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.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/30/private-school-pupils-twice-likely-need-top-grades-universities/

Private school pupils are twice as likely to be asked for top grades by some universities than their state-educated peers, an investigation by The Telegraph has found.

The higher barrier to entry for private school pupils at some Russell Group institutions means that on courses including English, maths and history half as many state school pupils have been asked to achieve top grades to win a place.

New figures revealed in responses to Freedom of Information requests show that Bristol University set entry grades at three As or higher for 76 per cent of private school pupils who received a conditional offer to start in 2021. However, only 40 per cent of state schools pupils had to achieve the top grades to win their place.

The disparity in offers for teenagers from different school types is even more stark for some of the most competitive subjects. Aspiring maths students had a 94 per cent chance of being asked to achieve A grades or higher if they attended a private school, compared with only 52 per cent of state school pupils.

Almost all aspiring history students from independent schools were told they must achieve A grades or higher to win a place, compared to 50 per cent of their state-educated counterparts.

The overall gap in entry grades at Bristol has widened considerably since 2016, when 56 per cent of state school pupils were expected to get top grades, compared with 40 per cent in 2021. Over the same period, the proportion of private school pupils asked to achieve top grades has risen from 74 per cent to 76 per cent.
Tougher entry grades have also been imposed on private school pupils by King’s College London, which is ranked one of the top 10 universities in the world. Just under 80 per cent of history applicants were given offers at AAA or above, twice the rate of state school applicants, at 42 per cent. To study English, 85 per cent of pupils were asked to achieve the top grades, compared with 36 per cent of state school pupils.

At Exeter University, 92 per cent of independent school pupils who received an offer to study English were given a conditional offer that required top grades, compared with 61 per cent of state school applicants. Other Russell Group universities which have started lowering entry grades for state school pupils include the London School of Economics and the University of York, responses to FoI requests show.
The findings have reignited accusations that private school pupils are facing discrimination by universities who have been under pressure to boost state school numbers.

Not about social engineering'
Barnaby Lenon, chairman of the Independent Schools Council and a former headmaster of Harrow School, said: “Universities are not supposed to be about social engineering.”
He added: “School type should never be the basis for university admission decisions. It is perfectly reasonable to make lower offers to applicants who are known to have greater potential than their A-level grades might suggest, but that would be as true of independent school pupils as state. Contextual admissions is only a fair system if applied fairly – which means looking at the individual pupil and their circumstances, not the type of school they go to.”
The findings come after The Telegraph revealed last week that the overall chance of getting an Oxbridge offer for pupils across 50 leading private schools has dropped by a third in five years. The universities, which analyse a candidate’s school to judge their achievements but do not lower entry grades in the same way as some Russell Group institutions, deny any discrimination.

Iain Mansfield, head of education at the Policy Exchange think tank and a former government special adviser, said universities should “operate 'origin-blind' admissions based on objective ability”. He said he does not send his children to private school because “it’s clear that would damage their future life chances”.
Universities have been told by the Office for Students, the higher education watchdog, to take into account social factors, such as rates of progression to higher education in their postcode, when making so-called contextual offers.
However, John Blake, director of fair access at the Office for Students, told The Telegraph that universities “need to be alert to the risk of unfairness”, “transparent” about how they use lower entry grades and “thoughtful about its impact”.

While academic grades are not the only measure of an applicant’s potential, properly organised and administered exams do provide strong evidence of the range and depth of a student’s learning, and universities and colleges must be alert to this to ensure all students, whatever their entry grades, are properly supported to succeed in higher education,” he said.
'We use contextual offers'
At Bristol, Exeter and King’s College London, state school pupils accounted for 73 per cent, 65.5 per cent and 83 per cent of undergraduates in 2020-21 respectively, according to the Higher Education Statistics Agency.
A spokesman for Bristol University said: “We use contextual offers as we recognise that a student's potential may not always be reflected in their predicted grades, especially if they have been affected by educational or domestic disadvantage.”

He said the admissions policy created an “opportunity for students from all backgrounds to apply to our university, with the confidence that they will succeed when they study with us.”
Exeter said it is “proud of our contextual admissions policy, which this year saw a two per cent increase in the proportion of students studying with us from state sector schools and colleges, and is part of our unwavering commitment to welcoming students from all backgrounds to the Exeter academic and research community.”
King’s College London said: “At King's we are very proud to welcome students from all backgrounds but not everyone has the same educational journey, and we consider the context in which an applicant has experienced certain barriers in achieving qualifications, but this doesn’t include distinguishing between state or independent schools.”

i can’t post the images unfortunately

When I said smashed I was referring to her explanation. She explained my thinking

Oh those poor, privately educated kids. All that money spent and no oxbridge at the end 😭

This is super interesting, @Duchessofmuchness , thank you. And any of those percentages sound a lot fairer than what some of the University heads were quoting, which was a target of 95% of places to state school applicants... which feels blatantly unfair. Would also be interesting to see what % of middle class state-educated vs middle class privately educated children get in. It may be there is not much difference there, as I have several friends who have gone the state route, but moved house to affluent areas with great state schools, buying a more expensive house.
There is also an increasing trend I have seen around me in London for parents to privately educate to GSCE, then move their child to a state school (with heavy tutoring) for A Level, thereby classifying them as a 'state school applicant'. Of course the universities can see if if they care to look, but they don't care, as all that matters are the published stats.
Finally, I always wonder why it is that no thought is given to the fact that private schools, in London at least, are often highly selective. When you have beaten 50 other kids to a place, chances are you are pretty bright.... so no wonder you would be more likely to get to Oxbridge!!

