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.

One user bet me £5 that I couldn't hack her login password. Easiest £5 I ever made. Who did she thinks answers the 'please re-enable my password' emails? :o

Just because I can doesn't mean that I do. Snoop, I mean. I was making the comment in response to your naive statement about being surprised that an IT person could possibly have access to personel records.

In any case, as I said above, no Mission Impossible tactics were used. Over a drink or two people will invariably swap life histories.

Nice catch, Poosh, but was it enough?

I'd get that previous post deleted if I were you. You're not exactly discreet about identity stuff.

Yellowtip that sort of snooping would be (and has been) a sacking offence in my firm. Obviously not every firm is highly regulated. City firms, though.....

My thoughts exactly, Metabilis.

@serial - That story was from an old job. In any case, I was authorized to see confidential information. It is only a disciplinary offense if I maliciously use that access.

Meta - As I've said, I was making the point that I could, as opposed that I do.

Oh dear Poosh you really do labour.

As I've already said, before your last posts, of course I know IT support can snoop.

I also think they shouldn't. I also think they shouldn't spend paid working hours spoiling for a fight on MN using info extracted from personal files from their place of work. Not too clever on the whole.

People swap life stories at social gatherings - where they are from, where they studied, what they studied.

Yet you are imagining some Tom Cruise Mission Impossible type snooping mission on my part, to find out where people studied :o

Wow, Poosh, I've been watching MN for quite a while now, but your 18:31 post is the first I've come across where someone openly admits to breaking the law [DPA 98] and implies they have also broken their contract of employment - well done you, putting principle before all else!

I've read some of the threads you have been on and it seems that not every MN-er is your friend: some of them are very narrow-minded. Might be a good time to name-change; also, given that you are an IT-whizz, see if you can do some IP-masking before one of the Neanderthals (Nee-Anne-de-Thalle, that well known French aristocratte) reports you to the Information Commmissioner's Office ...

Please point to where I said that I accessed information that I shouldn't.

At social gatherings people swap life stories. It's that simple. However Yellowtip is thinking of some Mission Impossible computer hacking scheme :o

None of us are thinking of any particular derring-do Poosh and lets hope MN doesn't allow you to delete your post since it admits to legal wrongdoing.

Sure, people swap their stories at social gatherings but it's highly unlikely that you can talk so comprehensively about the backgrounds of cohort after cohort of graduate trainees that this information is all imparted verbally over the Asti.

Not good.

That was probably made up, though, Yellowtip. She's probably spoken to all of three people and now claims to know everything about everyone.

And pretending to have accessed the personnel records was probably untrue bragging.

That's not really going to help her, though, if someone recognises her (or indeed identifies her from all the personal info she chucks out). Because the employer will be obliged to investigate regardless. And then she'd better have been squeaky clean about everything.

Seriously, Poosh, I'd ask for that post to be deleted or at least do a search of all the personal info you've sprayed about (where you live, work, grew up, etc) and have those posts deleted.

It's just a bad combination to give so much away and then brag about wrong-doing.

Yellowtip -

MN has threads about drug abuse, child and spousal abuse. You got mums openly discussing falsifying address details so as to appear in-catchment. Then there are the benefit fraud threads

But you choose to get selectively 'outraged' over this???

I can imagine the conversation.

Hello MNHQ. Yellowtip here. I have a poster here who asserts that the employer favours Oxbridge graduate when recruiting high flyers. There is no way the poster can know this without accessing confidential info. I think you should escalate this.

What was that? It is common knowledge that the upper eschelon positions in multi nationals and the civil service heavily favour Oxbridge? Oh! You mean PT didn't have to illegally access any confidential databases in order to to reach this conclusion?

I don't think you realise how blonde your comments sound, Yellow

:o :o

Serial - Are you for real? :o