How clever to go to Oxbridge...? (Navel-gazing discussion).

[justlumpingalong]

Discussion with DH and some friends last night, triggered the boat races being on telly today... We reckoned you needed to be top 5% of your birth cohort, academically, to stand a chance (most of us went there, so clearly it must be a near-genius thing...)....but then we started picking it apart.

Our analysis went a bit like this:

Oxbridge take, very roughly, about 1% of kids turning 18 each year. But their recruitment and selection processes would have to be pretty awesome to find the top 1% and only the top 1%....and clearly these systems are not that great at all.

Apparently half of all schools don't put anyone forward for Oxbridge, so if you're at one of those schools, you're out. So, Oxbridge now need to find the top 2% from the remaining schools.

However, half of all kids don't apply to University at all. This may be a sensible, self-aware strategy from many people - aware that their skills lie elsewhere, but I'm willing to be a fair few of our 2percenters get lost that way. Let's say that Oxbridge now need to get the top 3% of those remaining in the pool to fill their places.

Now remove all the kids who think that Oxbridge is 'not for the likes of me'. I reckon there's loads of them - maybe half of all potential applicants? So now Oxbridge is fishing for 6% of the remaining pool.

Now get rid of anyone who wants to study Drama, or Dutch, or Dentistry, or one of the myriad other subjects that Oxbridge don't offer. And forget anyone who is burning to go the Big Smoke, or must follow their girlfriend to Hull, or wants somewhere you can do fell running. I reckon we're now down to fishing for 10% of the remaining candidates.

Now to interviews. What is the ratio of interviews to offers? 1:4? So, to fish the top 10%, even assuming a perfect shortlisting strategy on Oxbridge's part, you've got to invite the top 40% to interview.

And then we have interviewing error. All the evidence that has ever existed on utility of interviews for selecting the best candidates for anything, shows that they're crap. Let's be generous and suppose that, with aptitude tests thrown in, the efficiency of this final stage of selection is 50%. That would mean that offers are made to kids who are, largely, in the top 20% of their cohort. That, roughly, gives an IQ of 113.

So, ignoring all debate about what 'clever' means, what do you reckon?

Ps go gently - bit hungover...

I haven't read the whole thread so apologies if its already been said, but isn't it true that when people quote the % of Oxbridge intake who want to private schools, the numbers are never broken down into how many got into private schools either through bursaries, scholarships or their parents doing something for their highly intelligent offspring that they really could not afford?
A more interesting question wouldn't be how many leave the sixth form of a private school to go to Oxbridge, but rather how many that go to Oxbridge spent a part of their education in the state sector?

What a depressing discussion.

Neither my partner or I are obviously 'rich'. At the moment I earn so little I don't pay tax. We don't have some of the material things which many Mumsnetters would regard as essential.

My husband and I went to Oxford and Cambridge respectively. He used his intelligence to get a further professional training, but opted do work that would be socially useful within that profession - rather than to maximise his income by going down a commercial route. I've mainly worked in the arts and voluntary sector, opting to do work that I found interesting and fulfilling rather than going for a more lucrative career.

Our daughter was state educated and has never received private tutoring. She goes to one of the universities that her parents attended.

What we gave her - as opposed to buying stuff for her - is time and nurture which helped her to fulfil her potential.. We did get a lot of books, but they were often from charity shops, or else libraries. We talked to her. We ate together and debated all sorts of things. (I can see this stuff is hard/impossible to do if you're absolutely skint and not properly housed and in debt doing lots of jobs and shift work and/or a zero- hours contract.)

I think a certain level of material security - and perhaps a kind of confidence? - is necessary to help your children flourish. Money can buy a great many things of course - and can be a kind of shield. But I don't necessarily believe that you can buy intellectual development, because there is something which has to come from within.

A complete non-sequitur here but I'm reading The Shepherd's Life and the author is the lad who hated school, hated being patronised by teachers, and thought education and university not for him. Except he started to read his grandfather's books after he left school; now, he has just beaten the teachers' team in the pub quiz, and his friends are telling him that he's too clever for the life he's living. I know from hearing some on R4 what happens (Oxford), but it has given me a much more nuanced view of his world.

And it is to be highly recommended, a lovely read.

FWIW I would bet a tenner that none of you studied statistics.

You would lose your tenner.

Surely lots of intelligent candidates are out of the running because they haven't matured enough to do well at A' levels. I've known plenty of DC who have only shown there full academic potential once they are at Uni.

I've also know some right pillocks who have been to amazing universities.

"There is also an expectation piece here - sometimes there is an "expectation" of Oxbridge, whereas some people although clever, might have the view it is about as likely as landing on the moon"

This.

It would be interesting to know the statistical effect of 'parents or other close relatives or friends who went to Oxbridge' vs 'does not know anyone well who ever went there', for e.g. matched A-level results.

