If you can afford private education but remain in the state sector cont.

[happygardening]

Thought I repost the OP although the debate has moved on a little .
It's going to be hard to avoid this becoming another state v private thread, but what I'm interested in is a slightly different take on that debate. It's not "which is better?" but "if you think state school is better even though you could afford private education, then why is that?"

The question is based on the assumptions that the DC in question is/are reasonably bright (so might benefit academically from academically selective education), that the state school is non-selective (as most people don't have access to grammar schools), and that you hope for your DC to go to a good university (to make the £££££ fees worthwhile!)

I've been mulling this over ever since I heard some maths professor from Cambridge talking on the radio about the age-old private v state inequality of Oxbridge admissions. He was all for improving access for state school applicants but said that the simple fact was that for maths, even the best state schools generally teach only to the A-level syllabus, whereas the best private schools take their maths/further maths A-level candidates well beyond the syllabus and so the state school applicants are at a huge disadvantage - they simply don't have the starting level of knowledge required for the course.

This made me wonder: with this sort of unequal playing field, if you have the choice of private education, what reasons might you have not to take it?

Would be interested to hear from those who've made this choice - how it's working out, or if your DC have finished school now, how did it work out? Did they go to good universities/get good jobs, etc? On the other side of things, if you paid for private schooling but now regret it, why?

My DC go to a state school by the way.

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happy I'm aware that it's currently fashionable on MN to knock Oxford and Cambridge as medical schools but it still remains the fact that they're far and away the most competitive to get into (in terms of the standard of the competition, not raw numbers applying per place - as indeed is the case with almost all courses at Oxford and Cambridge). The first three years are different, that's true, but if you have any leaning towards doing research later on, combined with the day job, then they're clearly good places to go. They don't tend to take rejects from other places you know. If a school does have a tendency to send a lot of students off to medical school that can skew it's Oxbridge stats - but largely because the competition for medicine at the two universities is so fierce that even very able students who are up to medicine nevertheless aren't of quite the standard or temperament to get in to Oxford or Cambridge, though they might well be up to the standard there for a less competitive course. Oxford and Cambridge have very low drop out rates compared to other schools - they choose who they take with the utmost of care. It's a sad fact that certain other medical schools get rid of a sizeable chunk of each cohort at the end of the first year, leaving very able students adrift. It's a scandal tbh. But it does mean that they can be slightly more cavalier in handing out offers.

As for how we know who went to which school I am sure most of us don't mention it. If you are on linked in which just about everyone who might be someone you'd be in touch with on work things will be often their school is shown and university so you can do a quick look down and see Middlesex Poly ie they messed up their A levels and are not very bright or whatever.
Person who told me recently their son was at Eton only mentioned it because I asked where the children went to school. We were just chatting. People look for common ground if they are chatting and sometimes it's schools or it could be hobbies. I must say saying I have never watched any sport ever voluntarily including the Olympics is not the best line to find bonds with people - I am probably a past master of not bothering with this kind of stuff and managing to do pretty well whilst avoiding a vast array of networking opportunities on a daily basis which I cannot be bothered with. May be I will when I'm 60 and there aren't children around but I doubt it.

Fitn, St Albans though is not that much a top academic school despite what you write. Could he not get into Haberdashers boys. If you are going to pay surely it is better to get him into a better school? I would not worry that just because you pay fees his chances at universities are reduced. Private schools have not noticed that on any significant scale, although it might make some parents whose precious little Johnny did not get into X because he's not quite as bright as his parents think, feel better to assume so. I would bite the bullet and sit him for all the good local day schools. He could even commute to St Paul's on a fast train if you wanted to have a go there.

I used to work in a med school and one of the problems is its status on mumsnet as a career for high fliers.

Quite often the med students that struggle are the ones who were pushed encouraged into it because of their academic success rather than they really had an aptitude for the career. This tends to show up sooner at med schools which have their students working with patients from early on.

Interviews don't always help. Some applicants study 'how to get into med school' and can give the 'right' answers without actually really thinking about if it is want they really think and feel.

Fitnik, my guess is that you will privately educate your DS.

It is very hard for parents who were privately educated (and can afford fees) to choose state education for their DCs. If something went wrong with your DS's education in the state sector (for almost any reason), you'd end up feeling guilty that "you had not given your DS the same start that you had". That may well be irrational but it would be a horrible feeling.

