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.

Heratnumber7, that wouldn't work. The colleges are very small. Students wouldn't get a comparable experience to those actually based in Oxford or Cambridge.

I also think (dons flameproof suit) that if a student doesn't want to travel too far from home (and is basing that on some solid research, not just hearsay), that is a pretty good sign that Oxbridge is not for them. Nothing wrong with that, there are many excellent universities in the UK. I went to university in London and loved it. I'm not sure I would have been as happy at Cambridge. But it is an integral part of the Oxbridge experience that the students live in college and mix with other students, from all the colleges.

Around 20 percent of children are educated privately at A levels, it goes up a lot for A levels. Certainly around here the private schools all have an entrance exam, its slightly easier than the super selective grammars but children are definitely picked for their potential to get straight As/A*s. The children that went where close to the very top of our state primary in terms of intelligence and getting max or close to max marks in their SATS etc.

bevelino, it is strange.

As a first step it would not take much for admission's tutors to talk to Head Teachers from the sorts of schools well used to sending pupils to Oxbridge, ask if they do have black pupils on the right track (they will!) and then ask where they went and why.

There will be a number of reasons, but flags should be raised with the sort of scenario you described, or if good students are not applying because they don't think they will fit. Yes it might mean in the short term more affluent kids from the South East, but the benefit would be a visible diversity, that would make Oxbridge less intimidating to future applicants. .

My guess is that applications from high-performing black kids, like similarly high performing Asian kids, are focused on really competitive subjects like law and medicine, and quantitative subjects where selection relies heavily on measurements like STEP. From observation, private school kids don't have the same relative advantage when applying for these subjects (other than the advantage of reliable and sound teaching) that they do when applying for humanities/MFL/classics where a broader education, experience, and confidence helps at interview. There are many many more British ethnic minority students at Imperial and LSE, due to a significant extent because they offer the sort of subjects many ethnic minorities choose.

My children attend an unselective comprehensive in Wales. Few children in Wales go to private school so the school takes nearly all our local community. Each year 8-10 apply of which most are interviwed and 1-2 get places. Come results day all 8-10 will have at least AAA but 3-4 will have 4A. It is not about not applying or not being academically able for these children. I think the colleges with no black people show that contury to what Oxbridge say college choice does matter. If you go to a southern school where lots get in you will be able to get advice on which college gives you your best chance. That is not possible for children at schools like ours. I also think the interview is daunting as I said previously. This year Oxbridge staff have been twice to do interview practise for those applying from our educational area so it will be interesting to see if that makes a difference to offers.

Bevelino: I think more people should listen to the experiences and perspective of young people like your dd's friends before coming to a conclusion about all this.

I have taken groups of inner-city young people to an Oxbridge college for music events. The impact on a 16 year old of mediaeval buildings with arcane rules about who may or may not walk where, sitting down to dinner with 4 lots of cutlery, not allowed to speak until Grace has been said in Latin, being required to wear a gown, the whole event being laced through with what seem like traps and tricks in etiquette, designed to make you feel like an outsider, and ignorant, cannot be underestimated.

The colleges revel in this sort of shit. Keep it out of the brochure and off the website. Behave like normal people and concentrate on actual
Studies. Use normal language!

I have dinner occasionally with dons (there 's a language example), and they really do live hermitted lives, obsessed with vernacular architecture of the C12th in Northern Europe or whatever and unable to talk about much else. Many of them are not aware, conscious, cosmopolitan people.

I wonder if anybody can answer this question?
If a child is state educated up until A levels, then privately educated for A levels, how is that recorded in the admissions statistics? Also, what's the situation for the reverse? Privately educated up until GCSE.then state for A levels?

Out of interest
What is the split between ethic minorities of UK applicants
as the large numbers of overseas students may well mask part of the issue

How many UK students are there from each ethnic group?
How many UK students are there from each type of school (as Chinese schools are state and technically non selective ....)

If the admission tutors think they are non racist, non biased they really need to get out more.

Students get pushed to do too many GCSEs. Ten excellent GCSEs always looks better than 14 with a few Cs in the mix

This is a big criticism I have of Dc's otherwise excellent Comp. but then again, I wonder why all Uni admissions do not simply ask for results of the top 8 or 9 subjects, for example.

As a Northerner I am not sure the distance thing really matters too much. Lots of pupils will stay local for financial reasons but given the opportunity, it's only a train to Birmingham with a change to Oxford/Cambridge. It's a bit of a trek but no worse than Bristol which seems perennially popular.