I have said this before, but both my parents - and in fact all their siblings and their partners - are Oxbridge graduates. My siblings and I, though our schooling is VERY different - ranging from top academic private school on a scholarship to just ex secondary modern which had never sent anyone to university until the previous year - all followed our parents' lead.

It would also be interesting to know what percentage of Oxbridge professors' kids end up attending Oxbridge.

A bit of a tangent, but I was rejected by Cambridge despite probably being in the top 2% as measured by academic achievement and, on paper, having all the extra-curriculars too. The reasons...lack of confidence in interviews and a history of getting stressed out by deadlines.

There's also an element of understanding the system at play.

I got very little guidance with my Oxbridge application.

I applied to a very pretty, historical college whose intake was in large part male public school applicants. There were many other colleges that admitted many more candidates with my kind of profile.
I also applied for a very competitive course which had very few places and was notoriously difficult to get onto. There was another, very similar course that had about 5x as many places that would have been a better bet.
Add to that the fact that I was woefully unprepared for the interview and I had no chance really!

I was gutted at the time but as an adult I can't say I care much!

My personal experience is that I went to a highly selective London private school on a scholarship. I was at the top of the year in that school, but when I went to Cambridge I definitely felt that I was in the bottom half (although I did get a 2:1). I've since had a successful career and worked with lots of intelligent people, but never felt out of my depth the way I did at Cambridge.

Statistically people are more likely to pick candidates who are similar to them or who are physically attractive.

Just like OFSTED inspections in some ways it will be ticking the right boxes and playing the game

It would be interesting to know the extent to which oxbridge dons do overcome these things or even want to overcome them.

It would also be interesting to know what percentage of Oxbridge professors' kids end up attending Oxbridge.

Why Oxbridge professors specifically, as opposed to all professors? Oxbridge professors are not "better" and are not necessarily more familiar with the Oxbridge admissions system than academics at other universities who themselves studied/taught at Oxbridge earlier in their career. Oxbridge professors who came from abroad and who are not involved in admissions may actually know less about the process. (At Oxbridge undergraduate admissions are at College level but certainly in Cambridge not all academics have involvement with Colleges and hence with admissions.)

A lot of Cambridge academics' kids apply to Oxford rather than Cambridge, because they don't want to stay in their home town, and vice versa. Yet the admissions systems are quite different between Oxford and Cambridge. I know one very well but I'm not sure I know so much more about the other than an academic who's never been at Oxbridge would. Similarly I know very well the admissions system for my own subject and related subjects, but I know far less about admissions for e.g. medicine or law.

Clearly professors' children are highly likely to enter top university courses but this is true throughout the world. It doesn't just reflect knowledge of the admissions systems but also arises from the high value placed on university education, high levels of education within the household etc etc.

And, as an academic, I have seen quite a few of the children of colleagues from my research field be rejected from Oxbridge. There's certainly no automatic pass just because your parents are academics known to the interviewers.

It would be interesting to know the extent to which oxbridge dons do overcome these things or even want to overcome them.

There is a large push for unconscious bias training throughout the university sector.

The school that I went to had strong connections with a girls' Oxford College and people got into that every year (generally clever or good at exams/hardworking). Would it be fair to say that some subjects and some Oxbridge colleges are much easier to get into than others? Lots of schools don't teach Classics for example, so this would rule lots of people out.

As my handle indicates, I'm not from these parts. However, I will be here for the foreseeable future and do have DCs so I do have an interest in learning more about Oxbridge admissions. I still think in terms of how things work in the old country, so I'd like to share my observations of the admissions policies and, therefore, student bodies of two universities with which I have some familiarity: Caltech and Harvard.

Caltech (The California Institute of Technology) is a small (a little over 200 students per year) school specializing in the sciences. The Times Higher Education ranking has rated it the number one university in the world for the last five years or so. Caltech selects its students almost entirely on a combination of standardized test scores, some testing ability and some testing achievement, and grades in maths/science courses. As the school is quite focused, I'd guess that its students are drawn from the top 1-2% of the country in general academic ability and well, well within the top 1% in maths ability. Over half of graduates end up going on to academic graduate programs (as opposed to professional schools) and a large fraction of these end up in research at universities or in industry.

Harvard has more diverse goals and a more diverse student body. They enroll about 1600 students per year; they are not interested in producing 1600 university professors per year. As such, they select using different criteria. Basically, they are look for true excellence in something, subject to a minimum academic standard. My best guess is that their minimum academic standard is about 90th percentile, corresponding to a score of about 120 on an IQ-style scale. What I mean is that an applicant may have starred in a Hollywood movie, performed a violin solo at Carnegie Hall, danced a principal role with the NY City Ballet, represented the United States at the Olympics, or all of the above, and will not be offered a place if they aren't also in the top 10% or so academically. If, however, they have demonstrated that they can truly excel at something, they may well be offered a place without needing to be in the top 1% academically. Harvard does offer some places on the basis of exceptional academics but, here, top 1% won't cut it. Quite frankly top 0.1% academics might not get you a place if that's all you have to offer.