"17 year olds applying for university without their parents knowing?"
seeker - of course, parents contributed to their kid's stint at uni. There were also government grants in place, and some people actually worked part-time while attending university. It's not bad parenting, but letting their kids decide what to do in life themselves, and the earlier they learn to be independent, the better. Some people I did my (equivalent of) A-levels with weren't even living at home anymore!

"What sort of school did you go to, Tasmania?"
rabbit - The equivalent of a grammar school. You had to go to a grammar school, in order to go to university. All other school types ended after (the equivalent of) GCSEs.

"I'm also surprised by how innocent/reticent the young can be in selling themselves"
grovel - I got one of those "Great answers to tough interview questions" books. It pretty much gives you the needed answers for these types of questions, and you just had to adjust yours here and there. Why don't people just get the same sort of idea?

Well, Tas, it made sense to our DS to consult his parents rather than a book.

happy re HR. You don't even want to know what a particular part of that department call themselves at my workplace these days. It's something that sounds so ridiculously pompous that a colleague remarked "Only when you're in HR can you come up with that."

grovel - Considering my mom was a SAHM and had not worked for quite a while, she was the last person I could possibly ask about how to answer a question on a Graduate Scheme application form. My dad wasn't the kind of person you asked, because he had little patience with his kids, and often belittled you, if you asked him questions he thought were stupid. Not a good trait, but hey - you can't choose your family, can you?

My DH was at a company recently which called HR "Talent Development". They were going through a phase of redundancies. Please report to Talent Development to give back your laptop.

yellow I think you being a little over sensitive I'm not criticising medical training at Oxbridge. I know lots with excellent A level grades who didn't fancy the way medical training is organised at Oxbridge and applied to the likes of Guys Kings Tommys (all three are world leading academic centres of medical excellence, at the cutting edge of medical research) others I know did their three years at Oxbridge and then opted to move to do their clinical including one who won the Gold medal out of medical student in London. At the end of the day medicine for most is all about being a doctor rather than research.

@ happygardening: I agree with you. All my immediate family are doctors. Both my brother and sister applied to Oxford for medicine but opted for other med schools instead and have gone on to do exceptionally well.

My cousin read medicine at Oxford, graduated and now works in business as it put her off.

Medicine at Oxford is not all it's cracked up to be - very much an individual decision.

Great thread!

I'm not in the least over sensitive happy, there's no particular need, but when those who've been rejected then do Oxford and Cambridge down, often viciously, those two schools may sometimes need defending. I know far, far more students who've applied to Oxford or Cambridge for Medicine and been rejected and gone to London or Birmingham or Bristol etc than have been accepted by Oxford or Cambridge and then opted for London. But Fitnik I assume your brother and sister were two of the latter. That's quite striking in a family though, particularly one of doctors: why apply in the first place - just for the kudos? I suppose some opt for Oxford and Cambridge because of the opportunities the three years bring, outside of the course. I think DS took a pretty holistic view on the whole but he didn't seem to think an Oxford degree would be a millstone or limit his options or render him long term unemployed. And Fitnik what makes you so set on Oxford and Cambridge for your primary aged son if your family are regular refusniks? Seems contradictory tbh :)

What a dreadful idea Tas, having to have recourse to a book for personal statement ideas or interview answers.

happy re. jargon: I've always counselled mine to write very unpompously indeed, with absolutely no use of jargon. So far, so good.

@ Yellowtip - because my son wants to work as a scientist in R&D so getting into Oxbridge would, whilst not the be all and end all (for example, Imperial College and several others offer excellent science degrees), certainly help with this.
Brother and sister applied because of school pressure to do so (both straight A, exceptional students on scholarships at very academic, private schools).
I also applied to Oxford - passed entrance exam and did well at interview but lost out on overseas quota (looong story) but got into top 3 Uni, read law and have done very well. So Oxbridge isn't the be all and end all - just a shame not to even consider it at all, I suppose.

I agree Fitnik: very important to emphasize to DC that it isn't the be all and end all, just a nice to do if they can. And if they don't get in, which they well might not, to shrug it off and move on. I know someone who still nurses a grudge (thirty years on ) that his dad's old tutor who had been warned off about this person's imminent arrival at interview, promptly had a car crash so that this person was interviewed instead by 'a leftie' who understandably told this entitled young person where to get off (Durham :)).

Were you an overseas student then Fitnik?

I'll probably be shouted down here but how on earth does a Y5 know that he wants to work as a scientist in R&D? (what is R&D?). That said DS did say at that stage that he wanted to be a doctor and stuck to his guns, but I assumed that he wouldn't. But R&D sounds very specific. Perhaps it isn't.

