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.) ...

St Andrews has benefitted as a result on the bright side.

Oxbridge is clearly not interested in real diversity at all. Apart from the odd school almost all are from the same area - the south East. What does that tell you? For instance why is it that every school more or less is from London or the SE? It looks very bad. They seem to have forgotten three quarters of the rest of the country. Choosing students that look and sound just like them no doubt.

So @Swayingpalmtrees you don't mind if people at private schools have an advantage, but you do mind if people from the SE have an advantage?

It is a form of discrimination to refuse any application simply because the children go to a high flying school.

By this logic isn’t it discrimination that most kids can’t go to a top private school due to lack of money? Or does the privilege only work that way around?

The obvious difficulty with this, of course, is that these privileged, moderately bright, kids won't get the fucking grades if they go to the local comp.

Upper middle class kids don't have a divine right to be exceptional. The conceit and entitlement are remarkable.

You misunderstand. It's only discrimination if it cuts across your privilege.

If you're a kid from a council estate, it's tough shit innit. World's not fair and all that.

@Swayingpalmtrees that is an article all about ONE state school having a high number of offers (approximately double from last year when it was number 12 on the list), not a comprehensive table of statistics. Your FT link is behind a paywall too.

The second state school the article mentions always gets many offers - many Cambridge staff send their DC there. They got exactly the same number of offers as last year (71)Westminster, Eton et all are still up there in the tops. Why do you think this changes the picture so much? If top schools are losing out so much, can you tell us the figures please. I think Eton got 48 this year against 69 last year so it is still doing okay I would say. Which part of 'redressing the balance' don't you understand?

Exactly. When your financial situation (poor) holds you back from a top secondary school, tough shit. When your financial situation (rich) holds you back from a top university, it’s incredibly unfair apparently

I think this is a bit unfair. First, I'm from what now seems to be called a 'social mobility' background, and if there is an axe to grind, I am, by convention, very happy to do so.

I went to Oxford in the late 90's/early 00's. A couple of friends of mind ended up doing Phds afterwards and one now runs a lab within the University. They've been involved in the application process for years. Their honest feedback is that most tutors - who are largely, despite stereotypes, sandal-wearing lefties - will bend over backwards to get a capable kid from a working-class background into their college. They would much prefer to teach genuinely talented 'ordinary' kids than ones that have been coached to within an inch of their life to get them through the process.

They would also probably tell you that there is a balancing act, however: some of the kids from the more difficult backgrounds are so far behind by the age of 17-18 that there are concerns that they will not catch up without extra help that the colleges can't really offer. Also, to the extent that there is a SE bias (and, thinking back, there definitely was), the colleges' hands are largely tied by the make up of the cohort that actually applies. Of course, they could do more in that connection, but then they'd risk encouraging middle class kids from the provinces over poorer kids from, say, London (who are more likely to be BAME). So it's a difficult one.

First, of course, there are exceptions. Second,

Oh but won't someone please think of the real victims of inequality here - moderately bright students from wealthy families who are being discriminated against in favour of cleverer state school students.
Boo bloody hoo.

And what about the state school system which will surely collapse as a result of Oxbridge admissions being a bit fairer. 🙄

There is an emerging pattern of you hanging on to the last thing you read. There is much evidence that less privileged children are very unlikely to move to a university far away from home and particularly if that university happens to be in a much more expensive part of the country. To be offered a place at Oxbridge, you have to apply first, you know.

stoneysongs I still disagree that all state school families are poor and all private school families are rich.
And I agree with Swayingpalmtrees the priority seems to be for kids in the SE where most of the grammar schools and the outstanding state schools are. Unlucky for the rest of the country?

you can’t be poor and afford private school from your own money, even with bursaries. You just can’t. Well not by most people’s idea of ‘poor’ anyway

Or paying for tuition, which doesn't I understand, have to be declared on UCAS forms?

@Fudgeball123 grammars are contextualised in the same way as any other school. A DC in a top grammar will be contextualised in the same way as a top private school DC i.e if the norm is 10 x 9 GCSEs, their top grades will be put in that context too. And re your earlier point about tutoring for top grammars, there are DC who get in with little or no tutoring and other DC whose parents move when their DC are young for grammar access (very odd, especially for top selective ones) and who will never stand a chance with all the tutoring in the world.

stoneysongs I still disagree that all state school families are poor and all private school families are rich.

I don't think I've said that - of course not all state school families are poor (eg my family now) and not all private school families are rich (eg my family when I was at private school on scholarships). But overwhelmingly private school students are from wealthier families than state school students. You need a certain financial profile to even consider private school for your children. That's partly what people are paying for isn't it - (mostly) selection by income as well as (mostly) selection by academic ability, means that their DC don't have to mix with the poor, the deprived and the ne'er do wells of their generation. Leave them to the state school system eh.

In fairness, my OH went to private school. She was one of four who was bought up alone by their dad, who was not a high-earner.

Her mum's wealthy parents (I think, partly out of guilt, given their daughter had done a flit) paid for them all to be schooled privately.

