Private schools getting fewer oxbridge offers II

[MurielSpriggs]

The story behind this full thread
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/education/4166618-Are-top-private-schools-getting-fewer-oxbridge-offers
plus a quote from a poster here, have made it into a lengthy article in today's FT.

(Of course, I read the FT by accident. Clearly I live in a static caravan, my kids are educated by the local feral cats, and I would never consider paying to try to improve their chances at fancy-schmancy so-called universities ).

www.ft.com/content/bbb7fe58-0908-4f8e-bb1a-081a42a045b7

(Just to add to the unjust exclusivity, FT is behind a paywall.)

How Britain’s private schools lost their grip on Oxbridge
As state-school admissions rise at elite universities, some parents who shelled out for private education regret it

<span class="italic">“Five years ago, my son would have got a place at Oxford. But now the bar has shifted and he didn’t,” says my friend, a City of London executive who has put several children through elite private schools in Britain. “I think he got short-changed.”</span>

I’ve been hearing this more and more from fellow parents with kids at top day and boarding schools in recent years. Some of it sounds like whining: most of us like to think the best of our progeny. But my friend has a point. After years of hand-wringing about unequal access to elite higher education, admissions standards are finally shifting.

A decade ago, parents who handed over tens of thousands of pounds a year for the likes of Eton College, St Paul’s School or King’s College School in Wimbledon could comfortably assume their kids had a very good chance of attending Oxford or Cambridge, two of the best universities in the world. A 2018 Sutton Trust study showed that just eight institutions, six of them private, accounted for more Oxbridge places than 2,900 other UK secondary schools combined. When the headmaster of Westminster School boasted at an open evening that half the sixth form went on to Oxbridge, approving murmurs filled the wood-panelled hall. (I was there.) ...

Why not. It is also not unknown for some Oxford students to find some of their peers elitist and arrogant. What is wrong with a teenager deciding that Westminster Oxford City is not their path. And later having no regrets at all.

Part of the problem seems to be parents who seem to give Oxbridge special status, above other very good and internationally regarded Universities or departments. And who make assumptions about what teenagers, from whatever background, aspire to.

@chocalata equally odd is the lack of understanding that people have of choices there are in different parts of the country. We live equidistant between Westminster and our catchment state school - 10minutes walk from both. Strange thing is that Westminster offered DS a place. The nearest Grammar school did not. Nor did our catchment school, despite it being 93% fsm. Indeed our LEA had no place for him till June, and then only on the other side of London.

He had a great education and went to University fully able to take full advantage. I worked two jobs to afford it.

What I find very odd is several people we know rented in other catchments to ensure their kids went to decent state schools. They then take the moral high ground on Fb etc about not having sent their kids private. Sorry, I don’t buy it.If you live. Anywhere near Greycoats, Graveney, or StMarylebone, or similar sought after state schools please give me credit for not having stolen a place from you or your neighbours.

And do give me credit for not worrying about DC going to Oxbridge. I wanted them to have a good education. I did not care where.

@Needmoresleep
I thought you said they couldn’t get in to a state school. So how were you saving places for children at Greycoats etc?
Clearly you do care very much where they were educated so why that final statement? No one pays upwards of 100k if they don’t care.
I suspect you also cared about them being turned away from a university that they wanted to go to - what parent wouldn’t?

Well look at what the current system has produced - who has risen to the top 🙄. The mental Eton set. Rees Mogg and Boris bloody Johnson. Any change to this status quo HAS to be a good thing surely?!

Dh was first to go to university in his working class family and had an amazing time at Cambridge and met some absolutely lovely people but it has left him with a lifelong aversion to the public school arrogant elite set - his face never did and never would fit. Apparently Johnson was absolutely vile to a chap similar to Dh at university because he was called Darren. That needs to be broken up.

Posters may be interested to read about Opportunity Oxford.

www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/increasing-access/opportunity-oxford

and the support available to students

www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/fees-and-funding/oxford-support

From 2023 it is expected that 25% of undergraduate students at Oxford will be from backgrounds that have typically been under represented. In part that is as a result of a 10% increase in places specifically for Oxford Opportunity.

So it does not mean that the number of students from private, grammar and selective 6th form college will go down, although the proportion will. Equally it is possible that there will also be a decrease in students made offers from private schools, but that is entirely separate from increasing places form those from the most under-represented backgrounds.

