Are top private schools getting fewer oxbridge offers?

[Ijustwanttoask]

Just read in the papers about the drop in Oxbridge offers to Eton in the last few years. Is there a same trend for other big name public schools and top London day schools too?

In the past years, these schools generally happily announce the numbers of Oxbridge offers they get around this time of the year but I haven't seen much for 2021.

* Title edited by MNHQ by request* **

@rattusrattus20 I was one of those not that bright privately educated people who ended up on a course with much brighter state school pupils and I floundered. Couldn’t put my hand up in big lectures as I was used to tiny classes, felt intimidated by how bright and confident some of the state educated kids were. Hand on heart I didn’t deserve that place.

@nolanscrack

"State educated people who've been to mid tier universities [me included] have this experience of being educated alongside really quite extraordinarily thick privately educated people"

Do you want salt with those chips?

Are you saying you think I'm wrong, that those experiences don't exist/are unusual?

@nolanscrack have you got any info about which contextual lists Peter Symmonds appears on - or was that just a slightly chippy throw away comment from you?!

For balance, I'll say that I'm planning to send my 7 yr old daughter to a private secondary school when she's old enough.

She's a May birth [slightly premature, was meant to be June/July], is maybe slightly above average academically, but is quiet/shy, well behaved, so easily overlooked in a class of 30. Also quite easily led.

I want the best for her. I know that my money can get her grades that will make her, on paper, the equal of significantly brighter but less wealthy kids, and probably also help buy her softer skills, behaviours, values, maybe even a few contacts, that'll mark hopefully her out in the world of work and so on as someone who's, you know, 'officer material'. I doubt she'll be bright enough for the fees to get her into even the tier of universities just Oxbridge, but say bottom end Russell Group feels about realistic.

I know, of course, that there are less well off kids in her state primary class who would go further if we were to selflessly donate the fees to their families. Of course that's not going to happen, she's our daughter, she comes first.

Let's call a spade a spare here, this is what's happening/how the schooling system works.

[quote thetell]@rattusrattus20 I was one of those not that bright privately educated people who ended up on a course with much brighter state school pupils and I floundered. Couldn’t put my hand up in big lectures as I was used to tiny classes, felt intimidated by how bright and confident some of the state educated kids were. Hand on heart I didn’t deserve that place.[/quote]
that's not really how it works. usually the privately educated kids would of course be far more confident, far more likely to put their hands up, it's only when you'd see their exam results or just maybe had a look at one of their homeworks or whatever that you'd be, like, '[eyes get slightly wider] oh... right'.

[quote thetell]@nolanscrack have you got any info about which contextual lists Peter Symmonds appears on - or was that just a slightly chippy throw away comment from you?![/quote]
Because of the wide catchment that Peter Symonds covers and because of the way Oxbridge looks at the schools where the student sat their gcses there are indeed students at Peter Symonds who will score highly on their contextualised gcse scores and indeed may qualify for widening access programmes such as UNIQ. It is not based on PS per se but their prior school or the postcodes where they live; some of which postcodes do have some affluent residents too.

@SeasonFinale so that would have happened wherever those children did their A levels then? State or private. Nothing to do with Peter Symmonds they would have had the same treatment wherever they went?

Yes that is correct.

@thetell SeasonFinale is correct. For example, a girl joined my DD's super selective Indie school in Year 11 (with 110% Bursery) and she has received contextual offers based on the failing school where she did her GCSEs and her home post code.

@nolanscrack

Is this little more more than cutting the numbers of middle class children from high achieving private schools and replacing them with more middle class children from high achieving state schools ?,Im sure parents at Peter Symonds,Hills road etc are pleased but thats not really widening admissions..

Your argument cuts both ways. From an ordinary state school perspective I resent those candidates being included in the state school acceptance figures because famously those are exceptional schools/colleges and in the case of Hills has an exceptional cohort (the children of Cambridge staff). Just like state grammars they skew the real numbers of (the vast majority of) candidates, ie students from ordinary comprehensives. That is where the vast majority of children are educated. There should in fact be a breakdown of how many of those students are successful.

Sorry, that should say she joined in Year 12.

It seems to me that those who have gamed the system in the old fashioned, expensive way (private education all the way through) are feeling a wee bit chippy about those who have chosen the new, less expensive, gaming of the system - state until at least GCSE's and then maybe the option of private sixth form for a few contacts/ glossing and then off to top uni with contextual offers.

