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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Settle a private v state argument for me?

131 replies

Givemyheadpiece · 19/07/2023 08:17

Friend sent kids to prep schools, and now doing senior private schools til GSCE.

then the plan is to put the kids in state school for A levels to ‘fool’ the Uni admissions people - Oxbridge in particular- into thinking the kids were state schooled all along and get them into good unis - as many universities are now trying to give more bright state schooled/ low income kids a chance to get in.

I told her that they can see which school the kids studied at pre 6th form and that will be considered -

YANBU - of course it won’t fool admissions
YABU - she’s right, you can go Eton all the way then switch for A levels and no-one will know

OP posts:
plasticwallet · 19/07/2023 09:55

This is a thing

Grandana · 19/07/2023 09:55

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 19/07/2023 09:36

It’s as well to remember that independent schools vary enormously. Some are highly selective, taking only the most able pupils - others will take just about anybody whose parents can pay the fees. So ‘private’ does not automatically equate to sixth form excellence.

Sure, but if OP's friend is doing this to fool Oxbridge admissions, there's a strong likelihood that the child is able and at an academic private school. Why would you even consider this unless you were taking top grades a bit for granted?

plasticwallet · 19/07/2023 09:56

Far shrewder is the use of several tutors by state school pupils to boost grades, which doesn’t have to be declared on any forms.

It's not only state students who use tutors!

TwoProngedFork · 19/07/2023 10:11

Far shrewder is the use of several tutors by state school pupils to boost grades, which doesn’t have to be declared on any forms.

I agree. I believe they should be declared if the issue is ' state versus private'. There are state school students receiving extra tuition from tutors who provide services that could equal what privately educated receive. If the argument is about the quality of education received on premises then this should be declared as well.

Sigmama · 19/07/2023 10:26

Would one have to declare parental tutoring as well

Sigmama · 19/07/2023 10:29

Can't your friend just look at the bigger picture and leave alloted state school spaces for genuine state school pupils, they stand to gain more

Abra1t · 19/07/2023 10:39

plasticwallet · 19/07/2023 09:56

Far shrewder is the use of several tutors by state school pupils to boost grades, which doesn’t have to be declared on any forms.

It's not only state students who use tutors!

No, but I was making the point in relation to the 'hiding' advantage nature of this particular thread.

Abra1t · 19/07/2023 10:43

Sigmama · 19/07/2023 10:26

Would one have to declare parental tutoring as well

That's an interesting point. I have a very clever, academically gifted teacher friend, whose child went to a grammar school and then into pretty well the most over-subscribed profession there is. The friend could tutor her child in one of the A level subjects at home where necessary and her husband could help with some of the others. So no official tutoring but a hell of a lot of professional help at home, which most children wouldn't have. And of course you'd give it to your child, if you could. It's very hard to make the playing field even.

Louloulouenna · 19/07/2023 10:43

While you do have to put the institution attended for your GCSEs on your UCAS form, many universities are happy to prioritise applicants who then moved to a State school for A levels as it helps their “% from state schools” statistics.

AndIKnewYouMeantIt · 19/07/2023 10:45

She sounds lovely. 😐

I went to a very, very good state 6th form (Greenhead) which regularly sends 30 or so to Oxford and about 15 to Cambridge. The reason those unis like it is that the "feeder" schools are bog standard, OFSTED-middling local high schools, so I assume it fills some sort of quota.

However the girl I know who got into French at Cambridge transferred to Greenhead from QEGGS for that exact reason, and it did seem to work.

MasterBeth · 19/07/2023 10:45

FlyingPandas · 19/07/2023 09:20

It will make no difference because on the UCAS application you have to put not just your GCSE results but also the institution attended. So it will be very obvious to admissions tutors when DC have gone private till Y11 and then moved to state.

The reality of the situation is that universities just want to fill places with the best and most able students and, despite what they might say about inclusion etc and encouraging students from deprived backgrounds, I suspect the whole state-private thing is a bit of a red herring. Top universities are full of students who attended private school all the way through.

What I would say to the friend though is, a state sixth form will be a very different beast to a private school one, and not all students cope well with a transition from a high structured and learning-managed environment to one where students are expected to do a lot of independent study themselves. Private sixth forms at our local schools are very like the Y7-Y11 school experience in all honesty and students' learning is focused and directed by tutors, very little 'free' period time and many will expect students to attend a normal school day every day. A state sixth form college on the other hand will have far fewer 'contact' hours (could be as few as one or two hours a day, no regular registration) and students will be expected to be self-motivated and manage their learning in a very much more independent way.

Many a private school student has had the wheels fall off when moving to a state sixth form for this very reason. Some will cope, of course, but many more will not.

So your friend could find that a move to state sixth form for Y12/Y13 may not quite work out in the way they think and their DC could end up getting much lower grades as a result.

