Interesting: teachers misconception about state school pupils ending in top Unis

[camaleon]

"Fewer than half of teachers at state schools would advise pupils to apply to top universities, a new study shows - but many do not realise that a majority of Oxbridge students come from state schools"

Article here

Yellowtip
The 'point' of University is to develop thinking and life skills while studying in a particular subject.
I chose my degree because it was my favourite subject. I had NO idea what I wanted to do on graduation other than not work in an office.
But having a BSc from a good university meant that when I decided to drift into Accountancy, the doors were easy to push open.
If I'd done "art appreciation" at a former tachnical college, those options would not have been there.
The best accountants have BSc degrees in maths and engineering : analytical minds.
You do not have to do a degree that will be your life choice.
You have to do a degree that will teach you how to stretch and think.
THAT is what is missing from many of the 'vocational' second rate courses.
Which is why they are a waste of time and taxpayers money.
Those students should be in work on day release college learning extra skills to allow them to progress and then maybe do a degree later in life.

Bruffin sorry no idea - but I'll ask a friend during the week who may know ....

Thanks, I know Southampton are involved as it is one of the unis the have the interview days at. Ds went to Imperial for the day and had a wonderful day.

Hi, I AM an Oxford admissions tutor, and I really think schools in every sector try much too hard to second-guess what we are looking for. Just encourage bright, ambitious kids to APPLY and let us decide if they are what we want. I have high-performing students among my third year who were TOLD, 'oh, Oxford won't want you'. FFS. Ok, most won't get in, but some will. That's life.

Bruffin it's bound to look good (last student I knew to get one in is his first year.... though at Oxford not Soton :)).

Talkin my two points were simply that a) personal choice is important and one man's criterion may be anathema to another and b) not everyone views university as a straightforward financial investment.

I went to Cambridge from a Northern comp, I am now a teacher in a London comp. I don't have time to get into all this debate as I have too much work to do, but I just wanted to say that going to Oxford and even more so Cambridge is CHEAPER than going to other unis (apart from living at home), because you get college accommodation for all 3 years at Cambridge and for two years at Oxford. This means you never have to pay rent for holidays. This saved me a mountain of cash compared to my peers at other unis. The assumption that Oxford and Cambridge are epensive is another damaging mth which puts people off applying. I was ridiculously happy at Cambridge because after 18 years of not fitting in I finally met other people who were like me!

qumquat, agree entirely re cost. When I was at Cambridge 20 years ago we were put up either in college, or in college licensed accommodation for all 3 years.

When I went to law school in Guildford after completing my degree, my rent more than doubled - from memory I think I had been paying about £200 per term (terms were 9-10 weeks so approx £20 per week) whereas at law school it was £45 per week AND we had to pay 50% during the Xmas/Easter hols (Cambridge rents are only termly). Fellow law students who had done their degrees at other unis confirmed this was very much the going rate at the time (and I do remember how shocked they were by the cheapness of my Cambridge rent!)

There is definitely a perception that Oxbridge is 'expensive'. It doesn't have to be - I went in the days when grants still existed and left not owing a penny, which tbh was mainly possible because we had such cheap lodgings.

I went to Oxford from a Northern comp. None of my teachers encouraged me. I was egged on by a friend from a private school who thought I was clever enough - otherwise it would never have crossed my mind to apply. When I asked my subject teacher about it she literally took a step back from me, put her hands up in a defensive gesture and said: 'don't ask me to teach you. I couldn't get in, so I couldn't get you in.'

So my dad got me some private tutoring. That's what I find sad in retrospect. The teachers had no faith in themselves. They didn't think they were up to it, so they wouldn't dream of encouraging any of us to be up to it. In fact one of my teachers was outstanding - not in my chosen subject but she was so good it was a transferrable skill and I applied how and what she taught top the subject I wanted to do. She was easily good enough to get any humanities student into Oxbridge.

Following year I'm delighted to say about four people applied to Oxbridge and all got in. My friend had set the ball rolling for our comp.

Way up thread someone said that pupils of any ability are treated as though they will succeed and aim high if they go to a good indie. This is not true of any non-selective state school I've ever had contact with. I'm sure there are some great ones out there, and I know there are some brilliant, first rate state teachers, but overall, my familiarity with the state school system, as a pupil and a mum has made me choose private for secondary for my children. The expectations are too low.

