Misleading article - private schools vs state schools Oxbridge

[NotLactoseFree]

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/education/article/state-schools-beat-private-rivals-in-race-for-oxbridge-offers-gsdrpvlgn

Argh. This drives me mad. We have family and friends at private school and they see these articles and start to panic that their little darlings might not have as good a chance of getting into oxbridge. Or even that their children are "discriminated" against. So just a few facts that are actually in the article, but not spelled out with the "so what" factor.

Facts in the article:
"More state schools than private schools were among the top 20 that counted the most Oxbridge offers last year, analysis shows."
"In total, there were five independent schools in the top 10 and nine in the top 20, while nearly two-thirds (64 per cent) of Oxbridge offers went to state schools."
"Of the 80 schools in the full list, 29 are independent, 29 grammar or partially selective, 17 sixth-form colleges and five are comprehensives or academies."

So just to clarify this - of the top 20 schools getting Oxbridge offers, ALMOSt 50% of them are private schools.

Also, according to the government in January 2024, there are 3444 state funded secondary schools. So 11 out of 3444 is 0.3% of state secondary schools are in the top 20 for Oxbridge and 1.5% are in the top 80. The government figures for number of independent schools are not split by primary/secondary - they say there are 2408 independent schools. Let's assume half are secondary? So 1204. On that basis, the 9 schools in the top 20 represent 0.7% of independent schools and the 29 in the top 80 represent 2.4%. ie a significantly higher proportion of independent schools are in the top group for Oxbridge.

Similarly, 3.7mn children are currently at secondary state schools and 570k are at independent schools (at state level, about 42% of total children at school are secondary so let's use that number for independent, making total number of secondary school children at independent schools about 239k).

I don't have 6th form numbers so I'm going to use the above numbers for percentages which will be inaccurate, but I'm working on the basis that the overall ratio remains more or less right. On that basis, going back to the article:

"The university’s admissions statistics for 2023 reveal that 72.6 per cent of successful UK applicants were from state schools, a slight drop from 72.9 per cent the previous year. This means 1,895 state-educated pupils joined Cambridge this academic year."

But using my numbers above, independent schools represent just 6% of the total secondary school population, but are in fact taking up 27% of Oxbridge places.

Just putting this out there so that any state school families who are trying not to roll their eyes at privaate school families worrying that they're "disadvantaging" their children by sending them to private schools have the info to hand.

While I don't think it's particularly fair and I would very much like to see more state schools doing better, I actually can't get too worked up about universities like oxford and cambridge continuing to accept a high percentage of children from private schools. I do find it anoying when those familes feel discriminated or disadvantaged though!

@RespiceFinemKarma At no point did I say that people in private school haven't suffered pain or trauma. That's a ridiculous leap. Simply using my own DD's experience of secondary school to highlight the disparity between the educational experience of someone in a state school who was fortunate enough to get a place at Oxford in contrast to those attending a private school whether they are on a bursary or not.

DD was only put in sets for maths, English & science & mixed ability classes for everything else. That's how many comprehensives work. The top sets were for those likely to get grade 6+. She was the first from her school to go to Oxbridge for over 10 years.

@Dearover - all we are saying is that if you have a PHD yourself and your household income is over 100k than your DC is in a different position to a DC who is very low income with no parent who ever went to uni and that that needs to be taken into account as well.
The dichotomy private vs state and even the grades in a school tell us not much without the former information. Because an educated parent with funds can afford tuition and help at home. So if they are presuming the private school kids got that by virtue of just being at private school, then they need to do the same for a privileged demographic. There just has to be a bit more honesty across the board on UCAS itself as to what privilege actually means.
Because right now the poorest kids are forced into unis with poorer outcomes and huge debt. They need to go on the best courses in the best unis to make any difference to social mobility and their employment prospects and the unis really need to start applying consistency across the board, rather than being able to game the system themselves. It isn’t controversial really when you think about it in detail.
We also need far more funds to support poorer students in expensive uni towns. Uni loans alone are not enough. Rich unis that have endowments to do so are at an advantage. Ideally it would be a centralised system for all unis.

The school is free to add that an applicant was a bursary pupil and any relevant information in their reference. However, by virtue of their educational privilege, their school is likely to know that they can do this.

@Araminta1003 -
all we are saying is that if you have a PHD yourself and your household income is over 100k than your DC is in a different position to a DC who is very low income with no parent who ever went to uni and that that needs to be taken into account as well.

I thought they did use this sort of information?

On the rest of that post, yes - proper scholarship schemes for the financially disadvantaged, and fully funded foundation year(s) for those who - for whatever reason - have been educationally deprived in their school years to allow them to fulfill their potential. (Of course it goes without saying it'd be better to prevent more of that deprivation earlier)