Peter Wilby in the Guardian re. Oxbridge - daft or not?

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Article here:

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/sep/17/access-to-oxbridge-state-school-pupils]]

He suggests schools should have to identify 1-3 'brightest' pupils at 15 and give them extra help to get to Oxbridge. I think this is idiotic because

• Won't resources to do this take away from everyone else?
• Will the 1-3 brightest at 15 really be the ones who want/are best able to go at 18?
• Shouldn't we be encouraging lots of children to consider applying to lots of great universities (including Oxbridge), and telling them that even if they don't get in, there's no harm aiming high in one of their choices? Surely identifying such a small number only reinforces the idea it's for an elite?

I am sure it isn't a serious proposal, but I was quite annoyed to see it get any column inches and wondered if there could be anyone out there who sees a positive side to this?!

I've long thought that what you need is an "aspirations visitor" (crap title but we could work on that) at LEA level who could visit a variety of schools to advise young teens identified by schools as having academic potential and talk them through their options on the basis of realistic and up to date knowledge - someone whose business it would be to keep in touch with Russell Group admissions (and know which non-RG universities might be particularly good for particular subjects). Doing this at school level doesn't seem to work for some schools.

However this would involve having something called an LEA, which supplied central services to all schools, and is effectively now a thing if the past, so it's clearly not going to happen.

They exist for Oxbridge, I believe. But yes, it would be good to have it much more organized and to have someone talking about the Russell Group as a whole.

DS school has an Oxbridge co ordinator. Seems to work okay.

Don't think it's a bad idea to encourage children to >think< about Oxbridge from an early age, wouldn't want to say you encourage only the 3 or 4 brightest per school, should be inspiring all the bright children to aim high.

I do think Oxbridge in particular has quite a scary reputation - we live in Oxford and bright children round us are exposed to the university, know people who work there etc., I think that means they are much more likely to apply to Oxbridge as it's familiar and not scary. Perhaps we need a cultural change to encourage children from non-privilidged backgrounds to think of it as a normal aspiration. After all, there are plenty of children aspiring to be premiership footballers and there are far more students going to Oxford and Cambridge each year than there are people becoming premiership footballers.

1-3? My DCs Comp sends 7+ each year. Also those 1-3 will be the traditional "good pupils". Never mind that 15 is too late, you should start raising aspirations at 12 or earlier to make a real difference.

Our school has a careers advisor and an Oxbridge coordinator. We don't send as many as mummytime's school but we get a few in each year.

Thanks for replies.

7+ sounds a lot to me (obviously it depends how big the school is, but if I am reading him correctly, it sounds as if he thinks of 3 as the maximum a big school could support).

I agree it's too late - I'd not thought of that point but it's spot on.

DCs school has about 300 in a year, so 7 is only about 2/3 %. Actually as they tend to lump Oxbridge with future medics, that is probably 3/4% that they target, which is less than half the G and T was supposed to be. But it is in an area of high achievement, with a lot of parents with high aspirations.
For any school to get 2/3 pupils to Oxbridge you will need to work with a larger group, probably 6/7 or more. As some pupils will reject Oxbridge even if offered a place (maybe because they don't get a college they want or another university appeals more). Others may choose not to apply to Oxbridge or even choose alternative routes in life. That is without those who want to study Medicine or Veterinary Science etc.

Also Peter Wilby seems to think that Oxbridge want to be biased in favour of places like Eton (which selects the brightest at 11 and 13), when in fact I have met plenty of Old Etonians who were rejected by Oxbridge, and know Oxbridge admissions tutors who looked at boys from Eton very carefully to try to see if they were "bright and hard working" or just "well taught". Oxbridge does try very hard to recruit from "under represented schools" and offer residential visits, summer schools and other support. However some teachers and schools are biased against Oxbridge, in some areas students just don't get the chance to get the grades needed.

Also as someone from a very working class area, I am very against prescribed quotas. I know that some parents will do whatever they can to manipulate any quotas (such as send their kids to private school until 16, then state schools for 16-18).

When I went to University I was shocked that a lot of the students at my Russell Group University were no more bright than girls who had left school at 16 to become secretaries, just those at University had University lecturers for fathers instead of Ford workers.

UTTERLY DAFT

Because Oxbridge is not the be all and end all that media types seem to think.

Medical schools
Vet schools
Engineering universities
Law schools

Just because journalists and politicians think that PPE is the best the world can offer does not make it true.

Now if the target were to get a proportion of their students into any "top 100 worldwide" University, I'd support the move utterly.