Geranium,couldnt agree more..lets have a break down of where the extra state places have gone,but I think we know the answer.

Not chippy at all,my first two got into Oxford and number 3 will be trying but hes also applying for Ivy and his extra curricular are a far better fit for Ivy,so makes no difference to me,but if Oxbridge are going to boost state entrant figures as a matter of policy then do it properly and spread the places around ,not just to those in grammar schools or very highly ranked sixth form colleges in the South East.that really isnt widening access

In terms of contextual offers Oxford look at where the applicant has done A levels as well as GCSEs (as well as area and whether they've been in the care system)

Private only at sixth form will not help

@rattusrattus20

State educated 'AAA' pupils did indeed obtain slightly better degrees than privately educated 'AAAA' pupils

The difference is not statistically significant and the report authors don't claim that it's meaningful. Furthermore, the rounded numbers indicate that privately educated AAAA pupils get worse results than privately educated AAA pupils. Do you really think that result is meaningful?

if that's not a reason for publicly funded universities to tilt the playing field then I don't know what it is

Then you don't know what is.

@Feb001 So maybe the new gamers are doing state all the way with tutors.
The children whose parents don't know how to game the system or don't have the funds to game the system are the real losers in all this (and we need the really bright cohort from this demographic to be given opportunities for the sake of themselves AND society - I want the brightest doctors/politicians, not the ones who have parents with sharpest elbows.)

[quote user149799568]@rattusrattus20

State educated 'AAA' pupils did indeed obtain slightly better degrees than privately educated 'AAAA' pupils

The difference is not statistically significant and the report authors don't claim that it's meaningful. Furthermore, the rounded numbers indicate that privately educated AAAA pupils get worse results than privately educated AAA pupils. Do you really think that result is meaningful?

if that's not a reason for publicly funded universities to tilt the playing field then I don't know what it is

Then you don't know what is.[/quote]
"not statistically significant" - right.

so your best, evidenced-based, guess is that state AAA state kids do slightly better than AAAA private kids, but the data isn't strong enough to prove it to e.g. the criminal standard - do you treat treat the applications of AAA state kids and AAAA private kids equally, assume that they're equally strong, or do you assume that the AAAA private application is stronger because, what, based on [say] a hunch that it's a nobler and better thing to do, even though there's weak evidence to suggest that the AAAA-private evidence is weaker and NO evidence whatsoever to suggest it's stronger?

thetell. To really benefit from contextual offers the "sharp-elbowed" would need to send their DC to an under performing state school in a deprived area (I think), which I'm not sure they would deliberately do?? They would be wanting to send their DC to the best state school possible, and therefore not be gaming the system, no?

I mean, seriously, please tell me why the heck anyone would ever pay the thick end of half a million quid [aged 4-18] per child pretax to send them to private school if it didn't give them very significantly better grades than someone equally bright who went state? Seriously? There are so many other things that money could be spent on.

@Feb001

thetell. To really benefit from contextual offers the "sharp-elbowed" would need to send their DC to an under performing state school in a deprived area (I think), which I'm not sure they would deliberately do?? They would be wanting to send their DC to the best state school possible, and therefore not be gaming the system, no?

Agree

@MarshaBradyo I suspect it isn’t working quite like that otherwise there wouldn’t be so many chippy private school parents on here! Suspect there is gaming to be done in some good state schools too that happen to have a few deprived areas in their catchment.

TheTell maybe, I’d be interested to hear more on it from anyone in the know, at the universities or otherwise.

I don’t know how many from the very good state comp nearby go to Oxbridge. It’s a state school people make an effort to get in to, via catchment. But it only has percentage who go on to higher education on website (iirc).

My children are at an outstanding comp that doesn’t get contextual offers (and it shouldn’t, it has a polo and show jumping team ffs!) they get about 3 a year and have alumni helping with prep. My children will not be heading that way, will be lucky to get into RG uni’s I think, not because of the school but due to genes! I am on here as interested in a professional capacity and it is illuminating!

@rattusrattus20 we pay for private education (albeit on a partial bursary) even though I'm pretty confident that it won't make much if any difference to DS's grades (our alternative was a v good grammar). And even though it's theoretically possible that DS could 'suffer' from being up against a candidate with a contextualised offer. Because it's not all about grades and it's not all about Oxbridge (speaking as someone who went there, so no chip here).