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* **

@user149799568 its not the way, I use the statistics, its the way OXFORD uses the statistics. You can complain to them that they've got their internal measures all wrong for assessing how they are improving access to the university....

I mean, the links I sent you are from the university itself. How can you with a straight face say that Oxford doesn't know what its own benchmark should be!

[quote SouthLondonMommy]**@user149799568* and @Tselliotsunderpants* your analogy is completely insane.

We aren't talking about potential. State school students get the grades! They deserve the place as much as private school students who get the same grades and are over-represented. So yes, if team GB for historical reasons wasn't selected athletes with the exact same ability from state schools, it would be discriminatory.

Also, the country does invest in expanding athletic opportunities to the less advantaged as its also the right thing to do for sport as well.

However, the implications for society are completely different and if you can't see that I'm not really sure you understand why Oxbridge are doing the outreach they are doing in the first place...[/quote]
I'm fully cognizant that the implications for society are not the same. You'll note that I did not quote the first sentence of your post. I was explicitly responding to your rather facile second sentence.

[quote SouthLondonMommy]@user149799568 its not the way, I use the statistics, its the way OXFORD uses the statistics. You can complain to them that they've got their internal measures all wrong for assessing how they are improving access to the university....

I mean, the links I sent you are from the university itself. How can you with a straight face say that Oxford doesn't know what its own benchmark should be![/quote]
Are you in business at all? If you are, you should know that there is a big difference between financial accounting and management accounting. The former are the measures a company reports to the regulators and the public. The latter are the measures a company uses to make decisions. They are not the same. A well run company will target their internal measures when making decisions, not the measures that they feel compelled to report to the public.

I have pointed out that, in this case, the measures that they are reporting cannot be the measures they are using to make decisions.

I also have sent you links from the universities themselves. Are you suggesting that they ask applicants to take those additional exams and then ignore the results?

@user149799568

What they have done is set an outcome target for their outreach based on A-levels. They want to continue to encourage more applications from state school students who have demonstrated the ability to do well.

If they didn't think there was any issue at all, as seems to be your contention, then they wouldn't be doing the outreach and the impact of that outreach wouldn't be increased numbers of successful state applicants year on year.

You believe there is no problem and that the outcomes they are currently achieving in terms of acceptance truly reflect ability within society. The universities do not.

The independent school ratio will continue to decline. At Cambridge I believe it is already down to 30%.

And yes, I'm in business (on maternity leave) which is why I have time to post while my baby is napping.

SouthLondonmommy no-one is arguing that outreach programmes aren’t a good idea and I would be very happy for more state school children to apply to Oxbridge. If there are too many applicants then I would suggest that Oxbridge raise the bar and increase the grades required. However, I don’t agree that discriminating against private school children is fair if they have put in the hard yards and meet the requirements. If you really care about fairness and equality for all children there is much lower hanging fruit to be gathered in addressing the huge disparities in quality of education provided by the state.

The shifting is currently incremental as it appears they are keeping acceptance rates by type of school on par and relying on rebalancing the numbers through encouraging increased applications from able state school students.

That way, they can avoid too much criticism from the independent sector. However, though its more slow, the final outcome will eventually be the same.

You believe there is no problem and that the outcomes they are currently achieving in terms of acceptance truly reflect ability within society.

You do not know what I believe, beyond what I have stated which includes that:

• I support increased outreach by Oxbridge
• I support the new foundation year programs
• I reject the use of the AAA or better split as an appropriate target

Anything else you may think about what I believe is your inference through the prism that anyone who does not agree with you in all matters must be an enemy.

It is not discrimination... To use that word in this context is so inappropriate. There are more able applicants than places. Addressing the legacy issues of why certain groups apply in greater numbers is totally appropriate. Equally able children will still enter the school and there is no reason why private school pupils should be over-represented relative to the grades they achieve. Its the bare minimum of what should be targeted as an equitable outcome.

An enemy! Oh dear. You've said AAA isn't appropriate (despite this being the university's own benchmark) but the test for admission is which logically implies that if its the test for admission the current admission outcome is fair.

If that's not what you think, then explain what you mean rather than suggesting I think you are an enemy...

I think more weight should be put on A level results or predictions. AAA isn't that amazing tbh. Place more emphasis on A stars and make more of a level playing field in that at least all schools follow the same public examination system. it's when you throw the entrance exams into the mix that the differences really appear - with one set of students prepared and the other not. I'm not saying do away with them, just tilt the emphasis.

@SouthLondonMommy

A better summary of my position is that I believe there should be a better benchmark, probably built around the scores for their internal tests (the ones they really use to make decisions). You seem to accept that raw exam results are sufficient for a benchmark. If so, you shouldn't object to a simple change of exams. And by all means, make the effort to encourage any and all strong students to take the Oxbridge exams.

I would go further, though. To the extent that the entrance exams are tests of achievement, I would context adjust the results to reflect that some students have not had the opportunity to cover as much material. And I would definitely not want either the context adjustment or the benchmark to lump a high performing grammar school with less than 2% of students on Pupil Premium in with an underachieving comprehensive with 60% of students on Pupil Premium.

Even more, I would expand the size of the foundation year programs to reflect that many very able students might finish sixth form having covered too little material to reasonably make up in the first year of university.

So I reject your assertion "You believe there is no problem and that the outcomes they are currently achieving in terms of acceptance truly reflect ability within society."

I also continue to reject your embrace of the AAA or better split as an appropriate target.

