Oxbridge actively targeting private school pupils

[mumsqna]

Read in the telegraph this week that oxbridge and some other top unis are actively trying to reduce the number of private school students they give offers to.

Right now it’s 72% to state and 28% private schools in Cambridge. I personally think it’s should be about 65% to 35%. After decades of free education there can’t be that many children in this country that are very bright that can realistically be classed as ‘disadvantaged’ imo. Most should be in homes that are the top 20% of household incomes for their region. Most of bright but disadvantage should be ethnic minorities coming from immigrant households.

I’m quite annoyed by this, it feels like some academics trying to force you into the state system. So put off I’ve just decided that they can fuck off as there are universities around the world.

like my drive to work comes from wanting to give my children the best education available in the world. Just feeling deflated.

You could argue that there may well actually be fewer genuinely strong private school applicants now than there used to be, because a lot of exceptionally able parents with exceptionally able children who used to be able to afford school fees are now priced out of private education altogether 😉.

What a load of tosh. As if an admissions tutor would say 'Awfully sorry, old chap, but we had to give your place to Jayden from Bogstead Comp'.

If there was an edit button I could go back and quote one of the posts from p15, so that this made more sense.

And sadly I do know of cases where private school pupils were told they were stronger than state school applicants but couldn’t be offered as the college could only offer to x number of private school pupils.

LOL , is this what friends of friends are telling each other because their offspring didn’t get in?

cases where private school pupils were told they were stronger than state school applicants

But as many of us (who actually teach at UK universities) have commented on this thread (and many many others posted by parents who are digesting the fact that buying educational advantage at secondary school doesn't always translate into the tertiary sector): what is "stronger" if you've been taught in classes of 10 oe 12, by teachers who are not overworked or stressed by underfunding, under-resourcing, OfSTED, having to be de facto social workers and charity workers, and so on?

Or even the perfectly 'bog standard comp' I went to, with decent enough teachers, and few discipline problems. But 40 pupils in each class, even though we were set and streamed. With few super-duper resources, and a largely working-class which was aspirational to become lower-middle class ie a lot of the boys went into industry apprenticeships, or girls into clerical/secretarial work & training at FE level. A few went to local universities, and only about 4 of us moved from the city to various elite universities.

Staff had very little idea about those elite universities or networks of colleagues etc to help pupils aiming high.

So who's "stronger"???

I think private school parents are going to use this as an excuse - yes.

Niece (private school) has applied for Cambridge. Her mother has already been vocal in saying that of course it's so much harder for private school children to get in these days as they give priority to state schools. If niece doesn't get in, this will be given as the reason.

Annoyingly, younger DD (state school) may apply to Cambridge as well. If she does get in, it will therefore be viewed as solely because of unfair prejudice, within the wider family. I'm already angry on DD's behalf, even though this is currently a hypothetical situation :)

And sadly I do know of cases where private school pupils were told they were stronger than state school applicants but couldn’t be offered

If you believe that, you'll believe anything.

Ask yourself which of these is more likely

• a university admissions tutor getting into conversation with rejected applicants and admitting to a quota system that doesn't exist

• or someone making up a story to cover up the unpalatable truth that they were rejected because others were better

Absolutely.... but for every one of these there are many more exceptionally able children coming from other parts of the world, especially the far East, falling over themselves to buy into the prestige of a top British private school.... so I think that is unlikely... :)

And fully agree with everyone that the ''And sadly I do know of cases where private school pupils WERE TOLD they were stronger than state school applicants but couldn’t be offered'' is absolute tosh, by the way. Whether it happens or not is a hotly debated point (and the whole point of this thread!:), but it definitely wouldn't be said to a candidate!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have a friend who declared this year when her DD didn't get the grades for her Uni course (I suspect she was massively over predicted by her Private school) that it was because lots of foreign pupils came over last year and did so well and that pushed the grade level boundaries down (no mention of covid which might have been more valid, just 'foreign pupils')
Nothing to do with the fact they were endlessly on holiday right up to the exams and her DD seemed more interested in sunning herself just before the exams instead of revising to get her predicated 3 A stars (she got A and 2 x B's.) I was so taken aback I didn't know what to say. So much denial!

That’s assuming oligarchs’ children are bright and not just wealthy 😉🤣

No someone I know who selects Oxbridge applicants.

As their colleague: no. They’re chatting shit.

Or more likely don’t exist.

@Dancingdreamer if an admissions person were so unprofessional as to feed back to candidates as you say, I wouldn’t trust their judgement on much.

As one sided as you would expect from the Daily Fail
www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-11394109/The-Oxbridge-war-private-schools-doesnt-help-poor-writes-PETER-HITCHENS.html

@soweneo

I think this private/state argument is being brought into the general culture war narrative the right wing press like to cultivate.

It is being framed as yet another attack on the aspirations of middle England wherein reality it is often the upper end of the wage spectrum that can afford.private schooling.

This bit from the article is particularly laughable: “Most do not have the skills or the money to navigate the ‘comprehensive’ system as elite Leftists so often manage to do. No wonder so many parents, who could not really afford it, went private. But now their children suffer for their parents’ sacrifices.” 🤣🤣 Can’t afford to navigate the comprehensive system, but can afford private school fees.

More evidence, if any were needed, that the average intelligence of private school parents has gone down as private school fees have shot up over the years. Wealth these days is not linked to intelligence, it’s linked to aggression and greed, as evidenced by the quality of the conspiracy theories of private school parents. Maybe we should be addressing that issue, not the fact that there are are far higher proportion of bright people in state schools than the rich like to admit.