Haven't read all but comments from my state sector (comp) experience are:

Looking at my infant and junior school counterparts, about 10 to 15% of whom went private at some stage, everyone who clearly had potential to go to Oxbridge, other top universities and med schools did so regardless of sector.

There were a few exceptionally able people who went to the state school and chose the better or more interesting course at a good university, rather than applying to Oxbridge. I wonder if a private school, more concerned with their own marketing, would have pushed them towards Oxbridge for the sake of their ratings.

The people whose achievements surprised me, positively, were the middle-ability children who went private and did better than expected. Similar people in state schools did ok, or drifted in with the wrong crowd and did badly, they weren't supported or saved by the staff in the same way.

Almost all my friends at comp were children of university lecturers, teachers and doctors. The first two professions were not well paid enough to go private and lots of left-leaning parents wouldn't have done it if they did have the money. So parental expectation and confidence were huge. In common with many private schools I wonder how hard our teachers had to try, there is no great challenge in making a silk purse out of a silk purse.

I think we should not underestimate the power of the peer group. You think you chose a school for its ethos. I think the attitude of your child's friends is at least as important.

Later in life I've met a number of Oxbridge graduates whose parents were not university educated, most of whom went to state school. The parents valued and encouraged education. The school encouraged the particular applications.

racingheart and qumquat Your posts are very heartening.
I can't quite see how Oxford and Cambridge can be more expensive than say London or anywhere else for that matter.
They will take the best they can find surely? They are looking for talent and ability rather than background.

For contemporary students whose parents or parent have a reasonable income Oxford and Cambridge are definitely no more expensive than anywhere else.

For students from a lower income family they are far cheaper.

Oxbridge are more expensive for living costs per week than most places (not London, but you get a bigger loan there), but the terms are shorter and in the main you only pay while you are there so it evens out. Not being able to work in term time could push it into the more expensive category (but set against longer holidays to work in). The financial assistance Oxford & Cambridge offer to the less wealthy is far more generous than anywhere else although there are more generous non means tested scholarships elsewhere. In the main though the perception that Oxford and Cambridge are overly expensive is wrong.

And in the main those likely to be debt averse and therefore not apply are those from poorer backgrounds, hence the huge importance of the very generous bursary schemes.

Yellowtip
your "debt averse" comment I find UTTERLY depressing.
MN in its odd little universe is FULL of threads of parents willing to give up effing everything to put diddums through private school.
The rich are not debt averse
and yet the POOR are the most likely to benefit in an absolute, single generationa,l way from allowing their children to have to pay "tax on student loan" later if they get them into a top Uni.

OK MN articulate brigade.

HOW do we phrase the student finance system in such a way that British Universities DO get access to the best of the best, especially those whose parents may not realise they are.
AS, SURELY, all of our middle class children can ONLY benefit from the next "killer app" being home grown rather than from overseas.

Those of us who want our children to enter the professions are protecting our own arses by creating 15 Alan Sugars.

Time to put our brains and wallets into action.

If the kids are bright enough to go Oxbridge, there are birght enough to consider rationally the the cost benefits - never has information been so easily available - they are NOT dependent on teachers to push them - why are people so patronsing about the poor? You can't have it both ways.
1.) Poor people can be just as bright as rich people - pretty obviously true.
2.) Poor people are too thick to work out what a given course of action might result in - patronising and untrue.

Gisbourne
The child may be but the parents may not
on another thread was mention of a 4 x A* student who quit for a warehouse job in a supermarket because her Mum said that a job today was worth 10 in the future.
Watch Monty Python. All the jokes about going down't pit versus oxford. Its still going on. "youre not one of us".
Would you have rejected everything your parents said to work in a second hand car dealership in a layby?
Every claim that can be substantiated should have the same blinding logic in its reverse.
Sadly Bliar's aim of making EVERY twonk do a degree devalued almost all of them

I agree with lottie about the impact of the peer group. In a sense that's the main thing I have paid fees for - to control the peer group. If 100% of the peer group go to the best universities then your child is likely to as well.

