Why didn't your child apply to Oxford or Cambridge?

[ZeroSomeGameThingy]

www.theguardian.com/education/2014/may/27/oxbridge-state-school-numbers-falling

Given that most people who apply will not get in - there's no shame in an unsuccessful application. So what are the real reasons for this apparent reluctance?

I didn't apply to Oxbridge for various reasons, including the fact that other universities had better courses and I preferred other cities. It does annoy me that so many people seem a bit Oxbridge obsessed. Some people assume that of course everyone would want to go there given the chance and that Oxbridge grads are all more intelligent than those from other institutions, which is nonsense.

I would be happy for DC to apply to Oxbridge if they wished however I would encourage them to not to be blinkered about it. There are other universities.

Ok -

"If you have a child who was (or were yourself) academically able enough for Oxford or Cambridge to be a viable possibility, amongst others, was there anything that stopped them (or you) from applying - in particular anything that is not currently being adequately addressed by the universities?"

• might have been a clearer, though rather cumbersome question.

Zero perhaps reinforcing the fact that ordinarily clever kids from all backgrounds can get in, provided they apply. Maybe put the boot in with this 'atmospherically high' base line stuff?

Molio I said "The idea that, as long as you meet the basic ('basic' being atmospherically high, of course)standard ...". This is because I wanted to stress that "basic" in Oxbridge terms had to be fairly high or else people would accuse me of letting applicants in with CSE in basket weaving. Would you prefer creamtea's term of "threshold"?
Do you need me to explain it a third time or do you understand it now?

senua thank you but that's no clearer however. In that 'atmospherically high' were the words you used, and if you now only mean 'fairly', then it's better to correct yourself rather than pretend one word means something other than that understood by almost everyone who reads it. You do not need to be a genius to get into Oxford or Cambridge. The standard across all applications is not 'atmospherically high'. That as yet another myth serves only to deter applicants who attend schools with little experience of the process. Those who do get in are far, far less likely to claim it than those who don't, or whose children don't, but as someone pointed out up the thread, the former are in the minority and what tends to get heard is what the majority say.

So.... I'm wondering if BomChicka's 20 year old experience would be very much different today? Even where, as a prospective student, you've done all your paper/Internet research.

I spend an awful lot of time on "The Archers" threads pontificating about how unwillingness to leave home - and subsequent narrowing of opportunities - appears to be very much class-based. From what I've read here it's really not limited to any particular university - and it's not solely about lack of information.

Zero Had I not got into Cambridge I'd have stayed in London. All my other choices were London colleges. I couldn't conceive of moving anywhere else - I only applied to Cambridge because I was pushed that way by my school, and I flat out refused to apply to Warwick (which was at that time the next best place to go for maths). Which was nutty because I actually knew quite a few people who were already at Warwick, because of a special interest I had outside of school. I strongly suspect that, despite an upbringing redolent with the trappings of professional classes norms, at least two of my kids would opt to go to the university round the corner (which is as it happens RG but that's not the point) if it only offered the courses they wanted to do (it doesn't). Because the underlying WC attitudes of DH and myself trump any amount of professional class veneer that's rubbed off on us over the years.

OK. Third explanation. This is the quotation in full:

"The idea that, as long as you meet the basic ('basic' being atmospherically high, of course) standard, you stand an equal chance in the lottery might encourage more State school / disadvantaged pupils."
I'm fairly sure that Oxbridge will never have something as subjective as "atmospherically high" as their entrance criteria. I am sure that they will have something more objective as "AAA or equivalent" and pupils can judge for themselves whether they fulfill that.
You seem to be getting bogged down in detail and missing the bigger picture.

But Herc how are you and your DH communicating these underlying WC attitudes? (And I'm accepting your definition...)

From your pps I find it hard to believe you have discouraged sleepovers on the other side of town or sucked your teeth at the mention of a trip up north/down south, or indeed done anything to suggest that no-one should stray far from hearth and home.

(I am absolutely not saying these are definitive wc traits - just leaning on the fictional world of Ambridge / Eastenders....)

One of the benefits often claimed for private education is how self-confident the products are. I know a highly intelligent man who went to a private school in Scotland and then to Cambridge who said that even with that background he found the products of London independent day schools intimidating when he arrived because of their apparently unbounded self-confidence. Interesting discussion point where self-confidence stops and arrogance begins! Anyway, I think a lot of what deters some people from leaving home or encouraging their young people to leave home is lack of that social confidence and a deeply ingrained feeling that they won't fit in/won't cope.