I would have thought R&D means Research and Development...

"grovel - Considering my mom was a SAHM and had not worked for quite a while, she was the last person I could possibly ask about how to answer a question on a Graduate Scheme application form."

Oops.

Yes I'd have thought so too. Which busts my brain: DD4 (Y6) has only ever planted an apple tree for Science.

Yellow, some very strong medicine applicants simply don't apply to oxbridge as the course doesn't appeal to them (I know several, but not anyone who applied, and then chose not to go - that would be a rather silly waste of a choice). I don't think they run it down, but note that the course has a rather different focus than most of the other medical schools and a longer course which doesn't appeal to everyone. Oxbridge do have very high calibre applicants for medicine as you say, but a more significant proportion of the most able applicants choose not to apply as compared to most other subjects.

Sure gelo, I know that about the difference in the course. My beef is about those whose DC apply, don't get in, then bang on about how second rate it is, as though it's only for those who can't get to anywhere better.

I also agree that those such as the two sibs of Fitnik wasted a choice but rather more importantly probably took away the choice of two people who would have coveted the place, unless they rejected it immediately they were offered the place. That seems a bit mean.

Yellow - DD2 knows all about all sorts of sciencey stuff. But that's because of all the unsuitable books Telly and films we let her read and watch. Despite being very interested in cloning, robotics and hybridization at the moment she is still determined to be the next Patti Lupone. I'm fairly sure she hasn't planted an apple tree (though she has grown some crystals. But not at school. As far as I'm aware).

So, Yellowtip, you agree with Oxford and Cambridge being treated as special, then? Because so far as I'm aware, everyone applies for more than one university or medical school and if they get several offers, they then have to turn a few of them down... so not applying to Oxford or Cambridge unless you are certain before you even apply that they are your definite first choice is treating them very differently from everywhere else and seems an unreasonable request, imo... you may well start out thinking one thing and change your mind having been interviewed.

@ Yellowtip who said: I know an absolutely lovely Eton family well who are second generation 'self-made', have millions and millions accrued through brains and accounting, bought into every trapping of the upper classes that they possibly could (to an extreme degree), but are still not quite there. Yet their second home is only a few hundred metres away from an old money Etonian home (titled) (the first family's first home is in Knightsbridge). This lot are dimmer by far (that's a very big far), also less charming by far - but are till 'accepted' in a way that the first family are not.

That's England for you. still.

Yellowtip IME you are absolutely spot on. I've read on Mumsnet that the truly aristocratic are generous spirited & rather lovely (as are the true working class) whilst it's the aspiring middle class that are blackhearted, conniving and generally unpleasant. Ok, I am stereotyping but that's the general gist.

IME the bald truth of it is that the aristocratic tolerate but never truly accept the Kate Middleton like upper middle class type families and take them to their bosom. Fellowes writes well on it. Work brings me into contact with aristocrats and they've said, for example, that the Middleton's new house purchase etc almost puts them on a par with them but the general feeling is they can never truly be accepted. Aspiring upper middle class girls I used to know used to hunt about for a family crest for their signet ring so they could fit into the gang at school who wore these as did their parents. There were other signifiers you were part of the gang, the accent and even the height and build. I am always struck by how tribal people are especially when they are away from home or feeling insecure. I'd hate to feel that I never quite fitted in and wasn't accepted and imagine it must be damaging unless you have incredible confidence.

It's one reason why I like where I live - people are totally different from each other and it does not matter. The more you get into English countryside all over the country the more the rigid divisions seem to exist.

In psychological terms people tend to be happier when with people who have less than they have so if you seek out slightly worse off friends etc then that can be sadly a route to happiness. Pity humans are made like that.

I have never felt out of place with a group of people in the sense of not knowing how to behave but that might simply be that I have never been with unusual groups I don't know or just that I am not like most people anyway so have no problems being different.

Xenia - well said. People seem totally hung up on worrying aout the asaragus, dinner jacket thing, as per seeker below. Why? There has never been so much access to knowledge about that type of trivia, any 'bright' child of any 'class' can with a click of a mouse do as much research as they want about old buildings, arcane traditions - they don't need to emulate they - why should they? - but they can learn enought to see through the the old man behind the wizard of oz, so as not to be intimidated by them. Instead of aspiring to pretend to be aristos, like the Middletons, why not use the power of their position - granny to the future monarch, to cut thru the crap?