How can these students go to Oxbridge?

[Fiona2011231]

To protect the privacy of the students, I do not include their names and their school here.

I read the article in our local newspaper about some students at the local state school, which is not exactly famous for their academic performance.

These are their grades:

"Student, 18, achieved 4 A*s and will be studying Politics at Cambridge University.

Joining him at Cambridge will be A, who achieved 2 As and 2 A grades, and C, who gained 2 A a B and a C grade.

D will go to Oxford to study Classics after achieving 4 straight A grades and another E is USA-bound after securing a place at the Ivy League University, Princeton, to study Liberal Arts. E achieved 3 A grades in English Literature, French and Maths.

It seems that some of the cases here did not achieve excellent grades.

If this observation is correct, why were they accepted by these most prestigious universities? In the case of Oxbridge, do you think it may be because the universities considered their background, perhaps being poor, and that they come from a state school. So by accepting these students, the universities can fulfill their quota imposed by the government?

Thanks,

Oh OP, do come back and enlighten us on the government 'quota'.

There are 50% state school pupils at O&C against 93% of the pop attending a state school. So a pretty lax quota I'd say.

My niece had an AAA offer for architecture at Cambridge last year. She got AA* B. She got a place after a nervous week. Not at her college of choice though.

Sorry,that should say AA B.

Jealous OP?

I love FleaMaDonnas post.

If Oxbridge wanted only A A A* students they would have those grades as their entrance grades. They are clearly happy to have students with lower grades.

It's quite possible all of the students met their offer...all without their parents having to shell out thousands on private school fees, it's shocking

the local state school, which is not exactly famous for their academic performance.

You're having a laugh aren't you. DD's school had one Oxbridge student, about 20 years ago.
They are long overdue their 'quota'.

"these grades from an average comp would have very different implications than from a top public school"

Just to clarify, is it more impressive if someone gets these kind of grades after having attended an average comp.

I only ask as I got AAA at A level back in 1996 when there were no A* at A level, went to an average comp and it never occurred to me I could have applied to Oxbridge though I wouldn't have wanted to have gone to either anyway

I think it is, and you would have had a good chance with those grades. Whether you got a place would have depended on how competitive your subject was, how well you came across at interview, whether you convinced them you had the capacity to work at an even higher level and whether they thought you were genuinely committed to the subject.

OP, do you know how to google? We can all identify the school and the pupils. So if you do want to protect anyone's privacy, you might want to get the thread pulled.

But before you do, can you tell us why you don't think these students got excellent grades?

Good lord, google's an amazing but scary thing. OP, please could you explain your problem with these people going to Oxbridge?

"Just to clarify, is it more impressive if someone gets these kind of grades after having attended an average comp."

Possibly. But these grades would give you a shot at Oxbridge wherever you wen to school.

The typical Oxford offer is AAA and Cambridge A*AA. Many will achieve better but some will get in with less... My friend got in with ABC (9 years ago)

They carry out a very rigorous admissions process and generally believe that their judgement is a better indicator if who will do well than raw exam results. Other universities rely more on grades because they don't collect anything like as much information about candidates and many don't even interview.

The OP is presumably either wildly ill-informed or stirring.

Oxbridge admission is based on interview and aptitude test, and the A Levels are very much second-order. There's a standard offer, it's someone contextualised for various reasons, and people just miss their offer are still sometimes admitted, depending on numbers and how they did at interview and so on.

Admission to Princeton will have had nothing to do with A Levels, and the candidate will have sat the SAT reasoning testing and then the SAT subject tests.

One of the things that colleges and schools that are successful in Oxbridge/Ivy admission do is make sure the right candidates apply for the right courses. One reason why Oxbridge is under-represented both for state and BME (which of course largely overlap) is that candidates from those backgrounds apply for the most competitive courses, at which they are admitted at about the expected (low) rate, while candidates from more savvy places apply for courses with lower competition. There are courses that have three or fewer applicants per place, at which interview (for all but the most speculative applications) is almost guaranteed. The applicants for those courses are almost entirely from private schools. There are courses for which there are fifteen or more applicants per place. State pupils almost exclusively apply for those courses. The outcome is inevitable.

Similarly, although there are only three US universities which off full funding to non-US citizens (Yale, Harvard and Princeton), parents willing to pay or take a chance on getting non-guaranteed funding can do to the next tier down (the rest of the Ivy league, the public Ivys, and so on) where admission is, for many candidates, relatively straightforward.

All A-star (which I suspect is the OP's definition of "excellent grades") is incredibly rare. If universities set that as an entry criterion, they would not be able to recruit for many courses, and the candidates they would get would not necessarily be the ones they actually want.

Yes, it's more impressive from an an average comp. And on average state school pupils with the same grades as independent get better degree results according to the statistics. The difference isn't huge but it is there.

Fwiw I got AAAA from an average state school (pre A star) and went to Oxford despite not knowing anyone who had ever gone. Best thing I ever did.

