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* **

I'm no lover of grammar schools but compared to private school kids their pupils are definitely afaik underrepresented compared to private. there are not a dissimilar number of pupils at grammar and private schools but private gets the thick end of double the number of places, despite the academic barriers to getting in being on average lower.

apologies, missing word in the above: 'at Oxbridge.'

Oh dear, far from being "definitely afaik underrepresented compared to private",grammar schools are the most over represented ,,they make up 5% of the sixth form population but take 20% of Oxbridge places..The percentage of sixth formers at private is around 17/18%

@nolanscrack

Oh dear, far from being "definitely afaik underrepresented compared to private",grammar schools are the most over represented ,,they make up 5% of the sixth form population but take 20% of Oxbridge places..The percentage of sixth formers at private is around 17/18%

Not sure about figures but anecdotally I'd have to agree. When DS was at Cambridge he struggled to find anyone from his background was tripping over students from private or grammar backgrounds - huge amt from Southend Boys and Girls for example. It's def a certain kind of school which falls through the cracks. And it's not the students' fault if a) their parents can't pay or b) they happen to live in the wrong part of the country. It's a mess really

Yep - and it’s schools like Brampton Manor who secured 51 places at Oxbridge this year (49 last year) that get to provide the “poster children” for the underprivileged/minority applicant...when ostensibly it is an excellent, selective state school. Hats off the schools like Brampton Manor as they are clearly fantastic but let’s not be under any illusion that we are talking about widespread social change that impacts all schools across the whole country. Brampton Manor will prepare their 6th formers for Oxbridge with even more vigour than the top selective private schools.

It is a start. It shows a way forward. In ten years we will be in a different place, and that has to be a good thing.

Honestly @thetell? Are you telling me that if the newspaper headline read “Oxbridge places dominated by these 8 STATE schools” (e.g. places like Brampton, Harris Warminster, LAE) you’d call this making the system fairer? When some whole LEA don’t get anyone into Oxbridge across all the schools in their area in some years (Rochdale? Southampton) You call this a move toward becoming fairer? These schools offer exactly the same “privileges” a private school offers when it comes to boosting your chances of going to Oxbridge apart from the fact they are free. How is this any fairer to a child in a poor comprehensive?

Come on thetell,what this thread has demonstrated is for many posters all that matters is less pupils from the big name private schools get in,they dont care who replaces them,this to these people isnt about fairness,the fact those places are mainly going to other middle class kids from high acheiving,often south east based colleges doesnt matter,all that matters is less Etonians.,personally to me it should mean that more kids from Doncaster or Great Yarmouth get a chance..

What this post has shown me is that there are some seriously chippy fee paying parents who are cross that things are changing, albeit very, very slowly. I don’t think they are posting on here so frequently because they are in any way worried about the children at deprived comps, not one bit.

@nolanscrack you have hit the nail on the head.

Thread not post!

And just to add - schools like the London Academy of Excelllence are supported by Eton...

And you ask what you should tell children from fee paying schools who haven't got a place due to changing quotas - well how about the lesson that plenty of other children learn pretty young - that life isn't always fair.
However hard your parents work to provide for you (as a cleaner in a covid stricken hospital or as a hedge funder) life doesn't always feel fair.

Quotas? ooh, can here my legal pals rubbing their hands with glee,dont give the game away tell,these changes arent due to quotas,if they were then the legal challenges would be up and running,its just a coincidence that" targets" were set and suddenly certain schools started to produce less good candidates and certain schools suddenly had even more good candidates..but certainly nothing as vulgar or probably illegal as quotas,heaven forbid..

Passing you some virtual vinegar and salt @nolanscrack I think you need it.

Public schools not only give their pupils all the opportunities that money can buy but also confidence in their own abilities. Young people are schooled to think they're the best and learn in an environment that thrives on competition. I am not sure most state schools work in quite the same way, even the super-selectives. If you go into an Oxbridge interview thinking you know it all and exuding confidence, that courage of your convictions will show positively and will probably reflect in a much better-argued case in response to an admission tutor's questions. Game over, offer made.

I have heard that some state school teachers out there are opposed to Oxbridge ideologically or due to their own prejudices. They may pass these on to very able pupils who are at less socially-advantaged state schools that don't have any Oxbridge legacy? So it's possibly not even just about reaching those young people but also about breaking down barriers with some educators too?

@nolanscrack

Oh dear, far from being "definitely afaik underrepresented compared to private",grammar schools are the most over represented ,,they make up 5% of the sixth form population but take 20% of Oxbridge places..The percentage of sixth formers at private is around 17/18%

Are those numbers right? Your GS number looks sensible enough [about 5% of all schoolkids are at GS, so whilst I'd expect the proportion of sixth formers to be a little higher than that, it's not a bad starter for ten (e.g. see www.schoolsweek.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/SN01398.pdf)] but your figure for the proportion of sixth formers that go private looks really high given that the overall proportion of schoolkids who go private has for a long time been steady at about 7% (e.g. see www.isc.co.uk/research/).

