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* **

@scentedgeranium

They may well present well. Crikey they've presented well to Conservative constituency associations all over the country as well as banks and other higher echelons. And we know where that is getting us. Croneyism and entitlement. Honestly lets have a proper meritocracy. Just because rich well brought up young ladies and gentlemen get on well with other rich well brought up ladies and gentlemen it doesn't mean they are they right people for the job. Maybe the the bright hot polloi take a little longer to settle in. But hey maybe once they do they're actually better at the jobs?

Yeah, I get it, I mean, if we're talking about say a job with a significant sales element, I don't mean selling clothes pegs door to door, more selling, y'know, selling sell FTSE 100 audits or high value M&A legal advice, then, let's face it, most blue chip in-house CFOs & General Counsels are themselves privately educated, it does make a lot of sense that they'd more easily see identify with, maybe trust, someone with a similar background.

This is why I'd rarely expect firms to do this stuff off their own bat, and why I would tend to support government intervention, so that measures impact all firms equally, with limited competitive advantage [other than I suppos maybe internationally] lost.

@mids2019

I suppose the electorate as a whole have voted for partys who accept (rightly or wrongly) private education as part of our educational mix so you could say there is democratic mandate for private schools.

I think that the presence of absence of private schooling is a matter of political debate amongst electorate

I think you've answered your own question. British society has not settled the issue; it's actually rather schizophrenic about it. Tories are certainly not looking to abolish independent schools and are quietly trying to expand grammar schools so that the middle classes have a way to escape the mainstream system. Much of Labour would like to see both eliminated (arguably all three, if you include the middle classes). And I suspect the "majority" for one position or the other in the country is about as stable as the "majority" for Brexit.

It's not just about being more polished though is it? It's also about connections and being given a route into a brilliant career through who you know. I know two people who get a significant 'leg up' this way straight out of university, one state school educated (but with a FIL in a very senior position who employed them without the background for the role) and the other (who went to one of the top public schools) who got her first major breakthrough Daddy's considerable connections abroad. Much easier to prove yourself from that lucky position than most graduates experience.

I am going to make three statements:

1. The privately educated boys (and they're almost all boys) who run the country are not the brightest sparks.

2. These boys are not as bright or competent as the best that the state sector has to offer.

3. These boys are not as bright or competent as the best that the independent sector has to offer.

I suspect that there won't be much argument about 1 or 2. We can have fun about 3.

Maybe they aren’t all genius’ but in the world of industry we don’t need people to have an IQ of 140 - we need them to be clever enough. It’s much more important to ... be able to present ideas well

IME, the "brightest sparks", whether from the independent or state sectors, are surprisingly poor at presenting their ideas to a broad audience. They often are so certain that they are right that they cannot be bothered to bring other people over to their way of thinking. So they don't end up making much of a difference.

Perhaps we shouldn't be so fixated on what happens to the brightest sparks.

the "brightest sparks", whether from the independent or state sectors, are surprisingly poor at presenting their ideas to a broad audience. They often are so certain that they are right that they cannot be bothered to bring other people over to their way of thinking

Or can't see why other people don't already know what they themselves know, I would say.

It can be very hard to know where you need to start explaining, if you assume everyone else is as bright as you are.

Maybe Oxbridge shouldn't be seen as a stepping stone to riches in the City & we should go back to the days of 30-odd + years ago when people could work their way up in that world without having to go through all that rigmarole of gowns & tutorials, y'know, stand-up guys like Nick Leeson &, er, Nigel Farage, etc.

DSibling had a boyfriend at school who was very bright but flunked his A Levels. He went into the City as a state school educated trader and has done very well for himself.

I am sure for every Nick Leeson and Nigel Farage there are the equivalent privately school educated 'upstanding' (coughs) types. Look at the Charles Spencer's Eton-educated, Bullingdon Club one time best friend Darius Guppy.

@rattusrattus20 & @NewModelArmyMayhem18 isn't Nigel Farage a Dulwich College alumni?

You're right @Sorna.

[quote Soma]**@rattusrattus20* & @NewModelArmyMayhem18* isn't Nigel Farage a Dulwich College alumni?[/quote]
yep. but he went into the city straight from school.

@user149799568

I agree we have a rather complex relationship with private schooling.

Only 7% attend yet on the whole it would take quite a political shift to remove them (even the Cornyn manifesto didn't explicitly include abolishment and such ideas are usually limited to the harder left fringe)

It's a bit like the monarchy in that obviously they are bastions of privilege and establishment but in this centre right country they do enjoy support. I think there is an inherent patriotism and love of tradition in this country that allows our public school system to thrive.

To be fair to the Private Schoolers, it's mostly the Elite ones or as we call them Public Schools and a few Tier 2 ones that enjoy the majority of the privileges. Not saying the "Lower Tier" ones don't enjoy some of the benefits just not as much as the Big Boys.

If it’s any consolation I would also say that many individuals within successful firms have a bias against Oxbridge educated graduates....sometimes this is sour grapes that they themselves didn’t get in and sometimes there is a view (similar to what another poster implied) that they are too intellectual to be good in the business world. There is also sometimes a bias against kids that come from “big name” schools like Eton - people assume they are going to be complete tossers before they even meet them. In my experience the private school kids that do well in securing graduate jobs are the ones with a 2:1 from a RG university that have gone to an independent school no one would recognise....they get all the benefits of the grooming without any of the baggage.