' One reason why Oxbridge is under-represented both for state and BME (which of course largely overlap) is that candidates from those backgrounds apply for the most competitive courses, at which they are admitted at about the expected (low) rate, while candidates from more savvy places apply for courses with lower competition. '

That's very interesting - I'd never thought of it like that.
I did Classics, which had the best acceptance rate of all the humanities. As you can imagine that was very very heavily dominated by private schools, though increasing efforts have been made since then to open it up to students with less Latin and Greek.

All A-star (which I suspect is the OP's definition of "excellent grades") is incredibly rare.

See page 9 of

www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/sites/www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/files/publications/undergrad_admissions_statistics_2013_cycle.pdf

57% of accepted candidates at Cambridge had AAA* in their best three A levels.

AABC implies AAB are the best three A levels. From the table around 0.5% of Cambridge candidates enter with such grades.

Presumably the OP is stirring.

Where did the op go? She seem to be ignoring all the questions...

If the school in the OP has suddenly got a fabulous bunch of Oxbridge entrance results with little previous history, it's possible they've recently recruited a member of staff who is pushing Oxbridge hard at the students and has the contacts and expertise to make sure they apply for the courses they're most likely to get in for.

Spinoa- but if you add together all the students with the same number of points or fewer you get around 17% of entrants.

Haven't the Royal family all gone to top universities despite them not all getting fantastic grades?

Yes if the whole family = Edward, don't think that's fair to say otherwise. Of those born after 1940, according to wikipedia:

Charles: Cambridge & Aberystwyth
Diana: failed all of her O-levels twice
Camilla: French and French literature at the University of London Institute in Paris for six months
Anne: No Uni
Andrew: Royal Naval College
Sara F.: Secretarial College
Edward: Cambridge MA 2nd class
Sophie Rys-Jones: secretarial college
Wills & Kate: degrees from St. Andrews
Harry: military
Peter Philips: degree from Uni of Exeter
Zara Phillips: studied at Exeter Uni to become a physiotherapist
Beatrice: degree from Goldsmiths, University of London
Eugenie: degree from Newcastle University

Respectable. They study a lot of art history or literature, I don't think there's one scientist in the lot!

Spinoa- but if you add together all the students with the same number of points or fewer you get around 17% of entrants.

Yes, 13% and with AAA (points equivalent to AA*B) and 3% came with AAA.

Note however that treat AAB is not always viewed as equivalent to AAA, even though it is points equivalent. Durham and Bristol, for example, usually reject students who drop to a B and don't treat AAB as equivalent to AAA.

In my own subject (maths) neither AAB nor AAA would be enough for Cambridge anyhow but other top places would not usually accept AAB in lieu of AAA if the B was in a related subject (e.g. physics).

The institution in the OP has 10% A*s and As. Which isn't bad for a broadly non selective place....

If anything OP I think the government could do alot more to help some of the bright students from the very poorer backgrounds to aspire and apply to oxbridge.
I remember at my dd school only one girl had achieved a place at Oxford the first one ever for the school, she was on free school meals and lived in a council estate, in one of the poorest deprived part of the county. It turned out in that year, only 45 children in the whole of the country who was recieving free school meals had achieved a place at oxbridge, 21 at Oxford and 24 at cambridge, this was about 5-6 years ago. The girl at dd school was one of the lucky ones.
For whatever reason, some of the bright kids from the most disadvantage background just don't apply. I know theres widening participation schemes to make awares, oxbridge as being more accessible to the disadvantaged but this isn't available to all state schools. There is still the perception/myth that oxbridge is elitist and advantage the independent/ grammar schools. So this could put off student from state schools from applying.
I think it's a good thing they take on students like the ones you have mentioned as they must have other aptitude or circumstances that they consider as being just as important to succeed at oxbridge, it's not just about having exempler grades. Who knows if those kids you mentioned had gone to a grammar school, they may have achieved the grades you feel warrant a place at oxbridge. At the end of day not all schools are equal. If you were to put children who attend select grammar/independent schools to the most dire comps in the UK would they achieve the same grades as they would have? Probably not. Contextualising and red flag policy oxbridge makes is a good thing, it makes a fairer system. I can only be pleased for those kids you mentioned in your post.

It's not just Oxbridge, it's also the RG universities. What seems to happen is that bright kids whose parents didn't go to university get shuffled onto a pathway of less-preferred qualifications, either BTECs or non-facilitiating A Levels, on the assumption that they'll be going to a "local" (ie post-92) university. There are a whole stack of assumptions about cost, elitism, difficulty which direct people away.

It's exacerbated by less aspirational schools and less well-informed families seeing university admission as something you look at in Y13, when the aspirational middle classes were checking in prospectuses before GCSE selection at the end of Y9. Chuck in the fact that more aspirational schools only offer facilitating A Levels anyway (ie, stick a pin in the choices at Eton and you are still 99% certain to choose courses that will get you into a decent university) and the dice are just hideously loaded.

Maybe they had an excellent interview as well and the unis felt they would shine and were worth giving a place to. Well done students !!