The reality of the situation is that universities just want to fill places with the best and most able students

The reality of the situation is that the most able students are not clusterd in private schools. The wealthier ones are.

CurlewKate · 19/07/2023 10:48

The short answer is no, it won't. She has completely misunderstood what a contextual offer is.

TheCrowFlies · 19/07/2023 10:48

The university will be able to see all the schools the pupil attended.
Attending a state school for 6th form is a good strategy for private school kids applying for Oxbridge who seem to be positively discriminating in favour of state school kids.

redskytwonight · 19/07/2023 10:50

TheCrowFlies · 19/07/2023 10:48

The university will be able to see all the schools the pupil attended.
Attending a state school for 6th form is a good strategy for private school kids applying for Oxbridge who seem to be positively discriminating in favour of state school kids.

They are not positively discriminating in favour of state school children.

They are no longer positively discriminating in favour of private school children.

Rather big difference ...

Scottishskifun · 19/07/2023 10:54

No they won't be fooled as others have said. But it's also worth knowing what the children wish to do given they will be 16......
DH went to private school couldn't wait to get out and go to 6th form college same as a lot of his friends but it was a bit of a wake up call of actually having to motivate himself to work and nobody chasing him for work etc!
Had several friends who really struggled with that.

ejbaxa · 19/07/2023 11:02

You have to put where you took your GCSEs on the UCAS form.

wordforword · 19/07/2023 11:05

In my area the senior schools are not that great, but the sixth form is absolutely excellent, so for many parents it's an obvious choice to switch there for A levels.

They might get teased for being posh, if they sound a bit posh, but it will be up to them how they handle that.

OhBeAFineGuyKissMe · 19/07/2023 11:07

This is such a common thought! And totally wrong.

Oxbridge in particular looks at the type of school, not just state / private. So selective, good results, wealth of catchment. Given it is extremely unlikely they will go from private to a school with high deprivation and a history or poorer results it will do absolutely nothing.

The universities aren’t stupid! They will easily see through this cunning plan.

Tingalingle · 19/07/2023 11:15

UnfortunateTypo · 19/07/2023 09:04

She’s not wrong. There’s a Sixth Form in Cambridge is the classic for doing that, the Uni’s obviously know but don’t seem to care. All DD’s friends who went there from their private school got into Oxford/Cambridge/Russell Group.

You mean Hills Road? They do send large numbers to Oxford, Cambridge, etc (60-70 or so to Oxbridge each year), but it's a big sixth form, and most of its Oxbridge candidates are from local comprehensives that don't have a sixth form.

It would be a bit sad if private school kids went to Hills Road just to be sat on and deterred from going to their preferred universities.

TheCrowFlies · 19/07/2023 11:18

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/16/private-schools-university-entry-cambridge-state-schools/

Private school pupils who move to state sixth formm_ are up to a third more likely to get accepted into Cambridge, The Telegraph can reveal.
Students who stayed at private school for GCSE and A-level had an acceptance rate of 19 per cent last year, compared to around 25 per cent for those who moved from a fee paying school to a grammar school or sixth form college.
The data has led to warnings that an increasing number of parents will attempt to “game the system” by switching at 166_ to get their children into elite universities amid a drive to increase diversity.
Publicly available statistics around how many studentss_ are accepted from state schools each year only record the school that a pupil applied from.
Now for the first time The Telegraph can reveal the educational history of those who were applying and accepted to some of Britain's top universities using dataa_ from a series of Freedom of Information.

TheCrowFlies · 19/07/2023 11:20

@redskytwonight
"They are not positively discriminating in favour of state school children."

I don't agree.

redskytwonight · 19/07/2023 11:21

TheCrowFlies · 19/07/2023 11:20

@redskytwonight
"They are not positively discriminating in favour of state school children."

I don't agree.

Then please post the statistics that prove that.

thedancingbear · 19/07/2023 11:27

redskytwonight · 19/07/2023 10:50

They are not positively discriminating in favour of state school children.

They are no longer positively discriminating in favour of private school children.

Rather big difference ...

Show quote history

Not positively discriminating. They are offering places based on merit and potential.

The kids of MC parents don't have a God-given right to better opportunity, however much some posters would like it to be otherwise.

Louloulouenna · 19/07/2023 11:30

Tingalingle, there is a huge exodus from private schools to Hills Rd for 6th form.

Original poster
Givemyheadpiece · 19/07/2023 11:41

‘Can't your friend just look at the bigger picture and leave alloted state school spaces for genuine state school pupils, they stand to gain more’

yiu seem to have misunderstood why people go private! The whole point is to give their kid advantages over other kids!

so no, they don’t care.

I do think it’s underhanded, and I do think state 6th forms should give preference to state pupils. Our local one is very good, and non selective yet has a huge number of kids getting into the best unis, including higher numbers into Oxbridge than any of the local private schools.

OP posts: