Oxford VC blaming state schools for low Oxbridge entry!

[Miljah]

Am speechless- but not surprised, tbh.

Yes, top private schools do pluck clever, poor students out of state schools, not necessarily in an act of altruism, though, but to justify their charitable status and to boost their academic success ratings.

They take these DC out of often, large, all-comer comps with the usual panoply of big classes, poor equipment in falling down buildings, a demoralised work force, challenging behaviours, disruption, SEN, both diagnosed and not (and even then poorly funded), some low community expectations and so forth; and then place them in small classes of clever, motivated fellow pupils, in beautiful buildings with top of the range equipment, better paid staff, forensic guidance, very motivated parents- and thus they head off to Oxbridge.

Louise Richardson, Oxford Vice Chancellor muses that state schools are failing 'their brightest' (those left after the indies have creamed off the ones they want) by not offering a similar service.

How can you be so lacking in critical thinking skills yet get to be VC of Oxford?

Sorry, I think the guff about very, very, very, very selective entrance tests, harder than Oxbridge finals etc, was your second post not your first.

CendrillonSings in answer to your question, I'd expect no less than 100% of those who applied in Y13 to be made offers, assuming what you say in your first post about tests/ selectivity to be correct.

You're being a bit silly about that - I already clarified that I meant those who had entered via a school's bespoke entrance tests, rather than through CE. I suppose those schools could raise their acceptance rates still higher by ditching CE and thus eliminating the duffers destined to put bums on seats at Bristol, Durham, etc, but that might raise the hothouse atmosphere to an unbearable degree.

which subjects are the subjects of which you're aware and please could you tell us where you're getting your statistics for the specific classes of degree from Oxford and Cambridge for those eight schools?

No centralised statistics, sadly, and as for the rest, I would say only that I have a long association with one of the universities and an interest is tracking how the products of certain places fare in certain subjects. Unhelpful, I know!

Your second answer is unconvincing to say the least, Cendrillon.

The first point you make completely negates your post about selectivity/ world class etc.

I think you may just be one of those people whose head is easily turned by paid for selective education.

You can think what you like. You'd be wrong, but go right ahead.

I'm still intrigued by the idea that those students from 8 highly selective expensive schools happen to be inherently better than the students of every state school and that their success is down to good old simple meritocracy, but the only if you accept that it's thr type of meritocracy that depends on the financial ability of their parents to put thousands into tutors, pre prep, prep, highly socially selective secondary schools with established links to particular universities. After all that's just matching talent with opportunity which is totally meritocratic.

LolaSmiles They arent, of course, but what they are is a group of people who have gone through a process which makes them a safe bet.

By the time they get to Oxford they are already familiar with it. Their schools have already gone through the process of filtering out the students who wouldnt shine in that environment. They arent 'diamonds in the rough'. A lot of the cutting and polishing has already been done.

There will be plenty of equal and higher carat diamonds in state schools but they will tend to be in the rough. Admissions tutors would need to get a lot better at recognising those stones. The colleges would have to do more cutting and polishing themselves.

What would be the advantage to Oxford? If all you are wanting to do is produce a reliable quota of firsts then there is no advantage. Those 8 schools produce that quota. Why put the effort in? You will miss out on some geniuses but nobody will ever know.

The simplest solution might be to found a college. After all, that is how women gained entry to Oxford. A college whose purpose is to admit students from non fee paying, non selective schools. Such a college would get adept at recognising high carat diamonds in the rough. Their cutting and polishing techniques would be efficient but by necessity may be brutal, a kind of academic equivalent of the Sandhurst officer training course.

It wouldnt happen of course!

What the VC in the OP wants is for state schools to do more of the cutting and polishing.

I am at a loss for words. As a teacher of thousands of those diamonds in the rough I am not sure whether to laugh or cry. If that is the attitude of people who have been to Oxbridge then I can fully understand why kids don't want to go anywhere near the place. State school kids have no polish at all and need to be treated as the 2nd class citizens that woman once were 😂😂. Welcome to 2019.

I'm certainly thinking what I like and I strongly suspect that I'm bang on the money, given the hyperbole about the 'bespoke' entrance tests etc and the woolly responses to almost everything. It's clearly relatively simple to get into any of the eight schools but a good wodge of flattery is required to get the parent or parents to shell out the bucks and the easiest way to do that is to say how super hard the tests are and how incredibly bright kid is and just how much they expect kid - given kid's supreme potential - to flourish under the world beating education and facilities the school can offer.

mumsneedwine what is the issue? Oxford achieves a certain type of academic cut and polish. It achieves this by starting with pre-cut stones.

I am not talking about social but academic.

I didnt go to Oxford. My DD isnt at Oxford. She took a good look, realised it wasnt for her and targeted herself elsewhere. She attended an in and out of SM low achieving comp.

Oxford isnt going to change unless there is something in it for them. Each year students from schools like my DD attended reject Oxford. They reject it for many reasons but academic 'fit' will be one of them. The current situation suits Oxford. In a way it is lazy thinking. Students from a small number of schools are a safe bet. They will be good enough. Someone else (the schools) has already done a lot of the prep work.

How do you change this?

It's clearly relatively simple to get into any of the eight schools but a good wodge of flattery is required to get the parent or parents to shell out the bucks

Are you seriously claiming that these schools are struggling to fill places or barely making ends meet, and so have to resort to flattery? That there aren’t many more clever kids with rich parents willing to send them than the schools could ever accommodate? If so, that’s pure fantasy.

Can anyone recommend a good tutor in Biology to support my DD in her Oxford application this September? She is state school in west london

I'm claiming that it's significantly easier to get in than you claim. I'm not claiming that these big name schools struggling to fill places. Of course they're not. There's a surfeit of parents out there willing and able to be seduced into parting with the fees and of course a good number of those DC will actually be very clever. But I am certainly suggesting that the difficulty of getting in is vastly over blown, as part of the flattery and seduction of the schools, yes. I don't think that there can be any doubt.

Do we need to change it ? There are plenty of other fantastic universities and if Oxbridge want to continue taking from their favourite schools then let them. Their loss 😁

That there aren’t many more clever kids with rich parents willing to send them than the schools could ever accommodate?

Can you explain the logic of accepting this inferior third in each cohort: the duffers destined to put bums on seats at Bristol, Durham, etc Fear of a hothouse doesn't cut it. Convince me with something more credible.

I'm still intrigued by the idea that those students from 8 highly selective expensive schools happen to be inherently better than the students of every state school and that their success is down to good old simple meritocracy, but the only if you accept that it's thr type of meritocracy that depends on the financial ability of their parents to put thousands into tutors, pre prep, prep, highly socially selective secondary schools with established links to particular universities. After all that's just matching talent with opportunity which is totally meritocratic. confused

I'm sure you must also wonder why Wimbledon is full of people who have had intense training in tennis from a young age, when really the places should go to people with the most innate talent regardless of how good at tennis they actually are. At some point in life it stops being about innate potential and starts to become about actual achievement.

And yes, it is horribly unfair that some people get every opportunity that money can buy to make the most of their potential and others get nothing, but it doesn't seem reasonable to blame the people (university admissions) who are dealing with the endpoint of that process. You're asking them to fix inequalities that have already had eighteen years to build.

Can you explain the logic of accepting this inferior third in each cohort: the duffers destined to put bums on seats at Bristol, Durham, etc

I really couldn’t tell you - I didn’t mix with them when I was at school

To be a bit more serious, I do think the avoidance of an absolute hothouse was a significant part of it. Sport, drama, all the more social aspects of a school benefit from people for whom academia is not their primary focus. A number of them seem to have gone on to make more imaginative career choices.

yes, it is horribly unfair that some people get every opportunity that money can buy to make the most of their potential and others get nothing, but it doesn't seem reasonable to blame the people (university admissions) who are dealing with the endpoint of that process. You're asking them to fix inequalities that have already had eighteen years to build.

Exactly so, just add to that the whole of human history to build.

mumsneedwine I wholeheartedly agree that there are other excellent universities which may in fact prove to be a better academic fit for students who havent been tutored/coached/moulded from a young age for a particular type of university.

I'm still intrigued by the idea that those students from 8 highly selective expensive schools happen to be inherently better than the students of every state school and that their success is down to good old simple meritocracy, but the only if you accept that it's thr type of meritocracy that depends on the financial ability of their parents to put thousands into tutors, pre prep, prep, highly socially selective secondary schools with established links to particular universities. After all that's just matching talent with opportunity which is totally meritocratic. confused

It's not 8 highly selective expensive schools though, as 2 of them are huge state sixth forms taking 1250 and 2200 students each year.

