Is it hypocrital to be against private schools as a matter of principle and be in favour of Oxbridge?

[PooshTun]

In the last few weeks there have been various threads about private education and a number of posters turned up to say that they were against private education because it was socially unfair and because it lacked diversity.

Fair enough but some posters then go on to say that the went to a comp and that didn't stop them from going onto Oxbridge while others go on about how they aspire for DC to go to Oxbridge.

Am I the only one that thinks that this smacks of hypocrisy? It is generally acknowledged that Oxbridge favours the middle classes especially those from a GS and private/public school background. Some companies that I know of exclusively recruit their fast track graduates from Oxbridge. Just look at our political leaders and where they went.

Oxbridge is one of the most exclusive and privileged clubs around. How can you be against sending to your DC to the indie down the road while being an Oxbridge graduate yourself or while aspiring for DC to gain entry to Oxbridge?

Private school entry is based on money while Oxbridge is based on merit, I hear you say. Tell that to the working class kids that don't get in despite having great grades.

Private school kids are all full of well off kids whereas Oxbridge has a diversified student base I hear you say. The place is full of mega rich kids from the UK and overseas. Not to mention the private school kids you are so keen to avoid.

What those stats don't tell us (annoyingly) is what % of applications were state vs private - they only tell us what % of places were.

I maintain that the people in admissions do their very best to pick the best candidates of those who apply and that they do their best to look at people's potential, not what they have been taught so far. They want to get the best people, there is no benefit to them in picking out people from privileged backgrounds.

"Are you saying that no-one should ever have anything that is better than what anyone else has? I don't really understand."

@Trills. I am saying the opposite of what you think I am saying. That is why it doesn't make sense to you.

What are you saying then please?

"But to call me a hyprocrit becuase my dcs are state educated with Oxbridge ambitions (actually they don't have any such ambition!) is ridiculous."

I am only calling you a hypocrite IF you are against private schools because it gives an unfair advantage to privileged children and because it lacks diversity.

If you are not the above then you are seeing an insult where one doesn't exist.

No, it's not hypocritical to be anti-private schools and pro-Oxbridge because - despite the ridiculous hysteria hype surrounding Oxbridge admissions - Oxford and Cambridge are in the STATE higher education system, and take thousands of state-educated applicants every year. Whether or not they take enough state applicants is another bun fight, but they are state institutions and IMextensiveE not remotely class-ist when you get there.

@Trills - that information is on one of the linked pages
Applications 2011 Acceptances 2011
Total (%) Total (%)
Maintained sector 64.3 57.7
Independent 35.7 42.3

There's also info where they breakdown the state figures further into comprehensive, grammar etc.

OK, so we agree on everything except this:

I believe that Oxford and Cambridge gives advantages to people based on merit
You think that they give advantages to people based on family privilege

(is that right?)

"Tell that to the working class kids that don't get in despite having great grades."

This is bullshit, by the way. I've done Oxbridge admissions from the other side, and we would give our eye teeth to admit smart working class kids from crap schools if they had predicted A*AA. But virtually none of them apply because of attitudes like the OP's. You're the problem, not Oxbridge.

My DB applied for a job where he was told they would only consider graduates from Oxford, Cambridge and about 2 other "top" universities.

So you could certainly argue that going to one of these universities gave you privilege you wouldn't otherwise have.

Personally I'd don't think I'd want a job at a company that was so openly discriminatory.

and this:

"posh kids who can row being allowed to do arch and anth with poor A level grades and so on"

doesn't happen any more either, and hasn't for years.

@Trill - I'm not sure how else I can rephrase my point.

Some parents are against private schools because they consider it unfair that their students have an advantage over other students. They are also against it because they want their children to mix with a diverse student cohort.

Oxbridge is one of the most exclusive clubs around. It is disproportionately white, upper middle class with a generous smattering of mega rich and titled folk. The upper levels of Business and Government almost exclusively recruit from Oxbridge.

My point is this. How can some parents object to their little rural private school down the road and yet be in favour of one of the most exclusive pair of universities in the world.

Some parents are arguing that its ok because state school kids have a chance of gaining access to this privileged world whereas they don't at a private school. Try using that argument on a kid with a First from a redbrick university.

Basically, some parents have a problem with a private school kid having an advantage over their state school kid but DON'T appear to have a problem with their Oxbridge DC having an advantage over a Redbrick kid. That to me is hypocrisy.

Sorry don - I was half expecting to be put right on that one to be honest, it was people dp knew in the 90s, and I deserved the correction!

I found my interview terrifying and totally ballsed it up: I'm happy that things are different now.

Poosh - as I see it, although we don't have the 11+ universally any more, that is basically the system which obtains at university level. The higher your UCAS points, the more elite and academic the institutions you gain entry to. If you want to go to university, that's how it works. Until we have 'comprehensive' universities, why wouldn't you want to go where your points will take you?

"But virtually none of them apply because of attitudes like the OP's. You're the problem, not Oxbridge."

I'm a working class MNetter from the Midlands but feel free to slap the Snob label on me :o

TOSN - As I said above, I am not saying that people should not be applying to Oxbridge.

So you're objecting to the fact that once you have been to Oxbridge you get advantages that others don't get?

But in general once you have been to University you get advantages that people who haven't been don't get.

poosh - I know.

Private schools seem to be capable of giving children the education required to allow them to study at the top universities in our country, whilst sadly, state schools don?t seem to be as capable. That state schools under-educate the vast majority of our kids is a failure of the state schools, not the fault of private school. Under-educating all of our children would be the worst possible solution.

