Oxbridge 'favours' students from London and South-East

[jeanne16]

Apparently 48% of students come from London and the South-East with Richmond being a particular hotspot. Should we be surprised by this and accuse the universities of bias? The way I see it is Richmond is full of extremely intelligent people who presumably have intelligent children. They then have the money and resources to support them in all sorts of ways, such as buying books, reading to them, private schooling and/or tutors when needed, sport and other activities.

I really don't see how this is the fault of the universities.

Does this one's face fit? Are they our sort of chap? Will they frighten the horses?

Or are have they shown a great & sensible interest in this subject and have demonstrated that & can talk about it, and talk about it a bit more when we ask them further questions - are they likely to benefit from the tutorial system - do they know more than an A / A* shows on paper ( because more students get these than e.g. Oxford have places for. Just a thought . I do think the "our sort of chap" days have gone. But that is just my perception. ( The guardian article about pupils who just wouldn't be considered to be able to catch up is sobering. ) But secondary / tertiary education surely relies somewhat on both.

In a science degree, the labs are the most important part
more so than tutors

and although those doing the interviews are clearly convinced that they show no bias
ALL evidence of similar situations (job applications etc etc) show that there is significant subconscious bias against "other"
therefore the Dons are keeping "more of the same" even if they mean not to

In a science degree, the labs are the most important part
more so than tutors.

As a scientist, I wouldn't agree with this. The combination of theory and experiment is essential at undergraduate level.

One of the potential downsides of the Oxbridge system is that the supervision quality can vary quite a lot by college /subjects within colleges - although not as much as it did historically (when women's colleges offered a completely different level of teaching).

I agree that interviewers show subconscious bias, but mostly the bias is towards students who are as single tracked minded as they are. Of course quite a few normally enthusiastic students get in as well.

The departments do have an overview of the admissions process. It might well be possible to grade students and then let them choose their college according to their ranking.

sendsummer it would be a terrible idea, for students with the disposition that so many Oxbridge students have, to rank then before they even set foot in the place. That would throw up all sorts of issues which are best avoided.

I think interviews are a good thing, for Oxford as well as students.

The process advocated by TiP is the one that DS went through when he applied for a Masters at Oxford. A paper application, with a chance to suggest what college he might prefer. Then a departmental acceptance, with a much later confirmation of college. (He got the college he rather randomly requested, but it was a reasonably obscure one.)

This all happened without seeing the University or the University seeing him. Yes by this stage it will be reasonably clear which applicants are up to the course, and he was more than able to look at the course content and decide whether it suited. However I think it would have been useful for him to see the place, meet some staff, and get a better sense of the learning environment he would be in for the next two years.

You get the same at UG level, though not at Oxbridge. Lots of kids don't get a chance to go to Open Days. Instead you fill in your UCAS form and if all goes well you get an offer. Acceptances at the end of the cycle (which both DC had) are too late for offer days. UCL used to, and maybe still does, hand out offers to UK based students at specific offer days. Part marketing presumably, but it will help prevent students turning up without a clear idea of what they are letting themselves in for. Important in an Oxbridge context, plus with luck you will meet people who become your fellow students and have some familiar faces on your first day.

I also think interviews give the chance to probe more and to discover raw talent. By all means review interview training to reduce unconscious bias, but perceiving a problem does not mean the solution is a radical change.

(I agree with Sendsummer that a natural bias will be for students who interviewers want to teach, and why not. A disappointment for DS in his first year in London was that it was not the done thing to say anything in classes, though this changed as courses got smaller and they got to know each other better. Selecting students who will contribute cannot be bad.)

My best guess is that, for oversubscibed courses at least, there is a lot more wrong with sifting by PS than by interview. You cannot get a consultant to interview for you! And aside from STEP my understanding is that performance on aptitude tests does not correlate that well with subsequent University performance. Certainly UKCAT, the medicine aptitude test, appears more like the old Tiffin 11+, where the more you practice the better you will do.

it would be a terrible idea, for students with the disposition that so many Oxbridge students have, to rank then before they even set foot in the place
Absolutely Goodbyestranger this ranking could only be done post interview with the usual scoring system. IMO there would be no clear advantage to the present system except for disposing of the uncertainty relating to any association between the choice of college and chances of success.
As I have said interviews IMO are actually a very good tool in giving a chance to those who might be less prepared through their educational bacjground for A levels or tests

I meant
no clear advantage compared to the present system

Post selection choice of college would also inevitably emphasis disparities in perceived quality of colleges and their students.
It promotes another layer of inegality, this time within Oxbridge

I think the interview would be fine if it was by department and it really felt it was based on selecting the best academically rather than on social issues wether they be where you come fronm or race. But the college makes it feel personal and thinking you didn't get in because you choose the wrong college is horrid and must put people with little experience of how to choose off applying. It has made the whole thing very difficult for my DD although she is predicted 4A*. It has not felt so personal with Durham or LSE. I know where I live people talk about Oxbridge rejections in a way that they don't from rejection by LSE, Imperial, Durham etc even though Oxbridge are not necessity best for their subject. And that talk puts younger people off applying even if they are good enough to apply. i don't think it would be the same if you applied to the department as you do at with other universities. Also, a little known fact. with Ucas you have a two week cooling off period after applying to change university choice but within that two week period you cannot change your college choice so once it goes in that is it unlike other university choices.

