.

Here it is - I can't believe I tracked it down! here

I went for an interview for my first job, which I got. I learned afterwards that the Director who had interviewed me said I was to be employed whatever they thought of me, because I had been to public school. Sometimes, it works!

They won’t be equal though your child will likely get better grades going to private school. Therefore a state school educated child with A is a bigger achievement than privately educated. So in theory that have and equal chance at the same job whichever school they go to. They can get Bs from the state school or As from the private. Put v simply obviously. That seems fair to me. So no if I had to make sacrifices for private school I wouldn’t bother.

Trying to be helpful, OP. Education has contested means and ends but putting the whimsy aside that seems to have offended a PP, it might be better to remember the value of education in realising your DC's potential and development beyond any possibly notional cost of private education to UK job applications (which would have little impact if they seek employment or apply to overseas universities). Some of my acquaintances who were convinced there was unfair discrimination by Oxbridge Colleges encouraged their DC to apply to Ivy League counterparts. That said, I've some affluent American acquaintances who have begun to complain that their Alma Maters should discriminate against Asian applicants who tend to have relatively better academics than the DC of traditional WASPy alumni. Funny old world.

[quote 5329871e]@notanothertakeaway Agree with you 100% - private school kids do better at university applications and job applications, much of it is causation (private schools giving better education) but much of it is correlation (exams selecting intelligence, fees selecting the type of parents who support education at home).

Teasing this apart is difficult.

Our kids will always have the privilege of parental education and attention. What we’re trying to figure out is whether the private school adds enough value to outweigh the social prejudice that comes with it (as well as the cost!) Judging by this thread, probably not…[/quote]
@5329871e Just to clarify, I don't agree with you that "private schools giving better education". I didnt say that, and that's not my opinion

I agree that private schools generally have better exam results, but it's due to various other factors ie correlation, not causation

You know what? If my kids miss out on an opportunity to someone from a less privileged background, that's life. They'll be just fine. As will yours.

Exactly

@5329871e

In the fortunate position of choosing between one of the best private schools in the country, vs one of the best non-selective state schools in the country. Private school is affordable with sacrifices, which we’re happy to make, and it has all the expected advantages of better funding and selective intake, but the state school is also lovely.

To avoid this thread being bogged down by all the nuances of our choice, I’ll keep the question simple:

DH is convinced that employers dislike privately educated applicants. All things being equal, they’ll pick the state educated person. In other words, job applicants are disadvantaged by a private education.

Is this true? If so, how much better does a privately educated applicant have to be, for you to pick them?

OP your husband is daft And you won't be making sacrifices. You'll be making CHOICES. Get a grip

I would say it is not an issue - possibly for oxbridge entry you may find having gone to state school is now an advantage?

I think it can work both ways. I think there are jobs I've got because of my fee paying school and jobs I haven't got because of it. I've opted for a good state secondary for mine as if they're anything like us, they'll probably opt for a public sector job rather than an elite City role. Where will they fit in was driving my choice.

@tempester28... as repeated many times, just because the proportion of private school students at Oxbridge has decreased.. does not mean that they are disadvantaged!!! 6% of the total student population takes 40% of the places... attending private school gives you a greater chance of getting a place at Oxbridge.

I wish people would stop saying this... great that there are moves a foot to change this but state educated pupils do not have an advantage when it comes to getting into Oxbridge... admissions may consider state applications with lower grades than privately educated ones... that is not the same thing!!

@BlingLoving - thanks, it’s a fascinating read!

@CertainUncertain - we’ll definitely be considering the whole package, but I didn’t want to weigh down the thread with a list of personal pros and cons. Quite simply though, if the benefit of attending private school is going to be cancelled out at the university/job application stage, then we’re not going to want to pay ££££ for it.

@olivehater - that’s what I think too. If private school upgrades BBB to AAA, then universities view it as BBB anyway, then there’s less of an incentive to pay ££££. A more extreme example: if my kid is “destined” to get AAA* at state school, they can’t get any higher in private, they’d be literally disadvantaged by attending private as universities would see them as AAA only.

@notanothertakeaway - oh I see. Well, I think it’s a mix of causation and correlation, but I don’t know what the proportions are of that mix. So you’re saying that causation may be 0% and correlation 100%, and I agree that that may be the case (and is what we’re trying to work out). If indeed causation is 0% and correlation is 100%, then attending private school would be a disadvantage because you’re paying ££££ for no added value. Right?

@jeepersdeepers - same here. My kids will work damn hard whether they’re in state or private. Hence questioning which choice to make.

@crazycrochetlady - what a contribution to the debate! Haha. Obviously I’m making choices about sacrifices

Sorry that bold fail was supposed to read A star A star A star

Oh, OP I could contribute far more! We are a comp- educated family: me, DH and two DC in their twenties. Two of us are Oxbridge educated, the other two still high achieving. There's a PhD, a couple of masters and some excellent jobs thrown in too. And I guarantee we didn't get any of those things as back hangers because we didn't go to private school. We just worked hard and were quite bright.

@crazycrochetlady

Oh, OP I could contribute far more! We are a comp- educated family: me, DH and two DC in their twenties. Two of us are Oxbridge educated, the other two still high achieving. There's a PhD, a couple of masters and some excellent jobs thrown in too. And I guarantee we didn't get any of those things as back hangers because we didn't go to private school. We just worked hard and were quite bright.

I wasn’t challenging your CV, but thanks for posting it anyway. It was the aggressive tone of your post and the fact that you called my DH “daft” when all he did was show me an article he read. We don’t have strong opinions pro state / private, hence the reason for the thread.

But @5329871e the point is your OH would have it that people like my family have been given a leg up. That's the corollary of private school pupils being disadvantaged. And that simply isn't true.

We sent ours to a mixture of both depending on our location at the time and their age. I don't believe it has set them back at all career-wise.

If there has been anything noticeable, having left the schooling system, they have retained friendships with their private school friends rather than the public ones, not by choice, just how its worked out and I guess the personalities involved.

It’s impossible to tell what employers will want next year let alone in 15/20 years! Do what’s right for your child now. Oh and my school isn’t on my cv.

My employer loves privately educated applicants. State definitely in the minority and most of those are in 'business services'. But its one of those sectors.

Which school would your child be happier at?

"The screening does make use of contextualised academic data, so it evaluates academic results in the context of the educational institutions at which the results were gained (eg BBB at a state school in a deprived area would be considered a better achievement than BBB in a private school or selective grammar)"

Really wish all employers had to apply this by law.

OP how many kids do you have? Are you absolutely certain you won't have any more? I only ask because if you need to make sacrifices now I'd guess you wouldn't be able to manage private school fees for an extra child potentially.

Who puts their school on their CV? How would they know unless you specifically stated. If so I wouldn't hire them either as it makes them seem like a pretentious twat.