Oxford and Cambridge are like a foreign land for most ordinary students.

The cloaks and the Latin business- does every college do that? Do you have to do it?

Numbereighty
If they have been to private at any time during Secondary, for the states they are private.
I know this because Peter Symonds takes LOTS of kids from private schools (like hundreds) and they do not count in the "state" school numbers because of having come from fee paying (Swithuns, Winch, Eton, KES, etc etc)

Thanks Talkin. And I am guessing the reverse is also true? If you were state educated up until A level, you'd be classed as a state intake?

I don't know if my experience is in any way representative, but as we're all supplying anecdotes, here's mine.

I am Scottish but my family moved to Leeds when I was still in primary school. My mother was of working class stock but became a primary school teacher. My dad was lower middle class, I suppose, and worked in retail management. I suppose that made us a middle class family but we were far from affluent.

I went to state primary schools and then got a scholarship to a direct grant school. My family are very supportive of education and my parents were keen that I should go to university, which I think they would both have done if they'd been from a later generation (main obstacle for both of them was money). They couldn't support me with the detail of the application process, but fortunately the school could, although I don't recall doing anything much beyond normal sixth form stuff before my Cambridge interview (in 1979). Having said that, my normal sixth form stuff was probably far, far more helpful than most people's experience in state schools at the time.

I got an offer. Didn't meet the A level conditions in the end, so went to London instead (genuinely no regrets about that).

However, I loved all the mediaeval architecture and arcane traditions! That didn't put me off in the slightest. Maybe it had to do with coming from a churchgoing family. I was trained from my earliest years in the etiquette of attending service, doing the right thing at the right time. I've also always loved old buildings. Some of it undoubtedly came from school, which was very old-fashioned, and suited me down to the ground in that respect.

For me, there was also the draw of being with other nerdy types who loved studying. I do think that is something that would appeal to a lot of teenagers who have never felt they fitted in at school.

Tinycitrus, is it really so foreign? I genuinely do feel that Harry Potter might have made a difference there. Also, why is something new so threatening? It all comes back to confidence, doesn't it. I suppose I got a lot of that at school and home, and never doubted that I would fit in.

I do think Oxbridge is an offputting environment for some from poorer backgrounds (so that some students will choose not to apply). I went to Cambridge from a state school, my best friend - also straight As (no A* back then!) - chose not to apply partly because the course was old fashioned and partly because she thought she'd have a better time at a more normal university. She did, and has been much more successful than me with my Cambridge first. I'm happy with my life and the education was great but socially it was difficult at times. I stuck with the other state school students, but being there dented my confidence & at times made me feel poor, which I'd never felt before (the richer students could splash the cash in a very ostentatious way). I really do think all the formal dinners etc need to change if they want a different student intake. But since all the traditions are probably part of the reason they can charge foreign students about 30k a year it seems unlikely they'll change. And I don't really see what the university can do to change the unpleasant behaviour of some of the private school intake.

I don’t think it’s even students from ‘poorer backgrounds’ that see it as beyond their reach. Most ordinary people see it that way.

I grew up lower mc and got top A level grades but instantly dismissed Oxbridge. To be it seemed like an extension of public school and terribly dusty and I thought I would be miserable and not fit in with all the year-round tan wealthy types.

Looking back I should have gone and found out for myself., just one positive mentor would have made all difference

Dusty? fusty is what I meant although I’m nit sure that is even a word. Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t do an oxbridge interviewing

"The cloaks and the Latin business- does every college do that? Do you have to do it?"

Some of the colleges are a lot worse, for Latin/gowns/formal dinners erc than others. I went to a Northern comprehensive and went to Wadham which has a minimum of this sort of nonsense.

I think choosing the right college for the student is half the battle. I had no suit for my interview and wore a chenille cardigan (!), have a stammer and a strong Northern accent and was/am very overweight. I got a place, got a First and loved my time there.

I returned to the North, no doubt due to my narrow northern outlook on life. I do not wish to live in Richmond or send my child to private school - I think private education is immoral. I work in an interesting, useful job in the public sector a stimulating, culturally rich life. I know lots of people who are like me. It makes me extremely angry when people say more southerners go to Oxbridge because they are more intelligent. Rubbish.

As a first step it would not take much for admission's tutors to talk to Head Teachers from the sorts of schools well used to sending pupils to Oxbridge, ask if they do have black pupils on the right track (they will!) and then ask where they went and why.