So it can happen, but it requires unusual or exceptional circumstances. Anyone who things Bob the bus driver from no. 32 can afford to stick his kids through private school with a bit of a bursary, is delusional. A total middle-class-bubble dweller.

In a number of grammar schools, the Oxbridge offers are going down too as their DC are also affected by contextualisation. Because they are state schools, there is a misconception that they get some sort of leg up, when the truth is that the more selective a school is (irrespective of sector), the higher the bar is set for a DC to 'shine'. So a DC in a very top grammar the DC will (rightly) have more to live up to (and outperform) than a DC in a mid-ranking private school, with academic results more run of the mill.

stoneysongs you also can't live in massive swathes of London or the SE as a bus driver either..
It's too simplistic to say private school = rich and thick, state school = poor and smart.. Just doesn't work like that in the real world. Admittedly most bus drivers will not be able to afford private school fees.. but they also will struggle to live in Surrey and areas of North London etc. We have friends in Weybridge with multimillion pound house and you'll be pleased to know their kids are at the outstanding state school. So they may be smart but they are not poor..
A friend of mine is first generation immigrant from SE Asia, her brother is a plumber and his son is very bright and has a 100% bursary (free uniform, free bus etc) to an expensive private school in London. So these free places for the bright do exist.
How about the middle class who are buying all the places at grammar school by tutoring? What about the truly poor kids who can't afford tutoring?
Our chums in London are easily spending £12k per year on tutoring, sports lessons, music lessons etc. and attend a state school. What about the 'poor' state school children who don't have the money for the £12k a year enrichment programme?
My private school mates have all had their kids tutored to get them into grammar school. Is that playing fair?
I do think some balancing up is required but the sweeping statements about poor, bright state school children and rich, 'average' children.
I think its more SE and London v the wastelands outside of that...

It's too simplistic to say private school = rich and thick, state school = poor and smart..

Luckily I haven't said that. As I said, my own life shows that you can be at state school without being poor and you can be at private school without being rich. (It's hard to be at an academically selective school in either sector and be thick though.)

Admittedly most bus drivers will not be able to afford private school fees.. but they also will struggle to live in Surrey and areas of North London etc.

Funnily enough my dad was a bus driver for most of my time at private school, and we lived in Surrey for the last couple of years. There are always exceptions.

I don't think anyone is arguing that Oxbridge's contextualising of applicants' achievements is going to fix all kinds of educational inequality. Just that it's a tool which helps them to identify the truly talented people from the state sector. Previously they would not have been able to identify those people, or they wouldn't have applied, so their places went to the next best. Now, being the next best is not enough.

As PPs have pointed out, high achieving grammar schools will be in the same boat as high achieving private schools when it comes to contextualisation. So people buying places at grammars may be saving on school fees but their DC are not sneaking into Oxbridge without anyone noticing their privilege.

TBH due to demand Oxbridge will not take rich thickies these days and only the very smart, rich thickies will get in.

My experience of truly loaded thickies (with 5,000+ acres) is they don't need a job in any case. They have a family 'job' or 'contacts' from school. So the real thickies are not clogging up Oxbridge, they are not even trying to get through the door.

I will be relieved if applications are marked with average house prices ;-) this could be a good approach for those of us not in the SE..

I went to private school on a 100% academic scholarship and my husband got a 70% bursary at his school as his mother was a single parent. Neither of us went nor applied to Oxbridge. My cousin, not particularly bright, went to Oxford.. I don't know anyone who is aspiring for their child to go to Oxbridge. I think generally people are questioning the value of degrees these days and really wealthy people are heading to the US for uni...

In the dim and distant past, school tie certainly weighed heavily and some would have slipped through who really not that bright. Those days are long gone though and, irrespective of what type of school you went to, you have to be very bright to get in. It is becoming ever more competitive, especially with increased numbers of equally bright state school DC now applying. Very able candidates from all sectors are turned down each year. Ivy League is definitely becoming more fashionable. There is a sense of parents looking overseas for cachet as Oxbridge gets tougher.This is partly because bright but not exceptionally bright DC who might previously have made Oxbridge, just won't now. However, the structure is very different in the USA and the much more generalised nature of the undergraduate first degree does not suit everyone.

Fudgeball that group go to agricultural college rather than Oxbridge ime that’s where the real toffs go 😁

I have the answer. Get rid of all private schools - turn them all into state schools. I thought Labour were going to do this? I really hope they do. They should also get rid of grammar schools and selection.

nightlightcomfort how does that help? Why not try to raise state school standards rather than lower all standards?
My friend's kids go to the local secondary school. It used to be good but she has endless complaints: the maths teachers are rubbish so all of her kids of maths tutoring, one of the English teachers is dire so another tutor required, science teacher off sick this whole academic year and apparently unable to find supply science teachers so the kids are just working off photocopied sheets and the boys PE teacher also dire. One of her kids is bullied daily for the last 18 mths and nothing is done about it. Ironically this school is oversubscribed already. And you'd like another say 50 kids to join it. How would that help?