My mistake on forgetting 2 are sixth forms

One of them the Sutton Trust has pointed out is in Cambridge and has a skewed intake in that respect (it does a lot in terms of lunch boosters and enrichment but from looking at it that's no more than what the sixth form colleges I've worked in have done).

Which leaves one that doesn't have the same sort of selection and has a broad catchment.

It still doesn't really explain that somehow a narrow group of students are somehow intrinsically better.
In 2017 Oxford admitted more students from one private school than it did black students.
Only 15% of students were from disadvantaged backgrounds.

When Oxford came out and said they wanted to increase representation and inclusion a school leader from a wealthy southern private school had the nerve to complain that the likes of his studentsbwre being forced out and what most people would consider starting to level the playing field 'social engineering' (because clearly to him the oiks from normal backgrounds couldn't possibly have the potential to thrive in an academic, elite environment).

21% of Oxbridge students admitted in 2017 were from London.
4% were from the North East.
Are teens in London some how better than Northern teens?

30 black students applied for computing one year to one of them. Not a single one of those applicants got a place.

Kings College did research and found where state schools matched independent outcomes, the state school catchment was more affluent.

If you then look at looking at removing high disadvantage, private schools in the North and Yorkshire sent half the national average to Oxbridge in I think 2017 or 2018. Meanwhile some London schools were sending 1 in 3 of their A Level cohort. Again, are we to believe London students are somehow inherently brighter with more potential?

Yet those in charge at Oxford think state schools need to do more, be better, manage to offer what parents pay thousands for (or can offer their child by virtue of buying a house in the right area).

There's research after research highlighting the inequality in access to Oxbridge. There's a lot to research into educational disadvantage which is interesting.
It is not a level playing field and until the people in charge start acknowledging that (and those whose children have had a comfy leg up accept fheir child has had a boost from privilege) then state students from average backgrounds will continue to be disadvantaged.

Can you disprove London students don’t meet the Oxford criteria better than Yorkshire DC? London is full of highly educated people with DC who are primed to do well with highly aspirational parents. Could they just want it more? Many Yorkshire DC want to stay local so don’t apply. This is well known so they cannot be recruited, can they?

Travel links will make a lot of locations far easier to get to from London than from anywhere else.

This will affect not just the student applying but every step of the way before they ever get to that point. Open days, school trips, outreach programs, the works.

What is 'local' (ie reachable) is very different for a student from London compared to a student from Middlesborough.

You will get a similar effect for Imperial College. Far fewer students from outside London will even consider Imperial than from inside London. This doesnt mean that London is a hotbed of engineers, physicists etc just that it is far easier for a student living in London to access Imperial and live at home for at least some of their student years.

London is full of highly educated people with DC who are primed to do well with highly aspirational parents
So you're telling me that London teenagers just happen to be more intelligent than students from Yorkshire and the North because their parents are educated?

Better go and tell my most able students that they are too thick to consider Oxford and Cambridge.
Someone better send a message to all the professional parents who are educated and have aspirations for their children outaide the M25 that they aren't educated or professional enough to raise an Oxbridge child.

GnomeDePlume
Of course travel is easier from the capital.
It still doesn't explain the massive difference between % of students getting in.

But as I've just found out from another poster it's because there's educated professionals in London who have aspirations whereas Yorkshire kids just want to stay locally. Yes, a whole region with talented and bright children and a reasonable number of independent schools just happen to want to stay home and have no aspiration

Of course there couldn't possibly be bright educated children above the Watford Gap and professional, educated parents simply aren't a thing. The reason London students are overrepresented is because they're just all round better and more driven.

With regards to Yorkshire, it is also because there aren't any preps (bar one) that prepare for those of schools and so it is out of the parents' radar.

Many parents opt for independent day schools, which are more accessible geographically and more affordable. That's the reality.

LolaSmiles I think it would be interesting to look at which students are not applying and understanding why not.

Is it that Oxford simply isnt on their radar? Difficult to get to, outreach doesnt reach. Dont forget also there are excellent universities within a couple of hours travel.

Oxford is amazing, brilliant, whatever for undergraduates. But so are other universities. How much of it is advertising puff? For the subjects my DDs studied/study it isnt the best ranked university in the UK.

So perhaps we should do as a PP suggested and stop worrying about it. Let it carry on recruiting from a narrow range of schools.