How do we feel that private school kids fill Russell Group Unis?.... Controversial alert.

[faraday]

Yet I am increasingly finding that most of the people I know who have chosen private have done so because their DC just couldn't cope either socially or keep up academically in the local state schools (or a mixture of both!)- so they're individually hand-held, spoon-fed and tutored in the private sector- then emerge ready to grab those limited places from perhaps more clever but marginally less 'graded up' state school kids?

Xpost PW - yes these groupings hugely erm vague. There is this grouping called the University Alliance. Which, according to its website, is an "Alliance of Non-Aligned Universities"

Fennel "I think it's only a certain sort of employer which recruits only or mainly from Oxbridge or Ivy League, (city banking, city law firms, and similar). Most of the jobs I've ever considered wouldn't be that sort of job."

Pages 5 and 6 of this report show that it's not only chinless jobs where those who have been independently educated are over-represented. But I can see that it's convenient to perpetuate that myth.

Maybe UCL and King's can't be in the same grouping in case their chancellors start duffing each other up?

Cambridge certainly make allowances for a pupil who is the first in their immediate family to go to university.

Do some private schools still have 'friendships' with certain Oxbridge colleges? I know there used to be closed scholarships, whereby a number of places were reserved for pupils from what might be almost be called feeder schools. Does this practice continue informally?

When I was at a grammar school, the Head always tried to funnel pupils into applying to a particular girls' college because she had been there herself and knew the top brass.

Now this would be unfair to state school applicants. Is there still the "Oh, yes, Ponsonby Minor, we'll look forward to seeing him" factor?

(From Swedes's link) This is shocking: 'A pupil in a state school needs to achieve two grades higher at A level to stand the same likelihood of going to a top-ranked university as his peer in an independent school.'

So much for private school children being discriminated against!

fircone, we had a little schemozzle like that at the FE college I went to - we got a pupil in to New College to read PPE almost every year through a staff connection. I've no idea whether this still goes on or whether centralised admissions procedures have put an end to it.

Also from Swedes's link: "half of Oxbridge entrants come from just 200 (mainly independent) schools"

I happened to get hold of a Winchester College prospectus (fees £30K per year if you're interested!) and it said that ONE THIRD of its pupils go on to Oxbridge every year.

pw when was that? having a parent who taught there on that course for around 30 years I find that very hard to believe. He said it was funny what schools thought about how kids got in and that they certainly did not discriminate in the way that you describe.

i have argued on numerous threads about private/state schools and think private schools are deeply devisive and would happily see them all close.

Do you know, fircone, I'm not actually surprised by that one. Which is a bit rubbish, however you look at it!

Does anyone know about affirmative action programmes in the US, and their impacts on Ivy League colleges?

Hello ra - it was in the 1980s. There was a connection between a politics lecturer at my FE college (who had been to New College to read PPE himself) and someone - don't know who - at New College. The candidates from my FE college still had to pass the Oxford entrance exam (as it was then) and attend the interview, but they always got in.

Message withdrawn

bloss - I've been Googling 'Ivy League' and 'affirmative action', and that's not what has happened at all in the States - in fact, achievement (in terms of matriculation scores and standardised test scores) rose in the Ivy League colleges when AI was introduced.

Since then, Ivy League colleges have gone on to be acknowledged as the best universities in the world. All while implementing AI policies that would make a socialist blush.

I take your point about preparedness. I guess I'd argue that a clever student from a bad school is going to be perfectly capable of hitting the ground running. Attending seminars and writing essays is not terribly taxing, after all. They're much more likely to be disadvantaged by the need to work three jobs to pay the fees.

Sorry, AA (Affirmative Action), not AI (Artificial Intelligence)...

Fircone, how do you just "happen" to get hold of a Winchester prospectus unless you are actively looking?

Perhaps they're mailing them out randomly as part of their outreach

missmem: ds played a chess tournament at Winchester College and I picked one up then. Ha ha at actively looking at Winchester College. £30 flippin' K a year to go there. Admittedly it looks wonderful. But it's not for us. [Too poor and too oiky emoticon]

bloss'then the universities have to begin by remediating the problems with that candidate's education. In other words, stuff that should have been taught at schools now has to be re-taught by the university. And with a limited amount of time and funding, that will ultimately mean that less is achieved in the degree... '
Well according to my dad it was the private school kids who needed the most re-educating. He said they frequently wrote in wordy pretentious ways that they had been taught to in schools- long words used without substance or meaning. He had to spend time teaching them to be concise rather than rambly. His subject was really about clear thinking and raw potential was far better than expensive education for this.
He was not remotely interested in A level results as he felt they showed very little about real intelligence and ooriginal thinking. However, the entrance exams were also very unfair as private school kids were cprepared for them and state school kids werent ...

I think the "on average two grades higher" thing is a red herring. Because most independent schools don't offer soft A levels or General Studies A level, so they are not comparing like with like in A level scores.

I think the Oxbridge admissions has got an awful lot fairer. The biggest problem is the excess of pupils getting 3 As at A level. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that they ARE easier now, the format makes them easier etc (but that is another discussion) but the knock on effect is that more mediocre students are getting the top grades, and most of those are educately privately.

This leads to the point made by the OP.

I also happen to think a mediocre student 'working very hard' to tick all the right boxes doesn't particularly equal a very bright student who can do the exams with their eyes shut as it were.

Oxbridge admissions has got much better I think... tutors working with state schools etc. The state school I teach in runs an annual trip to Oxford and Cambridge for prospective students etc

Where do you get your stats from?

Rules me out too then, fircone!

Yep, I'd be interested to know that too.

Swedes, I didn't mean those jobs were "chinless" I wasn't implying anything about the city jobs and the big milkround firms, but just for me, and for most of my friends, we were never going for those sorts of jobs anyway, so, though some firms recruit primarily from Oxbridge and Ivy League, it didn't actually make any difference.

that's all, wasn't meaning to suggest there was anything wrong with those jobs.