1. Privilege. 2) Inequality 3) they are not educating the smartest people because of 1 & 2

Sendsummer, I don't think post selection of college after academic delection by department makes a difference at Durham, I have heard many don't get their first choice but are happy with where they go?

I think the interview would be fine if it was by department and it really felt it was based on selecting the best academically rather than on social issues wether they be where you come fronm or race.

Why on earth would colleges be selecting on social issues, rather than on academic issues?

Do you really think that these days academics themselves come from wealthy backgrounds? Academia is appallingly paid for the qualifications required, the competitiveness and the hours worked - people from wealthy backgrounds are much more likely to go into law/finance/business rather than become academics. Lots of academics are international as well.

This comment is an example of one of the barriers to Oxbridge entrance created by the media and by society.

I am happy to admit to being wrong, but the Professor who interviewed DD taught his subject at various colleges. It would not have made much difference what college she applied to because he, presumably, would have interviewed at the others as well. I did not think,for her subject, it was college based in such a singular way and it was more faculty based.

DD hated the idea of the college she was allocated at Durham. Obviously not her first choice. I did not entirely agree with her first choice but a teacher said go for it. It was a mistake. Her assessment of the college allocated was that it was "miles" away from her Dept and she felt it was a "campus" college and isolated from the City and wider student life so rejected it.

I don't think post selection of college after academic delection by department makes a difference at Durham, I have heard many don't get their first choice but are happy with where they go?

But in Durham no teaching takes place at college level - colleges are halls of residence. This is very different from Oxbridge, where teaching does take place in colleges. Indeed for humanities much of the teaching takes place at college level - the college led supervisions/tutorials can even play a bigger role than the university lectures.

And BTW it would be the same academics doing the selections at departmental level as at college level. (I am sure that departments would pull in college teaching fellows for the admissions procedures but most of the people interviewing are in any case in departments.) So any unconscious biases would not be automatically removed by doing admissions at departmental level.

Why are Oxford and Cambridge allowed a different UCAS deadline than everybody else ?

That alone puts off people from schools not used to it.
As per this article
www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2017/oct/25/to-recruit-more-black-students-we-must-demystify-oxbridge-admissions

"Do you really think that these days academics themselves come from wealthy backgrounds?"

Most people I know in academia are from wealthy backgrounds, though. Particularly in the arts & humanities, they are almost invariably upper middle class and selectively educated, definitely top 20% nationally. I work in a department that's unusually mixed, because we have a few people who went to comprehensives and come from council estates (including our kickass pro-VC, who is awesome), but the majority are still grammar/private/public school with comfortably-off parents. Those who are from abroad tend are even wealthier.

Gosh. I used to work in two different departments of a Russell Group university.

Department 1 - all the academics were from a nursing background, none of them posh.

Department 2 - academics mostly from a clinical background (psychiatry or psychology). All doing very nicely now, but pretty mixed as to their family backgrounds.

I accept it might be different in the humanities. Let's not forget, though, that selective education used to be a lot more widespread in the UK than it is now. London had the 11+ until the mid 70s, Leeds till 1972. A lot of bright kids born in the 1960s would have ended up in grammar and direct grant schools as a matter of course (and without the intensive tutoring that distorts things now).

I don't think it is true that the majority of academics are grammar/private/public school educated. Of the UK academics in my own department, not more than 10% were privately educated, for example.

I accept that there are differences between arts and humanities, and other subjects. I also accept that there are variations by age group - the older age group (55+) is much more likely to be private/grammar educated (not least because this was pre-comprehensives.)

And I would accept that academics who are very left-wing in politics can still be very ignorant of challenges faced by kids from poorer homes.

But the number of academics who went through "standard" state schools is much larger than MN seems to think.

I agree with user that academics at Oxford often have far less privileged backgrounds than people on here seem to assume. I went to an underperforming Northern comp and came to Oxford first as a student on a 'widening participation' course as I was at a 'target school'. I know several others in my department who also came a similar route. Also there are loads of academics who weren't educated in the UK so don't come to this issue with preconceived ideas about regions and types of school. For example , I have just come from lunch in college where I sat on a table with colleagues from Poland, Sri Lanka, Romania, China and Canada, all of whom will be involved in admissions.

anacademic
The fact that your lunch colleagues come from other countries does not stop them being rich and elite.

It also does not make them naturally unbiased against "other"
they just have a different slant on it.

No of course it doesn't stop them being rich and elite. Perhaps they are, I have not assessed their backgrounds! Though as we were mainly talking about our different experiences of (all of us) state education in different countries and political unrest and change that affected the education of some, then I didn't particularly get an impression of privilege.

I wasn't trying to suggest that having an international group of academics was in itself a sign of lack of privilege, though perhaps that would have been clearer had I started a new paragraph. My point was simply that people come from very different backgrounds and there is no clear cut 'us' and 'them'.

Though an interesting aspect of the state education point is that the state/private issue plays out very differently in many countries, in some private is primarily for niche religious groups or for children who couldn't succeed in the state sector. That does mean that there is a completely different set of preconceptions that come to light in admissions training.

Ds is at an old and illustrious college. The profs seemed to me (parents' meeting) to be quite a varied bunch. But as pp noted, what they had in common was a true mania about their subject. Just as well, really!

Surely if you want to get het up about "posh" elites dominating a university then Durham or St. Andrews should be a focus. The accommodation costs there are £££ and there seems to be much more interest in getting into the "right" bit (i.e. With your sort of people) than at oxbridge.