As for the costs, if you want to study for its own sake and indeed would be content never earning more than £20k you never have to pay a penny back. that is our new Alice in Wonderful scheme. My oldest (who thankfully has no student debt) on £60k or whatever or at least her friends are subsidising in a sense (as are tax payers) those students who decide to pick a useless degree at which they will never make money and never have to pay a penny back. Simlarly children like she is (whose mother picked a career which meant they could ensure thei children graduate debt free) pay nothing.

It is those who graduate with student debt and will earn over £20k or whatever the limit is who pay the 9% "tax" and of course it may not matter if that is a route to earn a lot which without the university education they would not have had. Totally different of course if you're Scottish in this weird and wonderful so called United Kingdom.

Blimey Xenia, what does your eldest do to earn £60K as a recent graduate?

Alhtough there is a lot of information on the internet, nothing beats personal contact with someone who has attended a good university and benefited from it.

Some students will not have met anyone who has gone to university at all, let alone Oxridge. If their parents and community are saying it's not worth it, then that's a hard thing to overcome. Members of my family are busy trying to put people off university. They say it won't necessarily get them a job. They say you can work your way up to the top. They say you don't want to get into debt.

So depressing.

Was looking around secondary schools last year with ds1 last yr went to several indies and state options. I ask the HT in all the schools the same question: how would you stretch ds1 if he had a particular gift for a subject eg. Maths? All the schools said they would enter him for early GCSEs and A levels. As long as he got A*s the state schools were happy and job done. The indies said they would also get him into the extracurricular maths club which regularly enters for competitions such as Mathletics, national and international maths olympiads and would even consider him doing an open university course in maths whilst still at school. In answer to the question IME state schools are less ambitious for their pupils and far more concerned about their standing in league tables.

pickled
welcome to the "City" - not above average - hence why the politicians and their advisers have NO CONCEPT of what its like for the rest of the country muddling though on £30k age 45 ...

The the 4 A* student may have been able to pass exams, but not be Oxbridge material ie not have the nous to think for herself!
It is not just about exam grades, (otherwise, why castigate the indie school kids who supposedly get those high grades and then flounder at uni) but the extra spark, and someone who just accepts whatever theirr mum tells them is hardly an original thinker of teh type that would flourish at Oxbridge ( or in the warehouse either).

pickled, not that recent, did post grad exams and training first - it's the standard qualified wage in what she does - all students male or female can pick careers on this basis (pay and intellectual interest) if they can use the internet but plenty make choices which mean they do not earn much and very few people in the country can pass those exams and get that qualification. I suppose it's like being a professional footballer or successful pop singer - most of us cannot manage it and hence wages are higher; her friend who worked every holiday at a bank started on graudation on £60k but he is very rare and there are equally as many of them on magazines, in auction houses on a pittance for life - I suppose they all just make their choices. She is very lucky and very hard working and all the rest - you need a package of competences from exam results to personality to capacity for hard work, robustness, good health etc etc and a lot of luck to get on in most jobs.

I agree with word that personal contact helps. Even in private schools children often have no idea about particular careers. It helps if they have parents coming in to give talks at schools. I have often tried to write about what I do so people can see. Lots of state schools are absolutely fine as we all know but there are some in difficult areas where children aren't aware of the possibilities. There are others though who have no idea how hard you have to work on a continuous basis as they've just been told they are okay getting their Cs and have no idea about failure. I would suggest private school pupils may get more experience of trying and failing things. We try stuff all the time that fails. You need to develop an emotional robustness to cope with failure at school and in life so that you bounce back like an india rubber ball whatever happens. that is as important in work success I've found over 20 yeras as brains, exams or anything else.

Put them in for Oxford and let them fail. My youngest just did some music exams they and I (and the teacher) thought they would fail and they amazingly passed. I don't mean passed with amazing marks. I meant the fact of the passing was very good luck.

Thanks Xenia (and TalkinPeace2).

There was that interesting programme on class last year which interviewed some children on a sink estate in the NE. They had no idea about jobs and what was good and what was possbile which is surprising because they have the internet and they watch US films which show different lifestyles and jobs much more than there was in my day. So perhaps they take their role models from their parents and peers and not what they see on the film screen.