7% at comps get AAB

[Judy1234]

Just looking at today's FT schools tables/reports. Only 7% of comprehensives get pupils with grades AAB at A level. 62% of pupils get that at the best 50 independent schools (about 70 such pupils a year per school) and about 31 from selective grammar schools.

However the top 10 comps have 31% getting AAB which isn't too bad and the bottom 50 comps have 1% of pupils getting AAB.

The best comperhensive - Watford Grammar gets 8 Oxbridge offers a year.

But then surely you'd expect that. If the school isn't selective, whether it's fee paying or not, you can't expect to get lots of high a level grades so why does the Government want more children proportionately from comprehensives and (new rule) whose parents didn't get to university? It's like saying I want people who aren't right for this given preference over those that are. That these really bright pupils from the state grammar school whose parents both went to univesrity will not be allowed in but these rather thick children who have left it too late to be brought up to an Oxbridge standard age 19 will get preference.
www.ft.com/cms/s/4037c7f2-ceae-11db-b5c8-000b5df10621.html

Again, you reveal your obsession with money, status and upward mobility. I want my kids' qualifications to reflect their ability and their hard work. I want them to choose a university and career which will make them happy and hopefully contribute to making society a better place. I want my kids to be proud of who they are. I have no intention of encouraging them to change their accent or dress sense to jump through someone else's hoops. I have at least 2 students who have got A grades in all 5 of their AS Levels and 1 of them has gone on to get 100% in her January module for A2. Neither of them has applied to Oxbridge because they didn't offer the right courses for them. TBH I think it's a rather insecure, superficial and lacking person who feels the need to adhere to conventions and buy their success in the way you advocate Xenia.

I'd be interested to know in what way Durham is "next after Oxbridge"? Are you talking about some specific course here? It certainly doesn't come next to Oxbridge in general, good though it is.

As for the views of evolution, I don't know where to begin. How many "fat" people die of heart attacks before procreating? Precious few. Disabled children are miscarried, as you so charmingly point out, because their disabilities are incompatible with life. There's no need to invoke evolution there- people with very severe disabilities are unlikely to have children and reproduction is the only thing that's relevant in evolutionary terms.

Glad I'm not the only one who finds Xenia's views on evolution at best incredibly misguided and at worst really quite sinister. The idea that one group of people is more successful than another (the rich over the poor as Xenia seems to believe) because of evolution and the survival of the fittest has been used to justify everything from Nazism to slavery with absolutely no scientific basis. Evolution is about our BIOLOGICAL development over thousands of years. If we were still ruled purely by our bodies we'd be having a child every year and dying pretty nasty deaths. And 'human instinct' could be used as a defense for crimes like rape and theft. But we aren't. We have self-control, empathy, emotion and choice.

Good post blackandwhitecat.

I don't agree. Why do most women choose to marry men who earn more? Because they're still rooted in that biological past where you pick a man who will provide for them. They're completely entrapped and not exercising choices they think they are. Why do women look at men in suits in bars whereas if the same man goes in not in a suit they don't? This is not me, it's most people in the UK. It seems to be human nature.

Durham? I think lots of older recruiters in certain more traditional institutions used to put it third after Oxbridge. Probably you'd also have Bristol almost equal with it now and LSE getting there too. Sadly recruiters in some institutions wanting the "best" whether it's for graduate recruitment in general, management consultancy or whatever get so many appliations they are going to have to put middlesex university and Bath off the pile and just look at the top 10 universities and often won't know that the theatre course in Bath is the best in the country for its subject but they happen to know it's hard to get into Oxbridge, LSE or whatever and go for the people from there. If you don't want to play that game it's fine - plenty of other jobs and many jobs that don't even need degrees but know the game exists and the rules or you disadvantage yourself through ignorance.

By the way we should have no PC arguments stopping debate ever. It's pernicious. Of course the fittest survive. Children of incest have problems even to this day. Taller people get better jobs sadly (I'm not tall) etc etc.

Xenia I am rather confused how a top London city lawyer is able to be on here so much

How do you have the time when you are supposed to be working

I work for myself. I don't think I've ever said what I did. I was out the last 3 days and I'm here today, that's all.

Well according to any measure I've ever seen in the last 10 years it's been considerably behind UCL, LSE, Imperial, Warwick, York for example. It seems strange that employers pay no attention to the league tables. My argument with your evolutionary posts is that you clearly don't understand the first thing about biology, PC doesn't come into it. I do find them abhorrent as it happens, but that's not the point.