The problem is that grade inflation has lead to a relatively large number of applicants being able to achieve the standard offer so other ways of differentiating candidates need to be considered.

The classic interview is of its very nature subjective and seems discriminatory in that public school pupils may be unfairly labelled as
'polished ' when giving a good account of themselves and if a state pupil underperform s then an offer may be given under the pretext of 'potential'

Although I support outreach has anyone quantified the number of exceptional pupils from state schools that are actually found. Outreach doesn't make sense when a particular school has low number of pupils making the standard offer and offers false hope.

Maybe outreach is being used as cover for the systemic reduction of private school entrants with those places in reality being given to middle class children from good state schools/grammars.

As said previously the reduction in entrants from elite private schools will please the Guardian readers but I feel we should not be in the role of social engineering.

This programme to help state school DC attend US universities looks interesting. I think an earlier poster stated that her DS and his friends were keener on attending schools in the states than Oxbridge.
www.fulbright.org.uk/going-to-the-usa/undergraduate/sutton-trust-us-programme

@user149799568 fair enough. I think AAA is the fairest minimal target for state admissions. I don't agree that the internal exam is a fairer approach but its a matter of opinion so we can agree to disagree.

@mids2019

The problem is that grade inflation has lead to a relatively large number of applicants being able to achieve the standard offer so other ways of differentiating candidates need to be considered.

The classic interview is of its very nature subjective and seems discriminatory in that public school pupils may be unfairly labelled as
'polished ' when giving a good account of themselves and if a state pupil underperform s then an offer may be given under the pretext of 'potential'

Although I support outreach has anyone quantified the number of exceptional pupils from state schools that are actually found. Outreach doesn't make sense when a particular school has low number of pupils making the standard offer and offers false hope.

Maybe outreach is being used as cover for the systemic reduction of private school entrants with those places in reality being given to middle class children from good state schools/grammars.

As said previously the reduction in entrants from elite private schools will please the Guardian readers but I feel we should not be in the role of social engineering.

If you look at the earlier link you can see how students from areas with low university admission and from working class backgrounds has improved overtime via outreach. Again, Oxford measures this against the AAA metric of students that fall into this category proportionally attending Oxford. @mids2019

Oh, you had me going there for a minute, @mids2019. So the interview is discriminatory because independent and a minuscule number of state schools prepare candidates for it, therefore those who have had little or no guidance stand a better chance of not being rejected because they lack 'polish'. You know there's a solution to that, don't you?

@SouthLondonMommy

Interesting stats

However as only 12% of AS A levels are achieved by those from lower socio economic backgrounds Oxford seem fairly happy with the 12% intake from this group.

The gap between the 30 odd percent independent entrants and the 20 odd percent of AAA grades being given to independent pupils will therefore be bridged presumably by giving more places to those of higher socio economic backgrounds at state schools.

It looks like outreach has saturated if the goal is to gain more students from lower socio economic backgrounds rather than state school middle class children. (unless lower offers are accepted from these groups)from

Again maybe independent school children would be more accepting of a situation where places were being transferred to th is a from genuinely challenging situations rather than social peers at good state schools.

Most of the Oxbridge graduates I know are from state schools but I cannot think of one who comes from a Working Class background. I have one friend whose DD would have ticked the 'my parents didn't go to university box' on the UCAS form but that doesn't feed through the correct info at all. Her parents are both solidly Middle Class (one side City types and the other senior Army types) but just happened to chose careers that at the time did not require degrees.

choose even.

The thing about is outreach is that yes it's great. But. Independents also have speakers from colleges and Oxbridge consultancies come along to talk and give guidance. So In fact even if a comp is lucky enough to have outreach (and my DC's didn't) it doesn't exactly confer an advantage. The local private school (in Truro) had a whole Oxbridge 'fair' for want of a better word, and a friend whose child goes to RGS in Guildford says they have consultants go in to help the boys with applications. That's just two snapshots I know. But do you see what I mean? Outreach is barely getting state kids off the blocks.

@NewModelArmyMayhem18

I think it's disingenuous to think that there are floods of council house kids flooding to Oxford because of outreach. As pointed out above there is a low percentage of those from lower socio economic backgrounds with appropriate grades and maybe efforts should be put into educational improvement as a whole rather than the displacement of Oxbridge offers from independent schools to middle class children at high performing state schools in order to get better PR in certain quarters.

Outreach to schools that do not traditionally have high numbers of Oxbridge applicants may be due to lack of awareness of such opportunities but more likely the school has a low number of high A level achievers. I think it's ironic that Oxbridge spend a lot of money on marketing essentially to these groups but will not accept many as obviously there is an academic barrier.

@mids2019 No one is talking about high performing state schools are they? They are talking about the type of schools that get contextual offers. The type that aren't currently doing much remote learning. The type that have children who are in gangs and carry knifes. The type of school where a scary amount of children are carers to their parents and where teachers are having to act as social workers as much as teachers. My children go to a high performing comp and there is no way in hell they will get a contextual offer anywhere and neither should they.

Do some of you posters know how horrible you sound? Jeez.

@thetell the point we are trying to make is that the schools you are talking about are not getting the offers being diverted from private schools.

I don’t actually think it matters too much at this point if the offers don’t go to the “right” state school dc.

This is just the start. Recruiting more kids like I was who are slightly less polished and come from good state schools will ultimately mean the perception among interviewers of who measures up will shift away over the next few years from ultra polished Etonians with more contextual offers being made.