21 Oxbridge colleges took no black students last year

[MaeMobley]

Here is an article in the Guardian:

www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/dec/06/oxford-colleges-no-black-students?dm_i=D9F%2CBP8Z%2C2P0DKY%2CX1T9%2C1

Sadly, though I am shocked, I am not surprised.

I know. That is how I feel.

It makes me feel great sympathy for Diane Abbott.

"In 2009, more than 29,000 white students got three As or better at A-level (excluding general studies) and about 28.4% applied to Oxford; while 452 black students got three As or better, and nearly half applied to Oxford. A spokeswoman for Oxford said: "Black students apply disproportionately for the most oversubscribed subjects, contributing to a lower than average success rate for the group as a whole: 44% of all black applicants apply for Oxford's three most oversubscribed subjects, compared with just 17% of all white applicants. That means nearly half of black applicants are applying for the same three subjects ? the three toughest subjects to get places in. Those subjects are economics and management, medicine, and maths.with 7% of white applicants. This goes a very long way towards explaining the group's overall lower success rate."

Hmm. As this spokeswoman deals in %'s of students getting in - %'s of wildly different sized groups - while the numbers of applied / got in in the main article are in hard numbers I wonder if it really DOES explain it, and if Ben Goldacre wouldn't rip this apart? (I am not mathematical enough to test it)

It's pretty shocking anyway, and gives the lie to the perception that the U'K is now culturally and racially equitable. But I daresay the Universities are as much the place where this is demonstrated, as being the problem. i.e it is factors BEFORE Uni entrance that are to blame, as much as the Uni entrance procedures.

what makes me very about their excuses is that black students are less likely to have been to top private schools and hence their performance at A level is less likely to represent the best that they are capable of. Hence you would expect them to be admitted with slightly lower results, on average, if the admissions system was doing its job properly.

as for the absolute numbers, yes I agree with Blu, I would love to see someone who knows about stats go into this. These factors might explain a lower success rate but are they really enough to explain a zero success rate I wonder?

I am interested in the fact that this thread has 5 posts on it while a thread about ham sandwiches at a school christmas party, and another about what the OP perceived as a parade of exotica and stereotypes have countless posts, the majority of which say 'PC Gorn Mad' or words to that effect.

anyone who thinks oxbridge is inclusive or based purely on merit is deluded.

I have to say, given I personally know a black senior lecturer, who is certainly a memebr of the academic staff I do not trust the rest of the article (which may or may not be true, but knowing one part of it is incorrect causes me to question it)

They don't say how many of the black applicants have been at private schools.

Couldn't it just be a bias towards accepting applicants who've been through a private education?

I don't have the skills to analyse the stats but it seems that with such a small number of black students applying, the number who've been to private school is pretty crucial when looking for bias.

I think the issue is hugely more complicated than suggesting Oxbridge is racist. There are a huge variety of factors at play:

• performance of black children (who perform worst of the ethnic minorities as I understand it) in exams- why is the state education system failing these children?

• how are black children represented in the private school system? Why are they under-represented? Is it an economic/financial issue? Why are black families disproportionately poorer than white families?

• why don't more high-achieving black children and other ethnic minorities apply to Oxbridge?

• then we get to the Q of why those black children who do apply are less successful proportionately. Is it racism? Is it another issue- are they less well prepared for interview for some reason e.g. tend to come from schools with no experience of preparing children for Oxbridge interviews.

I think it's just as shocking, TBH, that no child from Knowsley (and 2 other regions) has gone to Oxbridge in the last 7 years. Those children- whatever heir ethnicity) are also being massively failed by the education 'system'.

Also I'd like to know the figures at postgraduate level.
How many apply from ethnic minorities and how many are accepted.

Scottish secondaries, though, don't as a rule teach the sort of flexible thinking that they look for.

(I know even at Scottish universities the difference between us and the English students can be marked. I noticed it while I was at university and dh confirms it.)
(Massive generalisation obviously)

Never mind Oxbridge - only 452 black students got 3 As or better? They are being let down by the system then, but a long time before they get near a UCAS form.

I think he has been very selective with the use of statistics. Yes, there are very few black British students of Caribbean origin at Oxford and Cambridge and that is scandalous (there are plenty of students of a wide variety of other ethnic origins, however).