Old fashioned employers want the best graduates and it's simpler to say Oxford, Cambridge, Durham Bristol Manchester LSE or whatever than trawl every league table in the country to find in which subjects which is best. There defnitely is a Russel Group of universties preference by many of those who recruit and schools not passing that information on to children are failing them. So saying yes middlesex is best in the country for Biology or whatever fine, but don't omit to say and most employers won't touch your CV with a barge pole if you went there because it's not on their narrow minded little list.

No, you misunderstand, I am talking about the straightforward overall rankings for all universities that are available everywhere. No trawling necessary.

I wouldn't say that I am particularly obsessed with being upwardly mobile, but like many other MNers am first in the family to have gone to university, get a professional (and co-incidently well-paid) job and become a home-owner (if we ignore the right-to-buy revolution which helped those of my family who were in council housing, but not those who were in private lets such as my parents).

I'm obviously conscious of the extra options that were open to me because of my education, and I would like the dcs to have a similar range of options open to them. But in an meritocracy say, in order to ensure that children in deprived circumstances get the same opportunity it may be necessary for the prospects of my children to diminish. And it must be hard not to instinctively help your child to develop their fullest potential - surely most of us do that to some extent whether it is through our choice of schools, or encouraging our children with their homework, paying for additional coaching or activities etc, or through the attention that we give them ourselves - all of this could be construed as an unfair advantage.

Ultimately it is very difficult to create a level playing field, because some parents will always seek to help their children, and that will alwasy be unfair to those children whose parents aren't interested, or don't understand the nature of competition for different fields.
I can understand why parents who have paid for private schools feel strongly against the positive discrimination implied by some of the university admission discussions. But mainly because it is discriminating against parents who have chosen to support their children in a particular way.

As for Oxbridge, of course these are not the "best" universities, but a large proportion of successful business leaders have been there - 22% of the FTSE100 CEOs are Oxbridge graduates (and only 72% of FTSE CEOs are British). The only other unviersity to field so many has been Harvard. And I wouldn't be surprised if a similar proportion of Magic Circle and Big 4 partners had a similar background. Certainly Oxbridge doesn't have the best degree courses in every subject (I'd possibly say in many subjects!), but to say that it is no indication of their ability seems a bit strong. But then an Oxbridge education may not be solely about the degree course.

That said I have to say that I have never had to justify my choice of university whereas I often hear people explaining why they didn't apply to Oxford or Cambridge. Actually that's not quite true - but I've only had to justify why I didn't choose one other university (and it wasn't Durham or Bath).

I'm loving the idea that finding men in suits attractive is to do with HUMAN NATURE - hilarious. Suits are a very bizarre development and actually nothing to do with nature or comfort. I really don't get the nature thing at all at all unless you think it's to do with plumage or something like peacocks. With suits??? I don't think so. And I think you'll find that most of the time it's not that women are attracted to men who earn more than them it's because at the moment women are still not given equal pay or equal chances of promotion or that they don't want to climb the hierarchies. Didn't you read that stuff about mothers of small children being the group most discriminated against in the workplace? More even that people with disabilities? At the moment my dp does earn more money than me (this certainly wasn't what attracted me to him. When we met we earned the same amount) and this really annoys me since we're both teachers and he only works till 3pm on a full-time salary while I have to take a part-time wage to work the same hours so I can pick up dd1 from school. And actually we're in a very balanced relationship in that we share the childcare and housework but my college just has a longer day. I regularly think about raising this issue but like many women in similar (most are in less family friendly positions) I don't want to rock the boat. At some point in our relationship it's highly possible that our roles will switch and I'll earn more than he does. Won't bother eitehr of us. Neither of us find money a turn-on though we appreciate it's a necessity and our relationship would never be based on something so material and so superficial.

Do you think that men being attracted to women who shave their legs and dye their hair is to do with evolution too Xenia ROFL?

'Because they're still rooted in that biological past where you pick a man who will provide for them. They're completely entrapped and not exercising choices they think they are.'

I'm just completely amazed that anyone would believe this today let alone a successful, supposedly intelligent woman.

'Of course the fittest survive.'
This argument has little to no relevance in Western society. What exactly do you mean by 'fittest' because if you mean it literally I think you'll find that tehre are some incredibly unfit people surviving to a ripe old age and living really quite successful lives and as the earlier poster mentioned earlier also procreating thereby ensuring the continuation of their genes. Thanks to medical advances even very premature and disabled people can and do go on to lead highly successful and fulfilling lives.