As I mentioned earlier, I have DCs and am trying to understand the system on this side of the pond. They are in primary school so my immediate interest is in secondary schools. At the moment my belief is that some top independent schools are more like Harvard, perhaps SPGS, and some are more like Caltech, perhaps Westminster. Any comments?

Any thoughts on whether Oxbridge are more like Harvard or Caltech, or is neither model relevant?

Expat96 - suggest you start a separate thread in education as its an interesting topic

FWIW i think a couple of the London day schools are a bit like the caltech you describe, most of the famous boarding schools like Harvard. The better known schools all have different cultures (eg i think eton needs a certain inner confidence, winchester suits the quirky boy, tonbridge the sporty boy, westminster the very clever very hard worker). But people (including me) are always very biased and prone to terrible generalisations, so having lots and lots of views from loads of people is best way to get a feel for the schools.

Hijack over.

I had an offer from a Cambridge college, but didn't do very well in my A-level or Step paper, so didn't get in, and went to a different university. In my first fortnight there, my tutor indentified the very simple but fundamental error I had been making in all my written work and told me how to correct it. From that point on, I was on track for a first. So I suspect that if I had been given that information at school, I would have gone to Cambridge. I'm actually quite glad I didn't, though, as I loved the structure and content of the course I did and don't think that I would have been as happy or learned as much elsewhere.

"There's also an element of understanding the system at play"

Completely agree with this

As the school is quite focused, I'd guess that its students are drawn from the top 1-2% of the country in general academic ability and well, well within the top 1% in maths ability.

You're exaggerating about well, well within the top 1% in maths ability: Caltech undergraduates aren't better than Oxbridge undergraduates in STEM. Worse if anything, but different, as they come in from the US high school system with less science knowledge but a broader background.

Harvard undergraduates in STEM are on average way behind Oxbridge undergraduates in ability and knowledge. I agree that they are selected on a broad range of criteria, not just academics.

At grad school level Harvard and Caltech are much more comparable.

I would be very surprised if there are many (any) Oxbridge students/graduates with an iq of under 120. Not that that means anything.

It's certainly about playing the game and being the sort of person who will flourish in a highly competitive and high pressure environment.

Also totally agree with Marianne intelligent =/= wealthy

I'm really clever but quite poor! Seriously, dh and I both have PhDs in science subjects from rg unis. We've both have world class publication records. Dh is now a prof and I am a sahm. We do ok but are by no means rich. Certainly couldn't afford either fees to send dc's to a top public school or buy a house near an academic state school. Our kids are pretty clever too but probably won't get into Oxbridge, if they even want to go.

I love your name, TychosNose.

At DCs quite expensive schools, I'd say that there is a very strong link between new wealth (earned) and high-achieving kids. Thinking of the kids that came top in every year (the ones headed for oxbridge) I'd say that more than 80% of them had self--made parents, and 20% were old wealth, although the school intake was pretty much 50-50.

A very biased example of course, and it is also impossible to say whether the new-wealth kids are cleverer or (more likely) have just had it drummed into them from family culture that you work your socks off to be sucessful. And of course i concede that the kids of old wealth families may have clever parents too despite the inbreeding

I went to Oxford and agree with PPs that I was surprised to find quite a few people there were really not what I would call very bright or talented at all. I assumed I would be the bottom of the pile (state school, only just scraped in, did not get great A-levels, though that didn't matter as it was in the days of the entrance exam). It seemed to be common knowledge when I was there that you could get in by having school links or even by parents making big donations. Some people were amazingly, intimidatingly clever but it wasn't the predominant thing. The predominant thing was a kind of homogenous poshness and confidence.

quit2dis:
Why Oxbridge professors specifically, as opposed to all professors?

I am assuming that, on average, Oxford professors are more familiar with both Oxford and the admissions process at Oxford than are professors in other universities (including Cambridge). I am also assuming that Oxford professors who are not involved with admissions can more easily get information and potentially more accurate information about the process at Oxford than professors at other universities (including Cambridge). I am further assuming that the children of Oxford professors will be more familiar with Oxford and are more likely to have attended open days, etc., as their senior schools are likely to be geographically close, so will have a higher propensity to apply.

You can repeat the previous paragraph with Cambridge and Oxford reversed.

Perhaps these assumptions are incorrect.

I made no suggestion that the children of Oxbridge professors receive any special consideration in the evaluation of their applications.

That's interesting no Rhombus I guess the current cabinet are evidence of that phenomenon. Oxbridge grads I've come across professionally have always been intimidatingly clever but they are usually academics so are probably not representative.