(a) They already do this. Massive amounts of work go into discussions with all kinds of schools.

(b) "It would not take much..." is massively incorrect. The admissions process, outreach, working with schools on widening participation, takes huge amounts of time and resources.

If the admission tutors think they are non racist, non biased they really need to get out more.

You seem to be implicitly making the assumption that academics are themselves white, middle class and British - which is very far from the truth these days. A significant fraction of Oxbridge academics are not British, for example.

What always shocks me about these discussions - both in the media and on MN - is the lack of data used and the enormous numbers of references to what happened 20 or 30 years ago. It would be much more productive to look at the detailed data/many reports that exist, in order to see where the current problems lie (rather than throw in anecdotal experiences from decades ago).

I went to a midlands comp and then to Cambridge and loved all the beautiful architecture, garden parties, dinners etc. The dinners weren't that formal though you sat in a church hall in a gown but it was self service and you sat with friends. Think the latin and gong was only for special dinners and lasted about 2 minutes, latin went over my head but I liked the gong.

As I went there my 12 and 10 year get invited there each year for a garden party / science show and they absolutely love the buildings / gong etc. My DS was a bit bewildered though when at about 5 a 5 year old public school boy went up to him and said can I challenge you to a game of croquet? Some people might prefer modern but there's plenty of other universities offering that which give excellent job prospects like the London ones.

Yes, it really is so foreign! If your family has never even had a dining table (tiny galley kitchen) and eat off laps on the sofa, using a fork only, then a massive row of different sized knives, and everyone looking to see how you use them, is daunting.

SubFusc, scout, battels, Michaelmas, don, gaudy, proctors, tripos, exeat, and other obscure language ad nauseam.

The highlight of the social calendar being a May Ball, with a ticket price higher than a family week in Butlins.

Secret and closed societies being common. Cardinals, Apostles, The Bullingdon Club.

And if you come from a minority background and already feel that you fit in only by hanging in by your finger nails, and if you have come home from school on a bus where the private school kids from Dulwich schools refer to Comp students as 'peasants', or you go to a Croydon state school where the neighbouring private school shout 'chavs' during rugby matches (as reported in the Evening Standard), then yes, you might well find it off putting.

My Dc have potentially Oxbridge-worthy A level predictions, but having been in a diverse S London comp they are not so much outfaced by the arcane traditions as disgusted by the perceived snobbery and elitism. I am trying to get them to see past that and have more open minds.

User, if so how do explain why London selective schools, both state and private, are able to attract a number of black pupils more than capable of holding their own, yet some Oxbridge colleges don't recruit any?

CamperVamp
"The impact on a 16 year old of mediaeval buildings with arcane rules about who may or may not walk where, sitting down to dinner with 4 lots of cutlery, not allowed to speak until Grace has been said in Latin, being required to wear a gown, the whole event being laced through with what seem like traps and tricks in etiquette, designed to make you feel like an outsider, and ignorant, cannot be underestimated."

I went to Oxford from a northern mill town 30 years ago and the picture you paint wasn't true even then. In my (former women's) college NONE of the above applied then and certainly not now.
Of course some traditions remain, but I believe if you are bright enough to get in, you are bright enough to handle some different customs and behaviours. If you are overawed by the buildings then you will be overawed by the academic demands.

Apart from formal hall, most college meals are now self service and very casual. There is no conspiracy to trip people up.

The perception is The Bullingdon Club though isn’t it. Oxbridge is populated by people from Richmond armed with the public school veneer.

My Dc have potentially Oxbridge-worthy A level predictions, but having been in a diverse S London comp they are not so much outfaced by the arcane traditions as disgusted by the perceived snobbery and elitism. I am trying to get them to see past that and have more open minds

Yy to this. I really wish I had at least tried to get into Oxbridge. I was very naive. I hope they try

CamperVamp. I think you might be focussing on things that are visible in the media, but actually insignificant at Oxbridge. The "language" is obscure to everyone until you're there. Then it's just absorbed as the everyday labels you use. There's no language test!
The closed societies represent a minute fraction of student clubs and societies. I spent 3 years at Oxford and never knowingly came across a member of any of them.
It's not compulsory to go to a May ball and nor will you be looked down on if you don't. Most people will go to 1 during there 3 years. Many never go at all.
Nobody is looking at how you use cutlery!!

You say your DC are disgusted by Oxbridge customs. That's a very strong word to use. Oxford is for the academic elite. That's kind of the point. The more people like your DC who apply successfully will redress the social elitism.