@CocoC I think they take the school the child was in 3 years prior to admission, so the state till 16 thing doesn't really work.

Read some research. You are very wrong.
Joseph Rowntree Foundation has tracked children from very young who are in the genius level at all income levels of society. On average they all do very well except those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

I don't think you should get yourself muddled with universities who make contextualised grade offers to certain categories of applicant, with offers from Oxbridge, where the decision to make an offer will be based on holistic data about the student's application, including entrance tests where applicable, and interviews. The offer itself will be the same, whether the student is from Eton or a failing comprehensive.

That article literally spells out that Oxford and Cambridge do not make contextual offers. Have you got any other data?

"The universities... analyse a candidate’s school to judge their achievements but do not lower entry grades in the same way as some Russell Group institutions"

I think that's unlikely but, in the event that Oxford and/or Cambridge do find themselves no longer amongst the elite universities in the world, it will be because of the idiocy of Brexit which has made vast swathes of research funding harder to access and the very best overseas graduates and researchers harder to recruit, not because a handful of over-privileged kids haven't got in to study PPE.

OP, what on earth are you on about?

Are you seriously saying that privately educated kids should be heavily over represented at Oxbridge on the grounds that their parents have paid for the right?

My post said other top unis

Diddums. Most parents want the best for their kids most are working just to feed, cloth and house them.

It really depends what you mean by elite. It's much harder to get into Oxford and Cambridge now, there's much more competition. I think the universities will be pretty happy to continue searching out the best people and trying to lose their old reputation of being somewhere that mediocre privately educated students get in at the expense of cleverer state school students.

Nope what I’m saying is that smart kids are are likely to come from affluent homes. We shouldn’t be surprised when they’re over represented at top unis

@DorotheaDiamond 9% of the UK population have experienced 4 or more Adverse Childhood Experiences. Out of the 12 million children living in England, just under 400,000 (3%) are in the social care system at any one time. More than 80,000 of these children are children in care. Between 9.6% - 20.8% of children and young people are doing more than 50 hours of unpaid caring a week. This is a large and significant group.

The independent sector educates around 5.8% of the total number of school children in the UK and around 6.4% of the total number of school children in England.

I believe that intelligence is spread across all areas of the population and that 9% of the Oxbridge community should have experienced 4 or more ACE etc, reflecting the numbers in society, the ethnic and economic mix. Obviously on a nationwide scale this is not going to happen, but from what we achieve in our corner of the country it is not an impossible dream.

Your DC are not smarter or more deserving of state school children. They're just luckier. Sorry but you sound like a clueless twat.

OP sounds confused at best, and a snob.

Why do you (OP) suppose the brightest will come from the most affluent homes?

And why do you think private school pupils should be over represented at Oxford and Cambridge?

Money doesn’t buy (or reliably signpost) intelligence, but certain non-selective secondaries will school pupils on Oxbridge entry in a way that advantages parental access to those schools over natural talent across the board.

I went to a very selective grammar with a high oxbridge intake and no private fees. However, it did benefit from good funding and was (as you’d expect) more academically rigorous than the state school I would have gone to.

Bright pupils were pushed to achieve their potential in a way they wouldn’t have been at a state school. Same kid, different outcome. It’s good that disparity in opportunity is recognised – it results in a higher quality of intake at uni level.

more deserving than state school

Couldn’t have put it better.

👏👏👏

Mumsnet needs a like button

@DontMakeMeShushYou That's true, the funding to research thing is nuts. My cousin is currently at Oxford doing a funded PhD. It was funded by Guinness which apparently has quite a big funding programme.
I think in general I just meant that the 1% don't really want things that are accessible to the poor. They've always found a way around it. If Oxbridge ends up the place for smart poor kids than they won't want to be there and will take their connections elsewhere.
I fundamentally disagree with contextual offers anyway. I think we need to fund state schools better and ensure schools are managed well, taking away the social care burden they currently have, on top of the provision of education. I hate that we have got to the point where we are expecting less of state school kids because they're so screwed over by these cuts to education and social care.
I have no opinion on private schools aside from the fact that no child should lose out on a place they've worked hard for, just because their parents have money. I'll never be able to afford private but that just doesn't sit right with me.

I am wondering if the OP was one of the authors of that ridiculous algorithm for A level grades during covid. You know, the one that effectively said "you two kids have got the same mark, but one of you is from a rough estate in Peckham so it's unlikely you did get that mark. Let's reduce your grade and inflate the ones of the kids from the posh parts of Surrey because they come from somewhere nice. Posh kids should be over represented and poor kids should be under represented". She is pretty much saying the same thing.

They want the brightest of all children rather than only the brightest privileged children, which is a smaller pool. That way they get the very best. If you are in a position to send your kids abroad then great. You don't need to worry about Oxbridge wanting the very best and your kids maybe not getting in.

If all is as you say OP, the natural consequence would be more well-off people sending their kids to state schools. Where the kids will presumably do well if they have the innate talent you seem to think.

The problem with this country is the intense fear of falling down a notch or two on the class ladder. Social mobility has been a minor tinkering at the edges for a long time - let a few kids from disadvantaged backgrounds do well, to add a bit of spice. Never any question of volumes of students from poorer backgrounds coming to universities at the cost of the expensively educated.

My post said other top unis

Ah sorry I thought you were talking about Oxbridge as per the title.

Yes, Oxford and Cambridge have particular ways of helping with social mobility, that I guess most universities could not afford to do. They identified that many very bright young people were not applying, so have tried to fix that. You still need top grades to go there, wherever you come from.

Other universities have different ways of allowing for privilege, by assuming that an A from a private school and an A from a state school are not equal achievements. One is more difficult than the other.