@Chocolata

to spell it out. To us it was pretty clear that our local education authority did not have sufficient secondary places for local children, and that local schools were struggling to provide for the variety of needs pupils had. (Care, no English, deprivation etc). Which left parents we knew with a choice: pay, find religion, tutor (heavily) for 11+ or rent in a different catchment…or move. We chose to pay. Others chose to rent. My assumption is that they then took a place from a child who was on the outer boundaries of that catchment. However in MNland this is fine. Who would care about them. And who would mind that in almost every case I can think of the money for fees was available.

DS was offered a place in North London in a school we had never heard of in June. Probably an hour commute, If we had rented in a selected catchment it would have been straightforward. Place offered at the normal timetable. One less place for a local child.

So judge private school parents if you want. But perhaps think of what you would do if you faced similar constraints.

Then Oxbridge. One did not get in, the other did not want to go. It’s fine. People do not always get their first choice. They both went to good Universities and got good degrees. Why are people so obsessed by going to Oxford or Cambridge. I cared a lot about my children having a good education and worked very hard to ensure they did. But why not. What I find strange is people who can afford to ensure their kids go to a good school but feel obliged to send them to a poor one to prove their moral high ground.

@Needmoresleep
you sound like a great mum. I was just questioning how you could see oxbridge as elitist but not Westminster. Your post read very strangely.

The issue isn’t Oxbridge though is it, the issue is privilege and high paying jobs later on. If Goldman Sachs or Freshfields continues to recruit the same private school candidates, whether they went to Oxford or Bristol university, then we have a problem. From what I have seen lately little has changed in that respect. Those companies used Oxbridge for their milk rounds mainly and I suspect they will just widen their net. And the graduate jobs and vacation placements will continue to go to the same kids because they talk the talk and walk the walk and have the connections in what is a client based world. There are plenty of privileged Europeans in these companies too, who often went to state schools coming from their own countries where state schooling is the norm but there is still focus on connections/class etc.

If you think about it Oxbridge should really have always been primarily for the future academics of the world, it had just become a recruitment short cut for certain companies.

My teenage daughter saw plenty of elitism at her school, and assumed there would be more at Oxford. She decided she wanted the best course for her, not Oxbridge because of some idea that Oxbridge is better.

This thread is a shining example. Why are people so obsessed with Oxford. Why are kids, from whatever background not encouraged to aim for universities that are best for them. London universities have a strong tradition particularly of taking London students from less privileged backgrounds or those from British ethnic minority backgrounds and these students thriving. Will these students be better off going to Oxbridge, which may be further outside their comfort zones and perhaps not offer the range of degrees available in places like LSE and Imperial.

My concern is that Oxbridge is thinking of what makes them look good, not what is best for the student. However many pages in, and the fundamental assumption that Oxbridge is some form of educational pinnacle for all bright students seems largely unchallenged.

This is the crux of it. The system is now fairer and some extra curriculars that many wouldn't have the opportunity to do no longer have much weighting in the selection process. It's tricky as doesn't mean they should never be counted, but it's good things are changing.

Oxford and Cambridge do hold a lot of weight still though, it's disingenuous to suggest that being a graduate of either doesn't give an advantage even if other unis are course leaders. The same could be said of private school students, why Oxford?

I disagree. DS studied econometrics where it is generally agreed that LSE is strong. DD studied biomedical engineering at Imperial. Employers know.

Robotics, materials science, product design….

The assumption that Oxbridge automatically confers an advantage is illogical.

It isn't about paying to get into university. Its about all other things being equal if there are two candidates with equal merit and one place, the place will be given to the state school child over the private school child. That isn't right.

Oxbridge are a bit more hard-nosed than that. With two students performing equally well at A level the state school educated pupil is likely to outperform the privately educated pupil at degree level.

State school pupils continue to outperform private ones at university

Worth remembering that even yet only 7% of pupils in this country are privately educated but they still make up nearly 40% of Oxbridge admissions.

(Excuse the messy link.)

I find this conversation so interesting, because I was that kid from a poor background who went from a failing state school to an Oxbridge college, and I’m sending DD to private school all the way and I couldn’t give a hoot whether or not she gets into Oxbridge (which I found very overrated and stressy btw). I want her to enjoy her time at secondary school not hate it like I did. I don’t want her to have to hide her essays from friends and pretend she isn’t getting high marks. I don’t want her to have her hands over her ears in lessons. I don’t want people to roll their eyes and call her posh when she has good manners. I want her to have small class sizes, respectful teachers, and aspirational friends who share her interests. I know we’re ‘lucky’ (aka slogged it in the City then married a workaholic) to be able to afford it but as we can, private makes sense to me for reasons that have nothing to do with eventual university choices.

