Sadness of Open Days

[Gemauve]

So on the stand this morning at 0905, I was approached by a charming woman and her keen, enthusiastic daughter. It's the first university they're visiting, in fact the first university that either of them has ever been to, but they're really looking forward to ... and they reel off a list of good places. Daughter really wants to do our subject, and has clearly checked out the top places.

And what A Levels are you doing?

Ah.

Well, you can't come here, and for what it's worth, we're slightly more relaxed than the other places you've named and I know that you won't be able to go to any of them to do our subject or anything even vaguely related. I didn't say "and on past experience from when we were even more relaxed to the point that we might have admitted you, you would almost certainly fail, and the last cohort where we did that less than 5% of them made it to finals". Sorry.

"My school said these subjects would be ideal".

They're catastrophically wrong. Did you look at any prospectuses before choosing your subjects? No. And off they went, their hopes destroyed by 0915.

What the fuck are schools playing at? Why do they let children who don't have middle class parents get into this situation?

I also have a relative doing a poor choice in Alevels . When she told me I could wanted to blurt out nooo, but school have said it will be fine and it's not my place to interfere .

Off topic but secret I read that as you took your son to a university open day when he was 5!

So did you point this morning's prospective student towards your foundation courses then?

There is no real difference between foundation and year 0. The content is the same, or can be. You just advertise the integrated four year through UCAS, student gets loan, university gets HEFCE dosh, University pats own back by offering students from non-traditional crap schools backgrounds a route to RG degree. Everyone's a winner!

I'm not sure all Uni courses will accept Psychology as a "science" subject either, they certainly didn't use to. It used to be a Social Science rather than a Natural Science.

So did you point this morning's prospective student towards your foundation courses then?

I'll talk to our open day team about this: it's not our policy to do that, but perhaps we should.

Looking at the entry requirements, I suspect the prospective student would have struggled to get into the appropriate foundation year as well, but I might be misreading them.

For any parents reading this, don't despair. My son started a fine art degree, but decided it wasn't for him and managed to transfer to a biological sciences degree at a RG uni without the required A levels. He did take a year out and did one year'srelevant work experience in a developing country, so he didn't walk into it by any means, but there are always routes in even if 16+ choices were poor.

There are, but it's expensive to do that nowadays. Better to get it right first time.

I agree with those who say the EBacc is a good thing. It basically replicates what grammar schools and very academic independent schools have done for a long time and stops teenagers and their parents making unwise subject choices at a very early age. It really shouldn't be all about what's fun. There is some knowledge that is just fundamental and no matter how hard it is the young person should persevere with it to whatever level they can manage.

I also think going to university is a privilege, not a right. A young person who doesn't have the right attitude or who isn't clever enough should not be going. I know a few wealthy families who assume all their children will go to university and in some cases the children would do much better getting out into the world of work and spending a few years growing up. They could go later if they really wanted to. There are other ways of getting onto the career ladder which might be better.

Equally, of course, there are other families who are not wealthy but whose children are very bright and should get the opportunity of a good education so they can realise their full potential. They should get much better advice at a far earlier stage.

No wonder social mobility in this country is going backwards.

How clever is clever enough though?

EBacc is a good "guideline" but it is not for all pupils! Thats the real problem of the latest talk, because there are a sizeable number of students who are never going to get decent grades in all EBacc subjects. And we need a lot more vocationally trained people, preferably those who haven't been totally turned off education by being forced into subjects that they have no interest in.

How clever is clever enough?

Well - if other pupils at a child's school are doing well with just the teaching they get at school, but the child is struggling and the parents have been paying for private tuition on and off since primary - in the absence of a specific learning disability like dyslexia I'd say that young person might be better off not going to university.

I can see that Gasp but meant a bit further up the results scale IYKWIM. Are we back to my belief that sometimes people think only A* grades are worth having WRT further education?

I'm not really an expert, Sparklingbrook - just a gobby mother who has worked in a university! I did go to university myself, which has helped as my own children have moved through the system.

When I worked with postgraduate students, there were always some who'd had a far harder start in life than most. Family difficulties, duff schools. Their A level grades were on the application form and weren't always great. However, a good few of those had really come into their own during their undergrad years or even when they started their Master's and did far better than anyone would have predicted based on their school grades. Those people really gladdened my heart.

There were others who had clearly found school an absolute doddle but had started to struggle later on. If they persevered they could get through the more advanced study but otherwise they were stuffed.

The short version of the above is that I'm reluctant to say 'Get x grades and of course you should go to university, otherwise forget it' because attitude and maturity are so important.

I don't think A grades at GCSE are essential. Somebody who has mostly As should probably be looking at going on to do a degree, but someone who has mostly As and Bs might do just as well.

Thanks Gasp, I sometimes think there isn't always a balanced view on MN. I want my heart gladdened if possible, there's so many variables.

I think as well that even top achievers may find University life isn't for them.

Need a crystal ball

I was the first to go to University and even though at a grammar school so, as PP have said, had limited choice of only 'solid' A-levels, my careers advice was crap.

