All this stuff about private school kids being overrepresented in universities..

[fivecandles]

out of interest does anyone know whether if a child goes to a private school up to age 16 but then a sixth form college or FE college to do A Levels the student would count as private school or state school in the stats? And how would university admissions tutors look on such a student?

Well you should see the figures for the number of MPS who have been privately educated (nearer 50) isn't that more shocking?

Mum, it is true that state school kids are more likely to get a better class of degree than those from private or grammar schools.

Now you could make all sorts of assumptions about this

BUT

Students from private schools are more likely to go to top universities where it's harder statistically to get the top degrees.

With the same A Level grades I mean

So it's quite possible that student A from private school with all A* at A Level and GCSE would go on to get a 2:1 from Oxford whereas student B with the same A Levels from state school might go on to get a first from a Manchester Metro.

I'm not sure how much that would tell us TBH.

And I'm not sure how much difference it would make.

Does anyone really look at degree classes?

And I still reckon the employer would prefer a 2:1 or even a third from Oxford. I'm not saying that's a good thing but I think that's the way things are.

Given the amount of pupils applying these days, how much time does an admissions tutor have to look closely at the schools each individual potential student has attended. Some of the prestigious public schools would stand out but a St Thing from wherever might go unnoticed.

Also, it does depend on the type of private school. In this area, all the private schools are academically selective and offer bursaries, so it stands to reason there will be more 'clever' people in the private schools than the state schools.

But in other areas with non-selective private schools or a grammar system, this wouldn't be the case.

There will be state educated people with A* A Levels at Oxford too, it should be possible to compare within an institution.

I believe that (so far at least) it is only if an institution wishes to charge over £6k pa that their intake from state and private will be looked into. If somewhere wishes to charge £6k pa then they could take from only private if they wanted.

Of course the ideal would be to get state schools doing what many private ones do in terns of teacher time and resourcing so everyone has the same chances, but that isn't going to happen.

The whole system is going to change come 2012, I don't think they will be inundated with applicants if they insist on continuing with the proposed debt level that students face.

Fivecandles, I can see your point but it's not a level playing field wrt state versus private. We all know this, if it were, then there wouldn't be a need for private schools. Wealthy parents know they are paying for a better education. I, as a poorer parent know that DD has a disadvantage based on class sizes and quality of teaching at her state school. Stands to reason that this should be taken into account to address the imbalance of private school pupils dominating our universities.

I thought that although 7% of children are privately educated that rises to about 23% in sixth form?

In a few years school leaving age will be 18 so the 23% will reduce.

Do you know where you picked that up from Caoimhe?

From previous discussions on MN Sue! It will be interesting to see if the percentage of privately educated children changes once the new leaving age.comes into play.

I can't believe that the figure increases at 6th form. Most schools recuit a few students with good grades from the state sector at age 16 but they lose many more than they gain because of the advantages of 6th form colleges which are better preparation for university and free.

5Candles - it might be because the 16+ drop out rate is much higher in state schools. It's very low in private schools.

But as MIB says - once the compulsory school age increases the private school percentage should decrease iyswim.

Hmm but some will drop out altogether or just defect to the state system from a number that is already small relative to the number of students nationally. Can't believe the figure could therefore triple from 7-23% I'd want to see some evidence for that. I just don't believe it.

' of the total number of schoolchildren in England) with the figure rising to more than 18% of pupils over the age of 16.'

Fair enough. I'm surprised by this.

Still not sure I've had an answer to my OP though about whether it makes a difference if you move to state education at 16 to do a levels in terms of university admissions.

www.isc.co.uk/TeachingZone_SectorStatistics.htm

"The UK independent sector as a whole educates 628,000 children in around 2,600 independent schools. The independent sector educates around 6.5% of the total number of schoolchildren in the UK (and over 7% of the total number of schoolchildren in England) with the figure rising to more than 18% of pupils over the age of 16."

Sorry, stats from here www.isc.co.uk/FactsFigures_PupilNumbers.htm

Wow we cross posted with exactly the same info!

But, if that's the case the stats for university entrance are not nearly so shocking.

What we can't find from those figures is how many young people that would be, just how many are privately educated to 16 then move to state schools, I can't imagine it is many but I don't have the figures.

I would think that if there were to be limits on university intake from private schools the fairest way would be for private to be either GCSE (or equivalent) or A Level (or equivalent) or both.

And how could the really bright child at a private school show that ability, if everyone is getting As already? You might say that a child at a state school had to work harder for the As, but maybe the child at a private school would still have done even better, but there is no opportunity to get any higher. I can see the argument with lower grades; perhaps a B at a state school is harder to get than a B at a private school, to the extent that small classes/exam focused teaching etc matter, but there has to be a ceiling effect there. And by excluding a really bright child whose parents sent it to private school (possibly because of that ability), a university might be shooting itself in the foot.

And at some point, universities need to discriminate based on a level of achievement; potential is not everything. There needs to be attention given to addressing the inequalities earlier on, not just slating universities for wanting students who have already got to a particular level and can handle a degree course that progresses from there.

Agree, Clouds, I just can't imagine a scenerio where universities are rejecting demonstrably better candidates (not only in terms of grades but in terms of potential and interview performance as well) simply because they went to private school. Apart from anything else what's going to happen to all the MPs' sons and daughters.

Would I be right in thinking there are several posters on this thread who send their DCs private and are now wetting themselves at the recent proposal that the advantage they have paid a lot of money for may not pay such easy dividends??

I confess that our dcs go to an independent school. We had always planned that they would go to a good local state 6th form college at 16 anyway so I don't know what if any difference that would make. We are not particulary wealthy. We are both teachers. I would not call anything that my dcs have achieved or may achieve 'easy dividends' in that we are paying a huge proportion of our salary in school fees and the dcs work damn hard at school and outside of it academically and in many other areas too (music, sport etc). Let's also remember that we will now all be forced to pay for university education at a cost of £9000 a year and rising. So, yes, I would be pretty miffed if having worked as hard as we all have to achieve what I hope will be excellent results at A Level (still a long, long way off for us) our dcs are rejected on the basis that they've in any way 'had it easy' in favour of students with lesser qualifiactions.