If when she’s older she does want a top uni but gets discriminated against by some woke admissions tutor at Oxbridge, then she can go somewhere else, I hear the American unis are where it’s at now 🤷‍♀️

Point of ramble = parents do not choose private school as some kind of ticket to Oxbridge.

@Neverreturntoathread presumably it was one of those 'woke' admissions tutors that helped you to access Oxbridge and pave the path to your new found affluence. Or were you just brilliant? 🙄

I believe the extenuating circumstances tend to come in the reference part of the application, so if a DC could persuade the school / referee to lie, I guess that could happen.

I don't know what constitutes extenuating circumstances, whether there are guidelines for that or whether it's up to schools to judge which if any of a child's circumstances have had a detrimental effect on their education and attainment. Fwiw I would expect that a distant father would not count, but an alcoholic mother might. Maybe there are teachers who write references on here who can help?

Yes that post was going well until the bit about getting "discriminated against by some woke admissions tutor at Oxbridge" 🫤
Some of these parents who say they don't care about Oxbridge do seem very tetchy about it.

Thank you Bovrilly for answering my question.

I also don’t recognise Neverteturned impassioned description of her awful state school experience - that was one school 30 odd years ago. My dds all girl state school with great results is nothing like that if a criticism can be made it’s that it’s too academic.

@Neverreturntoathread
wow. Just wow. I hope the ‘woke’ admissions team are reading your posts and steeling themselves to continue their good work in stemming the all to easy flow of privileged children like yours in to their university. That one word revealed to me exactly how you actually think and just how cross your were that your DS didn’t get to follow in your footsteps - albeit he found the perfect course elsewhere.

Who on here actually had a really good time at Oxford or Cambridge themselves?
Out of all my friends nobody is desperate for their own kids to go to Oxbridge too - yes, most have done well professionally, but in many cases they are positively discouraging the Oxbridge route. I wonder why? Personally, I really don’t care which university all my kids go to, but I do want them to have a good time, choose a good course, mature, make good friends, work reasonably hard and choose a career/profession or job that makes them happy and fulfilled.

DH and I both went to Oxford and would like our kids to go if they want to- I had a great time and think that the tutorial system is absolutely brilliant. I also loved the fact it was collegiate- the benefits of being part of a huge institution and a very small one at the same time. My Oxford friends by and large feel the same.

No idea yet whether my kids have any chance of going (they're too young to be thinking about it) or whether they have any interest in it, and of course there are also many other excellent universities.

I certainly wouldn't say that I was desperate for my kids to go, and I am always very careful never to suggest we have any expectations that they will apply, as I worry that they might think we expect them to do what we did, which we absolutely don't. Possibly this is also what your friends are doing- trying not to make their children feel any weight of expectation. Or perhaps they didn't enjoy their time there, which I would be sorry to hear.

I think that a truly disadvantaged child should certainly receive positive discrimination for Oxbridge entrance.

PMSL that a child whose parents are Durham graduates, have supported their child’s education and have a nice home could be seen to be disadvantaged because the kid is at a good/outstanding state school.

Id like to see a better measure of disadvantage: what about having lived their whole life in a council house, gone to a school in special measures, neither parent having been to university. That kind of thing.

There have even been threads on here where people have discussed strategically sending their kid to a state secondary in order to increases oxbridge chances. These people can afford private but are afraid it won’t get their kid in to Oxbridge. Also they can afford to buy an expensive house in the catchment of a great school. They’ll have access to any extra curricular stuff they want, be taken on lots of holidays and then fall into a “poor state school kid” category 🤣

My understanding is that it is done more carefully than just being at a state school - in receipt of free school meals or being the first in your family to go to university at all are criteria I have heard are used. That would exclude your example straight away.

If this trend that it is a disadvantage for most talented and worthy children from private schools to gain a place at Oxbridge etc, simply because they go to a private schools continues that WILL be the end of the fee paying schools.
Who on earth is going to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds to be disadvantaged in this way? It is a form of discrimination to refuse any application simply because the children go to a high flying school. Sadly it will be the demise of Oxbridge too, having become too woke and too myopic - the prestige will evaporate by default. Most of dc friends are choosing Ivy league in the US instead, and the UK talent pool will be reduced because of it. There are real consequences to losing the brightest students to other institutions in the world simply to meet quotas.
I agree that state schools should have advantages, and allowances when needed should be made, but to put a line through privately educated children altogether. As Oxbridge did last year for pupils attending many top public schools is a form of discrimination in my view.

Our state school system will collapse as a result.