In the end I turned down a place at Oxford to go to a non RG university, my head was horrified but it was the best decision I ever made. I did a degree in the subject I enjoyed (Civ & Arch Engineering) at a top ranked university and am now respected in my field and well ahead of where someone of my age should be.

My family supported me as best they could but the 'unknown unknowns' issue is spot on. There were some things that I found out through luck along the way.

Children develop at such different rates and sometimes discover they have an aptitude for a particular subject later on. I've known people with just C grades at GCSE do well at university. I never write anyone off. My ex boss is one of the most intelligent people I have ever met. He left school with 2 o levels and went on to do a masters in his 30s. He is extremely bright and hugely respected in his field and by the academic world (has had lots of work published).

My personal opinion is that the 15% or whatever it was that went on to HE in the 80s (when I went to uni) was too low, but that 50% is too high - so maybe somewhere in the middle.

Also I've always said that if I were dictator for life, I'd forbid anyone from going to university at age 18 other than maybe for medicine / vet courses (just because they're so long, and so competitive that people have to have thought really hard about what they want to do).

Apart from that, people would have to work for say 2-3 years before they were even allowed to apply. I reckon you'd get much more focused students, and fewer people going just because it's the 'done thing'.

I had a very interesting conversation with a friend a while back. Her son's very bright but definitely having a bit of a wild youth. She was very disappointed that he chose not to go to uni, whereas his girlfriend did. I reckon he made the right choice - she's partying away her learning opportunities and racking up debt, whereas he's earning cash doing bar jobs etc (in between parties), and when he grows up a bit then can take his student loan and knuckle down to study if he decides that's the route he wants to take.

Or indeed he might find a job he likes and decide to work his way up with in house training, study through the OU or take one of many other routes.

Should say my views have been very much influenced by my uni experiences. My Director of Studies at college left school at 15 to be a farmworker then later studied through night school. Several of my fellow students were ex Ruskin college mature students who'd come through the unions. They were all fearsomely bright and hardworking (and still had good parties )

Gosh that is terrible. Poor kid.

My DD has had course choice drummed into her. She is doing the IB and the course choices are so well rounded DD is practically spherical.

It is terrible to think that some youngsters could be uni material but have been hampered by poor advice from their school.

My personal opinion is that the 15% or whatever it was that went on to HE in the 80s (when I went to uni) was too low, but that 50% is too high - so maybe somewhere in the middle.

The increase in takeup is much less than the bare numbers indicate.

In the early 1980s, university takeup was about 12%. But the sex split was, over the whole of university-level education (ie minimum 2 A levels, minimum 3 years, CNAA- or university-validated degree) about 70:30. Adding the missing women back, without altering the admission criteria in the slightest, immediately takes you up to about 18%. But where were all those women? They were in two-year (later three-year) Cert. Ed courses, they were doing HNCs, HNDs and so on leading to NHS lab jobs, they were doing speech therapy, social work, a while litany of "women's work" jobs which had qualifications which were, handily enough, not degree level. And of course, there was nursing. Simply moving all of those things in the ambit of "higher education" raises the number "going to university" more than it raises the number of people "doing degrees".

To compound it, 1964 is the peak year for births in this country. The birthrate in absolute terms dropped like a stone from then on, as the war-time and post-war generation had far fewer children than their pre-war sisters. There's a rise in birthrate in absolute terms through the 1980s and 1990s as the children of the 1960s had children (fewer per women, but there were more women) and then it dropped again until 2000-ish. So from 1983 onwards, the choice would be stark: either increase takeup, or graduate in absolute terms fewer graduates each year, which would mean (a) shrinking HE massively (by about 30%) over the years 1983 to 1993 and (b) running a modern technological economy on reducing numbers of graduates. Neither's appetising.

So takeup rises because (a) women go to university (b) other (traditionally female) training routes are accorded equal status and (c) universities grow while the population of 18 year olds drops. The post-1997 Blair targets didn't actually make that much difference.

raises the number "going to university" more than it raises the number of people "doing degrees".

I meant:

raises the number "going to university" more than it raises the number of people "doing post-18 courses".

Gemauve I don't understand your point about Germany. Yes only 50 % do the Abitur but for them they can choose any degree they like, not restricted by subject choices. Whereas here not the whole year group takes A levels either, but those who do have their paths limited, knowingly or worse, unknowingly.

I may be wrong, but I thought the pathway to Abitur and not-Abitur was set much younger than 16.

I do think that things are different, though, Gemauve. When I went to uni, from a perfectly average and acceptable state school in the midlands, maybe 10% of us stayed on to 6th form, and a handful stayed in education beyond 18. Maybe 5 or 6 went to university (in a school with an entry of around 180 p/a), probably the same again to other forms of HE.

DD's school really isn't that different in terms of demographic, I think, yet it's really very normal for pupils to go on to university, and indeed pretty much expected of the more academic dc.

You can see the difference in terms of expectation for job entry - the jobs my parents went into at 16 (my dad was a management trainee for a supermarket chain) would have asked for A levels when I left school, and I suspect would need a degree now.

Takver, what you're seeing there is that now state schools now have similar levels of access to HE as other routes. Do you think that only 10% of the pupils at Eton did A Levels in the 1980s?