And also to add there are absolutely no nepotistic “leg ups” in big firms these days. Work experience and interview screening is strictly controlled and very fair - in fact some work experience is ONLY for state school/BAME/female/lgbtq candidates so if anything we try to give a leg up to those we feel might be disadvantaged. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen in private family run businesses though....!

@Shinyhappypeople762 , do you have any data to back this up?

DH was at Eton and definitely finds that people hold it against him in his industry - he can see why though when people like Boris are so visibly not up to the roles they find themselves in - DH often says most of his school friends went on to get really average jobs and have very standard lives but unfortunately everyone gets judged by the small percentage of Boris types.

My electrician went to Eton. He worked in the city but was made redundant after the financial crisis, so re-trained.

Ifailed the Oxbridge and Eton anti bias stuff is just anecdotal - there are so many stereotypes...and seriously there are a lot of high flying executives out there still carrying a chip on their shoulders about being rejected from Oxbridge.
One large company I was with did used to track the quality of candidates by University (e.g. by annual review grade, length of tenure etc) and used this info to amend their target university list and how much effort to put into recruitments.

@Shinyhappypeople762

So no data.

@Shinyhappypeople762 I’ve done a lot of recruitment in the past and while I’m sure what you say about tracking performance is spot on, that just demonstrates that a different question needs to be asked. What are the unconscious biases operating against the state school educated applicants once they are in your workplace?

If the board are all ex-Oxbridge, ex public school then it’s likely the high fliers encouraged and groomed for success will be those who are like them.

@foxhasbigsocks from my observations I honestly don’t think people care how you were educated once you are in the job. The selection processes are designed to select the right candidates and most of the time we like to think we have got it right. Most recruiters wouldn’t be able to identify a private school )unless it was very famous) any yet a disproportionate number of private school kids seem to make it through the recruitment process into what we would classify as “top jobs” (note I have said “disproportionate” relative to the fact that only 7% are privately educated - plenty of state school kids get through too but it is not a 93:7 split). This statement is based upon (a) the headlines in many newspaper that private schools kids are nabbing all the best jobs after graduation and (b) my observation that when you have 30 or so kids starting their graduate training and you have time to get to know them (as we do in HR) you eventually start thinking to yourself “wow - loads of these kids appear to have gone to private school”. I have put forth my hypothesis that this is because their education grooms them for success beyond merely passing exams. It could equally be because more private school kids are inclined towards applying for these sorts of jobs as this is what their parents did or because they are more concerned about salary than following a vocation. We don’t really know. I think the point I was trying to make is that it’s not just a case of “get more state school kids into Oxbridge and you solve social mobility issues”....in addition to addressing the educational aspect we need to be getting out there and promoting different career choices and educating young people on the skills required to succeed beyond an amazing set of exam results...how important it is to stay involved in team sports and other extracurricular activities that bolster a CV and provide tangible examples when asked about these things at interview. The advantages that private schools give a child go well beyond gcse/a level results.

@Shinyhappypeople762 I agree with all you say - most people in top corporates only care about performance. My point is that because of social conditioning C suite are sadly often more likely to identify a posh white man as high performing than someone who has a very strong regional accent. Of course they don’t think explicitly oh I only want someone who is an old Etonian, but what that person looks like (a certain type of confidence and Received Pronunciation) equates to polished in their unconscious mental lens.

This is why social mobility awareness in relation to existing employees, not just in recruitment is so important

@foxhasbigsocks I agree with you but there are also lots of big corporates who love to have board members who come from poor background who have “worked their way up” as it makes a great story...they they also love a regional accent thrown into the mix! I once worked with someone who would put almost any graduate through if they had an Irish accent as she was convinced that everyone wants to work with Irish people.... It’s very strange what can sometimes tip the balance in an interview once all the objective criteria have been met.
Maybe we should be tracking social mobility as well as gender and ethnicity (which are tracked) but it’s a lot more difficult as just because you went to state school doesn’t mean you are not privileged and the same applies to a private student on a bursary. Also I am not sure how we would use the data...do we really want to be in a situation where someone that went to private school is judged on that for the rest of their working life and equally and more importantly do we want to be seen to be actively favouring someone because they went to state school 20 years ago. I for one would find it hugely patronising if someone suggested I needed special treatment in my career just because I went to a rough comprehensive many moons ago.
Just to add something else into the mix - I think there is sometimes a huge difference in terms of aspirations depending on your background. My niece is hugely intelligent with a first class degree in math from a RG university. On graduation she was offered a number of high powered jobs in the city which I encouraged her to take but all she wanted to do was stay up north with her long term boyfriend and work as an accountant in a small local business. My DB was actually quite angry with me for trying to intervene and told me that my idea of “success” and happiness was not the same as theirs and I should butt out....they all think my life choices are quite questionable because I’ve often prioritised my career and that my DCs education (at private school) borders on child abuse as my DCs apparently have no “downtime” and are too busy.

@Shinyhappypeople762 yes I think it should be tracked, not least for commercial self interest - true meritocracy leads to a better mix of talent and looks better reputationally

I also don’t want favours for going to a comp, especially as I have an Oxbridge degree so arguably am privileged in other ways.

But tracking and checking promotion rates (as should be done for women) of those who didn’t go to top public schools is the best way to make progress on this issue.