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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If you can afford private education but remain in the state sector cont.
happygardening · 06/01/2013 13:22
? My son received his 7 A* and 3 A grades (all IGCSEs) way back in 2008, when grade inflation was a bit lower. . . offers from all four of his med schools that year (UCL, Newcastle, Sheffield, Barts)?
Your son did, Frieda?
Wow! 
That?s greater than 20 inflated common GCSE A*s put together where they are taught to tick all boxes and to think inside those tiny little squares.
So he didn?t dodge the UKCAT for UK medical schools then - very well done!
And why on earth would you even think of Oxford (which your very clever son clearly didn?t) when you have UCL and all those world-beating London/other med schools firmly in your bag is beyond me.
True, there is danger of wannabe medics being culled in London schools which never happens at Oxbridge but that?s because they are learning Medicine and not science, which they?ve all but learnt and done with in their 2-year Form Six days. It?s a matter of life and death, y?know?
And surely, you?d want your mother-in-law (. . . oops! or maybe not) 
, - should the need arises - to be treated by these world-class medical professionals at the end of the day?
And when all the fandango is sung and danced and the sciences finally grasped, it?s London they head for to learn how to become a doctor finally. We are talking Medicine here, are we not?
peterenas they do head for London in a small number of cases for a number of reasons, the most usual one being that didn't make the cut at Oxford or Cambridge for the Clinical Course. There aren't enough spaces to accomodate all the undergraduates onto the Clinical Course. Most very definitely appear to want to stay. Some may want a change and to get out of small city into a large one, which is quite legitimate of course, but most don't. And London medics can't transfer in, which is why they don't :)
There's no material difference between IGCSEs and 'common' GCSEs where 'common' GCSEs are taken as linear. All of my DC and everyone at their school takes all their 'common' GCSEs as linear and at one sitting, with no re-sits.
And why on earth take the UKCAT test if you don't want to go to a UKCAT school? 
What a waste of time and summer sunshine! Both the dodgers that I know from last year got all their BMAT choices, so they were fine.
peterenas it's really tedious to have to defend my DS against this level of bitterness and rancour. He's nothing to you. Your own DS has done fine even if he'd have preferred Cambridge, or had hoped to be in a position to reject them but wasn't given the choice. You're well into overtime on this stuff. You really should chill out about other people's DC and let it go. It's not healthy at all.
Yellowtip - I wasn't specifcally thinking of your son. I meant as a strategy for prospective medics in general: the vast majority of medics are going to have to get their teeth into UKCAT (and put themselves out a bit by going into town) as that is where the majority of medicine places lie. I'm really thinking of anyone reading this who is a budding medic pr has a budding meic in the family It's not all about you and your son. 
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