I don't think myself that it's only the children from independent schools who have that level of confidence. If your parents were well educated/professionally successful you grow up expecting to follow in that path and so that's what seems normal, whether you go to Eton or the local comp.

The 'bigger picture' as far as I can see is to encourage anyone bright who thinks they might like what either university has to offer to apply but to avoid nursing a chip if they don't get in. And to acknowledge that the application process is more thorough than elsewhere, so likely to be at least as fair, arguably decidedly fairer.

Any idea of a lottery is completely absurd.

Doesn't arrogance begin at the point at which self-confidence becomes misplaced?

Yes, Molio, but there's a large subjective element in deciding where one ends and the other begins, isn't there?

Zero - we quite like staying at home! And we lack the sense of entitlement and micawberesque optimism that those with charmed lives can have (not all those with charmed lives, obviously). We are only too aware of what life can be like, and that marks you. We are also ridiculously risk averse. My job involves international travel and I suck it up, but I don't embrace it. I think, if you had to sum it up in one word, that word would be 'worry'. However, my kids also see the example of what we made of our lives, despite the drag caused by worry etc. So it's not all bad. But I do think that 2/3 of them, despite my job being a counter example, don't automatically see the world as being their oyster. And they haven't really travelled (I travel for work, no bloody way am I ever going to go to a airport through choice). They go to London more than any of their friends though - but that's not an example of them being more cosmopolitan it's an example of my homing instinct. And the fact that if shows are your thing, you go to London or you miss out.

DD1 will have to go far away for university and work, possibly. But at this point I can't see DS ever moving outside the county. DD2 is already planning her life abroad though so she hasn't been infected by our ineffectualness. (It's not that she doesn't like us, I think, it's more to do with what she wants to do when she is an adult although since that is a ridiculous pipe dream I doubt it will stay that way).

aN airport. Bloody keyboard.

Interesting and I've always liked risk or at least accepted - trying even if I'll fail which is one reason I've probably done well. I am not though sure it's a class issue as much as just a personality issue.

Haven't read it all but got down to the debate with Starlight et al about costs.

Clearly going to uni is a massive cost, but Oxbridge must be about the cheapest going. You live and eat in college, terms are short, college bars and activities are heavily subsidised, there is virtually no transport cost.

Especially if you choose a well-endowed college, the funds and bursaries available are very generous. I know my old college would give out loads of money if anyone was in financial trouble and they often turned a blind eye to unpaid rent or let you stay all summer and forget to bill you.

Please see here for the general Cambridge bursary www.admin.cam.ac.uk/univ/cambridgebursary/

Jane I'm sure there are plenty of WC risk takers and MC risk averse (although the MC risk averse may find themselves being socially mobile in the wrong direction). But the 'not for the likes of us' thing is quite ingrained in some aspects/iterations of WC culture. Knowing your place etc. I was very lucky that despite all that, I was propelled well out of my comfort zone by my academic performance and an educational environment that was determined not to let me 'waste' my good fortune.

My mum didn't really want me to go to Cambridge - she was very sick (dying) and I think she would have preferred me to stay closer to home, but she was never anything less than encouraging outwardly. But she did make it very clear to me that if I didn't want to apply/go then I didn't have to. what she really wanted me to do was join the civi service and 'get a good pension'. Of course, it turns out that I should definitely have followed her advice because despite my career/salary etc my pension will probably be two paperclips and a rubber band. (I don't think she predicted the death of defined benefit pension schemes though (mind you she never had a good word to say about Robert Maxwell at a time when he wasn't particularly a household name so who knows)).

I think it boils down to how you see life - as a struggle, something fraught with snares delusions and things that will SMITE you, or as a wonderful adventure from which clearly only good things ever flow. If you have the latter life experience growing up, you are more likely to sally forth armed with confidence and expectation (and maybe a sense of entitlement). If you have the former experience you are perhaps more likely to be wary - however history is awash with counter examples (and in my own limited way I'm one such) so, really - what do I know, I'm probably talking bollocks (and not for the first or last time). But I think there is something in it - there is after all research about the different outcomes women and men with similar qualifications and job performance have in salary negotiations, and it seems to indicate that the more confident men tend to get better results than the less confident (or more modest) women.