(is relying on DS choosing somewhere in California for his degree so I can go visit)

Oooh, get him to go to Berkeley! I know someone who went there and she had a ball (she also smoked a great deal of excellent weed, which you might be less thrilled about, depending ... ).

But I totally agree - he seems to have no sense that picking 2-3 children and saying they're special is going to have the rest fuming because someone who wants to get into a very competitive university for a very competitive subject (eg. Medicine at Newcastle) won't be given the same help as someone else who may face less competition.

I'm really glad no-one seems to be defending him, but feel a bit silly for posting this thread now since I guess it's all quite obvious.

LRD
No, you have made more people think about the issue and demolish it
and as Cameroon appears to read MN we might have some influence.

Berkeley is nice, Stanford is better for his way of thinking though ...

I set my heart on Stanford University for my DD five years before she was born. Speaking as an Oxbridge graduate I was blown away by its aura of wealth, privilege and academic excellence (not necessarily attractive qualities for oneself, but when setting aspirations for my unconceived firstborn child it's exactly what I daydreamed about).

:-)
I have family (faculty) connections to various top US Universities. I like the weather in the Bay area ....

Have not read the whole thread, but totally agree with the last few posters - why 'Oxbridge'? Just reinforces the elite myth of those places. I have also long dreamt about the DC going to top US colleges - if they want a univertsity edcuation, tho I do not see this as necessarily the best or only option - and at the DC school the 'best' students (nb - I do not claim this label for mine ) now opt for US colleges, with Oxbridge as their 'insurance'.
Ideally all schools hsould have advisros who can help the students find the best courses for the student rather than just dreaming of those Bridesheadian spires (ugh)

Why Oxbridge? Because they (with UCL and Imperial) are in the top ten Universities world wide. Also funding is available for poorer students from the UK, which it isn't for example for Stanford. If it is hard to get students to Oxbridge from some areas, it would be much harder to get them to US universities, especially as you also need a good SAT score.

mummytime
but the point is that Oxford and Cambridge are irrelevant to most students.
And the English politicians and commentators need to get their heads out of their backsides about it.

Far more important in that list is that three of the top ten are specialist Engineering universities.

Whereas our politicians mostly did Law or PPE so have NO idea how to shape the world's economy.

How many politicians in any country studied Science or Engineering?

I think the point about bursaries is good, but this scheme will cost a lot of money and that has to come from somewhere. Why not spend it making some of the other really good UK universities more affordable for poorer students?

Well I think you do need someone to deal with Oxbridge applicants, in particular.

That's not to say other students shouldn't be getting excellent advice about their chosen universities.

But Oxbridge is different. For a start, the whole process has to be done more quickly. And there is so much disinformation out there, it's really good for students to have it in one reliable source.

Perhaps one of the most important things to think about for any student is dosh. And there is much more financial help on offer at Oxbridge, both in terms of bursaries, but also the relative affordability of student accomodation.

Also funding is available for poorer students from the UK, which it isn't for example for Stanford

Not strictly true. The top US universities have outstanding needs-based financial aid for international students.

But there's already quite a lot to help students get to Oxbridge. And ther eis one reliable source: the admissions office.

I think it'd be much better to encourage people to use that.

jinsei - I didn't know that, that's good to know.

I can see the case for promoting UK universities over US ones, though - encouraging brain-drain probably isn't what we want.

Okay I believed due to research that Stanford, offered no help to overseas students, in fact it is limited help, that is why I mentioned Stanford as opposed to Harvard.
Yes schools do need someone to advise students on applying to Oxbridge, or Medical School, or ideally overseas Universities (not just US). When few people went to Uni, we had someone who was employed to advise the whole LA, now some funding to help schools to pay for someone in house would be ideal, however with budget cuts it can be harder to fund.

Limited but generous nonetheless. I know of two students studying at Stanford at present who are both fully funded - not from the UK but from other international backgrounds.

It's a pity that most of the students heading from the UK to the US tend to be from relatively wealthy backgrounds. I don't think it's widely known that funding is sometimes available. Though I agree with LRD that we shouldn't be encouraging the brain drain, and so we should do more to promote opportunities here in the UK.

Why just Oxbridge? UCL is rated better than Oxford.

My son's school had 19 accepted by Oxbridge this year, how would you have chosen 3 to focus on? Incidentally this is a comprehensive in Oxford so agree with sleepybat that it doesn't seem so out of reach to them. I don't think they see it as 'not for the likes of us', as long as you can get the grades.

It does mean though that anyone wanting to study away from home is restricted to Cambridge, so there may be others who could get into Oxbridge but for various reasons Cambridge isn't right for them and so they go elsewhere.