This bit from the article is particularly laughable: “Most do not have the skills or the money to navigate the ‘comprehensive’ system as elite Leftists so often manage to do. No wonder so many parents, who could not really afford it, went private. But now their children suffer for their parents’ sacrifices.” 🤣🤣 Can’t afford to navigate the comprehensive system, but can afford private school fees.

What I find interesting about that, is that the 'skills' part refers to a system present in London but few other places, where parents have choices to make between a range of non-selective, selective and elite state schools, so a system to navigate. That isn't the case in most of the country. Is the author's 'metropolitan elite' bias acknowledged in the article?

The basic statement - that the difference in house prices to get into good state schools can be bigger than private school fees, especially if for only one child - is true in plenty of places.

The idea that the children are 'suffering' though...

“The basic statement - that the difference in house prices to get into good state schools can be bigger than private school fees, especially if for only one child - is true in plenty of places.”

But are these places near the “50 leading private schools” referred to specifically in the article? Or near private schools which have never sent huge numbers to Oxbridge in the first place? Many schools have no consistent history of Oxbridge offers - could get several children in one year and none another. How many of the non-metropolitan, non-elite, barely-able-to-afford-school-fees are sending their children to these 50 schools?

It seems that Mumsnet doesn’t like to face the unpalatable truth that Oxbridge is for good reasons, not bad, favouring state school students that they believe have the potential to succeed over private school pupils who are stronger on paper. I came from a state school background and I know how difficult a state school education can sometime be. Not because of the fault always of teachers but the constant classroom disruption; the pressures from other students not to be the classroom swot and lack of teacher experience preparing students for Oxbridge. However, I can see why private school students feel unfairly treated. It is not their fault that their parents have money and chose to send them to a private school. These students have also worked hard to get the grades they need and are then told they can’t have a place because they went to the wrong school.

The rejected students I know ended up with a clutch of offers from top UK universities as well as Stanford and big US Ivy Leagues. Since then, they had universities (including Oxford and Cambridge) trying to outbid each other for them to come to do their doctorates with them. So they were clearly of the right calibre to get an undergrad Oxbridge place. They all wanted Oxbridge as there really isn’t anywhere else in the world like Oxbridge. However, life isn’t fair and these DC have had to learn that lesson. Let’s at least have the honesty to admit that Oxbridge have to make choices and they are choosing state school pupils to the detriment of some private school pupils for good reasons. Can we also have the compassion to recognise that these private school students also tried hard for one of those Oxbridge places and they (and their parents) also have a right to be disappointed.

I don’t know you but I do know people at both universities and I do trust their honesty.

@Dancingdreamer - you’re still not addressing the ways they were seen to be “stronger” than those who actually obtained the offers. Stronger, imvho, means showing greater potential, not being more polished. I think you are referring to the latter. Yes, of course they are more polished, and what’s more their greater wealth will make it easier for them to stay on beyond their undergraduate degree to pursue doctorates, but where is the evidence they are actually more intelligent and deserving of places than the people the places are going to?

I'm sorry, but that article is laughable. Poor little Tarquin didn't get into Oxford, and we paid you know, PAID. Stamping my Jimmy Choos really hard hasn't worked so I'm going to blame those pesky poor kids. They didn't pay and are 'less desirable' so how on earth can they be clever and more deserving of a place than my Tarquin.

And @Dancingdreamer your 'friend' is spouting utter 💩. Oxbridge colleges have gone to great lengths to increase the number of state school applicants, to wider their pool of students. Basic stats (so should be within the capabilities of an Oxbridge graduate) means the more that apply, the more will get in. Every college has an outreach officer covering an area of schools and their job (paid by the Uni) is to get the best candidates. Surely your friend must know this ? Oxbridge want the best candidates, not the richest anymore. Must be hard to take when you've paid and money can no longer buy you this privilege.

Bet hey, poor Tarquin now has to pay to go to America. So so tough on him. Still, he and his parents have an excuse lined up as to why he's not at Oxbridge. Poor people. How dare they take his place that we PAID for you know. Which obviously makes us better than you 😂😂😂😂😂😂

As for being disappointed - far higher numbers of state school applicants to Oxbridge are disappointed each year than the number of privately educated children, given the fact there are more children applying from state schools, so it’s hard to feel more sorry for the disappointed private school applicants than all the other disappointed applicants. What, after all, is there to feel so incredibly sorry about? The privately educated mostly have plenty of advantages already and are not remotely learning the lesson that “life is not fair” just because they didn’t get into Oxford or Cambridge.

@Walkaround v good point. Back to those basic statistics.
I'm not sure it matters quite so much to my students as it does to Tarquin and his mum (apologies to all Tarquin's as I'm sure they're v nice). I've met private school parents who start talking about Oxbridge while their kids are in nursery. They look at schools for their kids based on the number of Oxbridge places. Always seemed weird to me. They are just Unis. Nice ones with pretty buildings and funny gowns. But degrees are available elsewhere.

I work in an academic private school, and to an extent I agree with @Dancingdreamer . We have a lot of students who are incredibly good, and extremely nice, and work their arses off to get their grades (and beyond). Sure, they've had lots of advantages (although plenty of them have faced challenges too - not every hardship is financial) - but that doesn't take away from their own talent and dedication. Some of them still get Oxbridge offers, but fewer than before. They have a right to be disappointed when they don't get in - the same as any good student from any school. Being disappointed is not the same as complaining that it's 'unfair'. Yes, there might be a few parents who might whinge about state school bias, but actually most of them just realise that the competition is greater than it used to be - but they're still allowed to be sad when their child gets that 'no'. But the media is determined to make this into far more of a 'class war' than it actually is.