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.

I just don't think that it's true that smart kids are likely to come from affluent homes. I would guess that smart kids are roughly evenly distributed in homes and backgrounds of all types. Kids primed for Oxbridge type entrance tests might be more likely to come from affluent homes, but that is not the same as being smart. I would ideally hope the backgrounds of young people at Oxbridge would reflect the background of the population in general, but this is a situation that is quite difficult to achieve for all sorts of reasons.

You can get bright ch8ldren born to "thick" parents. Thinking of my dds peers one standout as achieving top grades but her parents were not at all academic, but they were supportive.

acceptance should reflect the balance of student numbers in private vs comp in real life.

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'm sure Oxford and Cambridge will be more than happy to miss out on those who turn their noses up because of too many poor people.

@hoooops I'm sure they will too, I'm just saying, the degree isn't necessarily what always gets you the job. Plenty of unemployed graduates. The connections are often where people find employment, especially in positions of power. There's a reason why so many Etonians and Oxbridge graduates are in politics. The degree isn't enough. I'm not saying an Oxbridge graduate isn't going to find work, just that with less and less of the controlling class enrolled, I don't think it'll be seen as the social climbing institution it is now.

This would be a bigger issue for those kids who’ve obtained bursary places. Some selective private schools have a large number of children who are from disadvantaged backgrounds. Bright kids whose parents cannot afford the fees. This is often overlooked. It also needs to be remembered that a large number of private schools are academically selective so it’s no surprise that they get better results etc.

Nope what I’m saying is that smart kids are are likely to come from affluent homes

Pardon my French but what a load of absolute bollocks 😡

🤣🤣

Jaw on the floor literally at the entitled post from the OP, then cracked open some popcorn for some of the comments

Isn’t the whole point of social mobility and free education over time the brightest people are able to climb the ladder and get well paid jobs? Academics and teachers in their 40s aren’t paid as much as bankers but they’re generally on £40k. Two people in that get a comfy middle class life in all but a few parts of london.

if we were in a country that lacked free education I wouldn’t expect to come from affluent homes but in the UK a county with the 5th largest economy that has had free education for a while now. I don’t think assuming that people have been moving up the ladder for some time requires me to be insulted. Could I be wrong? yes enough to be insulted ? No

Ahh I suppose that’s fair

@aniamana but a lot of private schools only accept bright kids. So should universities turn away those bright kids? The Telegraph article suggests that’s the idea. Could be that Private kids needing AAA, state kids BBB. I think that’s what OP is opposed to. Private schools will die if that’s the case - rightly or wrongly.

The scariest thing about this thread is that you appear to be real. You actually think that what you're putting forward is a sensible, well informed view. You have no idea how clueless or ignorant you are.

And there are probably more people out there like you. Fucking hell.

Why do you think that ‘smart kids’ are more likely to come from affluent homes? What’s the basis for this opinion?

(Spoiler: I’m assuming it’s based on plain snobbery/ego, but am interested to see what argument you might put forward to rationalise this)

But I doubt that will make much difference to Oxbridge standings in the world's university rankings. They will remain at the very top for a long time to come. Because where university rankings are concerned, undergraduates are irrelevant.

@RichardOsmansXraySpecs I guess it depends what the pp mean by smart. There are lots of really clever kids in poor homes going to dire schools. They will never have the ability to achieve their academic potential and be classed as academically smart. That's far less likely to happen if they come from an affluent household, so in a way, it is more likely that academically smart kids are being pumped out of affluent homes. Unfortunate truth of the dire situation we're in.

It's not as simple as allowing the peasants a free education though is it, when they don't have equal access to top universities?

I ddin't say thick, I said thicker vs cleverer. Some kids are cleverer than others, is this news? I would not say this to a child's face but come on - this is not a serious thread and I was not being serious in response.

Genetics no? In the same way that tall people produced tall children?

Don’t you think that someone who hasn’t grown up well off (because they’re parents lacked access to education) but then has gone to a good university and has gotten a job as a banker/lawyer/doctor/accountant will then not have a clever child?

Actually the point is that Oxbridge very much does think a private education is better. That is (part of) the logic behind the approach the OP describes as ‘targeting’ private school pupils. Put simply, if the interviewing panel have two prospective students who have the same grades, same quality of written work samples and so on but one went to Winchester and the other to a low ranked comprehensive, they are more likely to choose the comp kid on the grounds that he or she will have had far less help to reach that level of achievement than the Winchester boy, who will have been crammed, prepped and polished. That’s the theory and it’s sort of true some of the time. The counter argument, which is also true to some extent, is that private schools like Winchester or St Paul’s are highly selective academically, so the talent pool there is always going to be stronger on average than that of a comprehensive (or non selective private school), so it’s to be expected, and is probably fair, if a greater proportion of students from the highly selective school go on to Oxbridge.

What it comes down to, though, in the end, is that some very intelligent and hard working children from both private and state sectors will miss out, whilst some socially confident frauds from Eton and some intellectually weaker but politically appealing kids from state schools will get through. On balance it’s probably fairer than it was, but it’s social tinkering we’re seeing rather than full solutions to the two fundamental problems with the current system which are 1) that state schools just aren’t very good for the most part and the current curriculum doesn’t really educate, it just teaches people how to pass exams, and 2) that this country fetishises two universities out of many, to the detriment of every student who goes elsewhere.

The UK may have had free education for decades, but the standard of that education has been affected by years of underfunding, years of frozen teacher pay, teacher shortages, varying standards of teaching, disruption in class, children with SEN not having their needs met. It's not surprising that a very bright child will find it harder to get the top grades than a child who's had the advantages of a private education. Oxbridge try to take that into account in order to get the brightest not the most advantaged.
My parents get the Telegraph and it's a rabble rousing newspaper to be honest. They were terribly xenophobic before the referendum.

@DontMakeMeShushYou I dont think it'll make a difference to ranking, as as you say that's not really to do with undergraduates. I do think it'll make a change to its view as the be all end all. Once things are accessible to the poor, they are not wanted by the rich. It's always been the case. More and more will go to Harvard, MIT and other institutions across the pond, taking those connections with them.

Well, I have read that Oxbridge actively targeting foreign students and reducing number of places for UK students both private and state educated.
This is because foreign students pay higher fees plus the quality of education of foreign students is better that British students even privately educated.

FWIW I know someone who does A-level marking (UK standard ones & International ones). Turns out quite a few private schools have their students take the International A-levels rather than the UK standard ones, which are marked a lot less strictly to allow for potential students taking them for whom English is a second language.

Some of those "top" grades may not mean what you think they do.....

Don’t you think that someone who hasn’t grown up well off (because they’re parents lacked access to education) but then has gone to a good university and has gotten a job as a banker/lawyer/doctor/accountant will then not have a clever child?

How on earth does this back up your theory that smart people are more likely to cone from affluent homes - a story about a smart person coming from a poor home?

@mumsqna 😱 you’re feeling ‘deflated’ that you pointlessly paid extra for your kid’s education in the mistaken belief it means they are smarter than my state-school educated kids?

😂😂stay mad, tiger mum