Right now, PS are getting about 40% of Oxbridge places compared to about 20% for GS (e.g. see www.varsity.co.uk/news/19783). This feel odd to me given that, as I said, the average GS has much higher academic entry requirements than the average PS. The apologists on this thread have been implying throughout that pretty much all PS's are super-selective academically on the grounds of a St Paul's/Westminster/King's College etc but anyone with even a passing familiarity with the sector knows that such places are far cloer to being the exception than the rule.

Grammar schools (selective intake) would be expected to have more Oxbridge success than schools with a non-selective intake, surely.

Shouldn't the attempted comparison be like-for-like on ability?

Percentage success, I mean.

I'm slightly offended by the repeated insinuation on here that any intervention here will just lead to a reallocation of places from one set of slightly-wealthier-than-average PS families [who've 'scrimped and saved to afford it, one year, seriously, dad's bonus was lower than usual so we took our annual sking to Bulgaria rather than our usual favourite Chamonix Mt Blanc'] to another set of slightly -wealthier-than average SS families.

Families who send their kids to PS are, to a man, almost unfathomably rich by any sensible yardstick, e.g. see.

twitter.com/PSPReform/status/1363784289406627841/photo/1

@UpDownQuark

Grammar schools (selective intake) would be expected to have more Oxbridge success than schools with a non-selective intake, surely.

Shouldn't the attempted comparison be like-for-like on ability?

I wasn't proposing to get into the merits of GSs [I suppose my personal suspicion would be that they're good for a very limited type of social mobility, namely enabling bright second or third decile (income wise) kids to compete with top decile (income wise) kids on a fairly even footing; but do nothign at all for lower decile (income wise) kids and probably play quite a pernicious role in enconsing fairly mediocre second decile kids at that level].

I was only comparing GS with PS - something must surely be going wrong if, per pupil, GS's aren't getting more Oxbridge places per head [and I'm not honestly sure how many heads they have] than PS's?

Yes, my reply was to Nolan's post rather than yours (but I'm a slow typist).

@rattusrattus20 that’s not necessarily true as it depends on what part of the country you are in and also whether you are boarding or day. Fees range at secondary school range from £4K a term to a whopping £14K at a top boarding school. There are also bursaries and partial bursaries available. When the state options are awful and there is no grammar school or high performing comp on your doorstep some people take the plunge. They are not all skiing in courcheval over Christmas! Yes it’s still a lot of money but a very large proportion of these people are parents who grew up poor, managed to get into university and do very well for themselves....they don’t come from family money and the kids are very aware of how much their education is costing (so make the most of it). Sometimes these parents feel “I’ve dragged myself out of poverty and I’m making decent money so I’m going to give me children something I didn’t have”. Their incentive is rarely to boost grades as having managed to overachieve themselves at a regular comprehensive they often assume their kids will be smart and able too. They are usually looking for all the “frills” the extracurricular opportunities. To now place a “tax” on that in terms of “university quotas” and questioning whether grades achieved at private school are worth as much is very unfair as surely these kids are the products of social mobility? Do we have to enforce a constant seesaw of rags to riches to make things fair?

Also, the thread specifically asked about “top selective independent school” because these are the schools that seem to be suffering from these new “quotas”. These schools are highly selective and much harder to get into than some of the best grammar schools. It’s no surprise that so many of these kids are excellent Oxbridge candidates.

@Tselliotsunderpants

"...top selective independent... schools... seem to be suffering from these new “quotas”... [they] are highly selective and much harder to get into than some of the best grammar school"

though you do say "some of", i'd be really careful with that sort of claim. my son's aged 9/10 now [we live in SW London] so I'm getting quite familiar with all the different tests. assessment is very different, and whilst some of the material on the very top [only, e.g. somewhere like Dulwich College, which gets about 25 Oxbridge offers per year is, academically, laughably easier to get into than say one of the Sutton Grammars, I really mean laughably] PS tests is 'harder', it's, firstly, a lot of the time harder in the sense of requiring knowledge rather than reasoning ability/intellectual horsepower and, secondly, the passmarks are totally different/used in totally different ways.

@rattusrattus20 with all due respect I have 3 DCs who have all gone through the 11+ in south west London so I also know my schools pretty well. Dulwich College is not a super selective school - it is not in the same league academically as somewhere like KCS, Westminster or St Paul’s. There were boys at my sons prep who got places at Tiffin Grammar school but got rejected from the super selectives which are looking for boys scoring 130-135+ in their CATs while the threshold for Dulwich is 120 (information they will get from your DCs prep or primary school). Traditionally grammar schools look for a CAT of 118+ and consequently it’s not always the brightest kids that get in - tutoring has a huge impact as it will come down to who performs best on the test on the day. The 5 year Oxbridge hit rate for Dulwich is 14% whereas (for example) St Paul’s in 33%.