I would feel more comfortable if access to the better schools (either state or private) was decided on academic or vocational merit rather than on the wealth of the child?s parents, the ability of those parents to afford to purchase a house in the ?right? area, a belief in a deity or the sporting prowess of the child ? sadly however, within our society these methods of discrimination remain perfectly acceptable whilst academic selection at eleven is considered cruel and barbaric.

I think it is incomprehensible (excuse the pun) to expect an equal standard of education for all children across the UK leading to an equal output of equally educated children ? some children will be born to parents who will take a great interest in their offspring?s development, some children will be born to the local crack addict - this is before we consider the effects of learning and behavioural difficulties which many children have. To, therefore, provide a ?comprehensive? education is an oxymoron and non-sequitur.

PooshTun?s observation that it?s just as hypocritical to stream kids at eleven as it is to stream them at eighteen is valid. Indeed, it happens anyway ? children from poorer backgrounds are automatically streamed out of the best education system that our country could provide. Can anyone say that this is a fairer state of affairs than that which existed under the Grammar system?

I went to an Oxbridge college more years than I care to try to work out (ok, about 25) and many of my friends were state-school educated (as was I). Some had been to schools abroad (including me), some to grammar school, a few to comprehensives. My best friend from university went to an experimental comp that was so bad academically that it has since been shut, but had the immense luck to have been taught by a few Oxbridge graduates who were attracted by the experimental nature of the school.

HOWEVER, my friend was only one of 5 pupils doing A levels in her 6th form (vs O level retakes) and only one of 2 to go to university. Her school best friend was the other- she had also applied to Oxbridge but went to a Russell Group university in the end. My point is that my friend probably would not have applied had she not had those formative influences at school. There was no school pressure, very little parental pressure and no peer pressure to speak of. Her school taught her very little, she learned a lot by herself. Her work ethic is amazing but she would freely admit that her general knowledge and cultural education were neglected somewhat.

There is very little chance than anyone from her school would have been able to make it in the sciences at Oxbridge, merely because it requires extremely strong teaching and a sharp learning environment just to get the material covered, an environment which it patently absent from many state schools at present.

My experience of Cambridge is that people with the right skill sets for what the university offers are considered equally. It is reductive nonsense to suggest that if there aren't enough people with the right skill set in state schools, then the university should change its entrance requirements. They have consistently produced top scientists and mathematicians (for example) and have driven forward cutting edge research for several hundred years using tried and tested admissions procedures.

Anyone who has been in that environment will know that that has nothing to do with funding and/or notoriety and everything to do with the immense calibre of the people there. The funding follows the brains, and brains will follow brains (because being surrounded by other brainy people fosters the right research environments in which people ping off each other).

The main reason that disproportionately few children from poor backgrounds go to Oxbridge is that they are being failed by the education system, society in general and unfortunately often by their own families much earlier down the line.

Children from the poorest backgrounds are often a year or two behind middle-class children before they even start school in terms of vocabulary, awareness of numbers, readiness to learn etc. Some manage to catch up and reach their potential with the help of good schools, but many do not, so very few children from disadvantaged backgrounds get the kind of A-level grades to give them any chance of getting into Oxford or Cambridge, even though admissions tutors do give more leeway to applicants from deprived areas/schools known to be 'challenging'.

There is also the issue of teachers either not encouraging or actively discouraging pupils from applying to Oxbridge and other universities seen as 'posh' due to a mistaken view that they are 'not for the likes of us' - which makes it a self-perpetuating problem.

Illogical premise, OP.

My father is a Cambridge don

Oxford and Cambridge are bending over backwards to recruit as many students as possible from comprehensives. A state school applicant will always be chosen over a private school applicant, all else being equal. Dons are lefties, on the whole, they have no interest in teaching posh kids.
Their frustration is that many state schools do not a) tell their students Oxbridge is an option and b) do not teach them to the standard required on entry - however innately intelligent you are if you've been unlucky enough to go to a school that didn't teach you some bascis, you will not be able to cope with the extraordinarily high standards required. Most state schools do teach these basics, so that's not a problem (some private schools don't teach them well enough, either).

HOWEVER, regardless of background, what dones want most is to teach clever kids and, what always gets ignored in these threads, is that there are many, many clever children at private schools too. So a good proportion of them will get places and quite right, if they are academically able enough.

And to equate private schools with Oxbridge is absurd, as others have pointed out they are state universities.

And as for Oxbridge candidates being favoured over Redbrick uni candidates, that is because most employers have found Oxbridge candidates usually to be of a higher calibre. Of course they are going to want to employ the best. Why is that unfair?

exex I think most state schools are very keen indeed to get pupils into Oxford and Cambridge if they can, actually! The issue you set out there is not one I have come across - even at my really rubbish state school, they did want you to have a bash at it if they good, despite giving no help or preparation for it. But that was a long time ago - I think things are much different now.

Poosh - you seem to think Oxford and Cambridge are full to the brim with 'rah' types who spend their time rowing or spending daddy's trust fund. Whilst they may have been like that twenty + yeasr ago (i.e. when most of the current cabinet went) they really aren't like that any more.

Maybe go and see for yourself instead of perpetuating a myth that hasn't been true for a generation?

And I don't think aiming for a top notch university is hypocritical - especially if you consider that the state system has grammar schools in some areas - privilege doesn't get you a grammar place. Academic ability does. Likewise Oxbridge and the other RG. Admission is based on academic ability only. Not on background.

TheOriginalSteamingNit - I was basing that comment on this recent news story/survey: Fewer than half of state school teachers encourage gifted pupils to apply to Oxbridge. Sadly it still seems to be common, though I know it does not apply to all schools or all teachers.