'Taller people get better jobs sadly (I'm not tall) etc etc.'
But height is partly linked to nutrition and maternal nutrition can have an impact 2 generations later. Nutrition in our society is nothing to do with how fit you are it's to do with how wealthy you are and wealth has nothing to do with nature or evolution it's a relatively modern invention. And again we're back to you justifying the status quo by suggesting it's somehow natural. And again I would remind you that these arguments (with no scientific basis) were used to justify slavery (because the west thought they were biolically superior to Africans) etc etc. And you are linking the advantages BOUGHT by the rich like you artificially with MONEY to being to do with evolution and survival of the fittest and that's quite plainly rubbish.

If people recruit candidates who are taller or prettier or whiter or more male or even who went to Oxbridge rather than the righ person for the job then that has everything to do with prejudice and ignorance and nothing to do with biology or evolution. It should be deplored not accepted as the way things are any more than we would accept racial or sexual violence.

'

Tamum - if you google university league table, then the Sunday Times university league table is the first item.

The second item is the Guardian university league table - different criteria, same result?

After a couple of articles cross-refering to these two you then get the FT league table . It is 2001 data, but it is what you get from Google and I gave up searching as the top 2 ranked unis had been the same. I'm sure that your league tables are out there somewhere, but I think that these others get a lot of coverage.

Ladymuck, I know- I did Google. I think you are misunderstanding me- they all give essentially the same results and have done for a number of years. Are you thinking that I was suggesting that Oxford and Cambridge weren't top? I never suggested that, I was arguing whether Durham was right next to them, as Xenia said.

I agree with Ladymuck.
On some of those points, bw, no time to answer them all, women are apparently attracted to men in suits, men with money, men with power and surely that's just the same as them all being after the leader of the tribe, the fittest man in the jungle etc because then they can ensure better protection for their chidlren and surprise surprise you earn less than your husband and you work part time. It is ever thus. It would have pleased me had you earned more and he worked part time.

Also I don't think anyone would dispute on the whole you're goig to get cleverer and better graduates at Oxford than Middlesex University (sorry to pick on it but it's at one end as an ex poly). We compete all the time. Stay at home mothers are some of the worst of the bunch competing over whose child walks first, whose husband helps least at home, subtle competition over earnings, houses and looks and weight too. I don't think we'll rid ourselves of that. Communist china which had people men and women in the same mao suit even there they still had engrained sexism and their attempt to stigmatise the educated and middle class and prefer the ignorant and less clever wasn't exactly successful. You can't interfere with nature.

I don't think my children would suffer in private schools on university entrance and the better schools haven't largely found that, not yet anyway and all the other advantages they have had outweigh throughout life any difficulty in getting into university if there were one. All of this is just an overlay on what we really want for children however. It's gold plating their exam successes, hobbies, fitness, good diet etc. All parents want most the core to be right, their internal emotional adjustment, ability to get on with people and lead a fulfilling life. The rest is great to have too though. I want children who have choices and in this country money and power give you choice.

Interesting surveys. They don't correlate to what I thought or some employers' narrower recruitment.

Xenia what do you think of people like ALAN SUGAR who left school at 16 and didn't go to Private school or OXBRIDGE?

There are two excellent international university rankings with data for 2005 or 2006 - Times Higher Educational Supplement, and Jiao Tong university, both of which are rated and used by employers.

blackandwhitecat - Xenia is absolutely right about the evolutionary stuff... human beings are pretty basic at heart.

and Alan Sugar is chair of governors and great supporter of a comprehensive school

RT, always giving people like as examples to my children if they seem to be stressed about exams. They never matter as much as children think and yet some children go off and hang themselves over this stuff. Natural intelligence, hard work, drive etc account for a lot and luck too but on the whole children with qualifications tend to find many things in life easier so it's wise to ease their path I think if you can.

Xenia but the point is he is the opposite of your ideal system isn't he?

His background is what you call failure

No, of course not. I wouldn't want to go out with him because he's completely unattractive and that's not just class and voice but also physical appearance but that's very different from how I'd classify who is successful. He's done very well.

An interesting issue is to what extent we want our children to be like us. So do grammar school girls want to send their children to the same? Do parents want their children to haev the same accent as them, same kind of life whether it's leaving school at 16 because educatino is a waste of space or same college as mother at Oxford or whatever or do we want our chlidren to be different, not have our faults and the problems of our upbringing or be materially better off because we always struggled or whatever.