But, as the article mentions, only 292 black students in the whole country achieved 3 A-grades at A-level, which is realistically what you need to get into Oxford or Cambridge. About 30,000 people apply to Oxford every year, most of whom have 3 As at A-level - and most of them don't get in either. There are lots of people with 3 As who don't even apply to Oxbridge.

Yes, I'm sure the universities could be doing more to encourage black students to apply (though there are outreach programmes to inner city comprehensives etc and have been for at least 25 years), but the real scandal is with the school system that leads to serious underachievement for so many black (and other ethnicity) children.

I really don't see how universities can fairly be expected to compensate at university entrance level for 14 years of poor education, but because Oxford and Cambridge are already seen as elitist, they make an easy scapegoat. If they started some kind of affirmative action programme for black students that would immediately cause an outcry because it would not be fair to every other under-represented and under-achieving group, like working class white boys.

And of course the problem of underachievement and low aspirations in schools is compounded by the attitudes of teachers and families who discourage bright students from applying to Oxbridge because of outdated beliefs that it is 'just for posh people', which just perpetuates the problem.

We find it hard to believe that only 452 black students got 3 As or better. Surely that stat can't be right? Ds' school alone must produce half a dozen upwards every year.

SGM I have a personal theory that it's more social.
We are a very hidebound nation in many ways.
Leave the country and you are gloriously free.

There is a response to the article from Oxford here.

I have just noticed that I was looking at David Lammy's article (here) rather than the other Guardian one, and it looks like he got the statistics the wrong way round so it is 452 got 3 As and 292 applied to Oxford - sorry I got the wrong statistic in my post above.

The black student interviewed said he wasn't treated differently and the university put him on the prospectus. I can't actually see how the universities should be blamed for something which is really a symptom of a bigger problem, mainly poverty and inequality. How obvious is it from a UCAS form that the person is black - such indicators were removed to prevent ethnic minorities and women being discriminated against, so now we complain that it is not easy enough to find in their favour? Have they managed to find evidence that they are disproportionately turned down at the interview stage - it doesn't look like it and that would be much more scandalous.

I find the explanation to be a good piece of statistical journalism, compared to the paragraphs where "not statistically significant" is added as an afterthought.

Much easier to blame Oxbridge though than look at societal problems as a whole, much easier to adjust the entrance criteria for underprivileged groups than to try and adjust their life chances earlier so you wouldn't have to.

looks like black applicants are probably v similar to white applicants from comprehensive schools, who aren't taught the tricks (inc what subjects to apply for) that get people into Oxford. While not denying racism, I wonder what the stats would look like if you compared a group of white and black students applying to Oxford from similar schools and backgrounds. I was astounded to read someone who recalled being prepped for an Oxford entrance interview at school. I had no idea this happened, but then I went to a 70s comp, and we weren't given any advice on handling university interviews full stop, let alone specialist Oxbridge training.

MrsStuart - then your DCs must go to a good school. Unfortunately there are far too many schools where they'd be lucky to have one pupil achieving 3 As at A-level - and black pupils are disproportionately likely to go to those schools.

I'm shocked as when I was at Oxford there were students of all nationalities, and I distinctly remember one black JCR president. But then I also knew a student from Merthyr Tydfel at Cambridge.

Just looked at the figures and my old college seems to be doing reasonably (I know dons who definitely prefer State school pupils too, because they are brighter)

I went to Cambridge and the only black undergraduate was from Africa rather than the UK.

I belong to a "privileged" minority (Jewish) and we were over-represented (ie as a % of the total population).

I do however agree with those that say that it is not Oxbridge to blame but societal problems as a whole. I suspect the stats are just as appalling for other universities. My sisters went to Durham and St Andrews -both very "white" universities.

The statistics in the Guardian article are misleading in that it excludes not only other ethnic minorities (i.e. anything other than Black Caribbean - so any students of Black African or Asian heritage for instance, of which there are fairly reasonable numbers of acceptances every year) but also students of mixed race (including mixed race of which Black Carribean is one part). It also makes no mention of postgraduate acceptances, which are always much more mixed, with a much larger proportion of students from outside the UK.

Having said that, as someone who has spent years studying and teaching in both Oxford and Cambridge, and now works at a London university, it would be silly to pretend that Oxbridge is not very "white". I'm sure that must be obvious to many very bright black students who perhaps look round at an open day and then decide they'd rather be somewhere like Birmingham, KCL or SOAS. Honestly, I think I would have done in that position.