Bumps there is a cost to getting there though. I was travelling from London - not a big thing. Even for my family. Travelling from where I live now though - way more expensive. And having to get all your stuff back for the holidays (in my day, you couldn't leave anything in your room, it would likely be used for many conferences over the breaks) - you need a car. But what if your family doesn't have a car? I was always reliant on the goodwill/help of others to transport my stuff and it was a nightmare. And that was just going back to London - a shortish coach journey and then a train from where the coach stopped. If my kids were going from here it would be coach plus tube plus a long expensive train journey, or two train journeys plus tube etc. If they were in the same situation I was in when I was a student (which hopefully they won't be).

Fair enough Herc. I was fortunate that my parents drove me down and back up each term (only had to clear out in the summer though, not in the short holidays and I could have got a coach).

That said I think it would be a shame for anyone with a place at Oxbridge to miss out on going just due to transport issues. Surely you could speak the college, they would help you store your stuff and probably make you a travel grant if you were really struggling.

Maybe I could have - if I'd've been prepared to ask. Which I wasn't. It's that old entitlement v deference thing again.

People who are reliant on public transport do tend to look at transport links (as do people with cars who live in silly places like myself). Transport links to Cambridge are difficult from many parts of the country. That may have an impact on pre-planning (university shortlist construction).

One of my DD1's possible choices is York, because of the course. It's a Very Long Way Away. There is a direct train though so it's not been struck off her list. My point isn't just distance though, it's that considerations like logistics loom larger in the lives of people who often have logistical issues than in the lives of those for whom money and time isn't so much of an object. They probably shouldn't. But they do. And asking for stuff you may well be perfectly entitled to ask for comes easier to those who are used to hearing 'yes' than to those who fear hearing 'no' (even if that fear is groundless).

My kids are ridiculously advantaged in most ways. But DH and I still have that sucky teethy 'where are the hidden pitfalls' attitudes with which we grew up. I suspect (and see evidence) that these have rubbed off to a certain extent on the kids. They don't feel like life is like a room without a roof because for better or for worse we have raised them to feel like life's room most definitely does have a roof. Because in our experiences, while the roof turned out to be higher than for others, it's always been there. And always will be.

In my day parents did not seem to help so much. I used to go to the guard's van, put my bike in there and about 4 suit cases. It was very very hard and then at the end of term back the other way. My parents did may for my sister at Oxford to send a trunk each term as that was a requirement of her college. (I wasn't at Oxbridge). I certainly remember my parents mentioning how expensive the trunk transport was (although we were certainly not on the poverty line).

On risk if you have had a parent take out a mortgage (as I had) then you probably have a better idea about what is manageable debt and what is not than a family who try never to be in debt and have always rented perhaps.

I will in a sense be a generation or two ahead of Herc. My parents went to state grammars because they had extremely high IQs and did very well in exams. mother's grandfather was a miner and her father died in an industrial accident when she was 9 months and her mother had been a domestic servant and was certainly a not very well off widow who always had to work. My mother certainly moved class in her life time (we went to fee paying schools) and I would say the next generation in our immediate family are middle class and ditto the cousins in the next generation all at fee paying schools.

The difficulty once you have a bit of money is how to ensure the children do not take it for granted. They don't seem to so far which is good and they all know that they will need to be self supporting when they grow up.

'Jane' - I'm younger than you but perhaps not two generations behind! Probably about 1. My parents both went to grammar schools before/during WW2 and both had their education curtailed by being orphaned. My grandmother was in service till her death and my mother went into service when her mum died because it was literally the only option she could see or that could be seen for her, despite the fact that she was doing extremely well at her GS. Like my dad, she had a scholarship (this was before the 1944 education act). She didn't stay in service, obviously (it was after all a dying market).

Had my grandparents lived longer my parents would have been much more likely to make the leap from WC to professional class that I and my sister subsequently made. They had however adopted MC attitudes towards education, despite their own bad luck, that informed the way myself and my sister were brought up.

We don't have a car. Our son has to clear out his room during vacations or pay to keep it on. We are fortunate that there is enough flexibility in our family schedules that we have so far always been able to muster at least one other family member (usually two) to go off to Oxford to help him get his stuff back. This means getting the coach or train between Oxford and London, plus a tube journey in London. He travels very light, though. It helps a great deal that he needs very little in the way of cooking equipment as he mostly eats with friends in their house or in college or has something he buys in that needs minimal cooking/preparation/serving stuff. I'm always struck when we go up for this purpose what an enormous amount of stuff other students have, though.

Sorry, didn't mean in age. I just meant in terms of moving class. My mother's mother was widowed but they could keep my mother at the grammar school as the mother worked but I'm sure it wasn't easy.