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.

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?

Again, let's put gut feelings and anecdotes aside. One needs to look at the data for students getting grades in the right range, the applications being made and the success rates. Get that data and then analyse where the problems are. As quoted by a number of Oxbridge sources in the media over the last few days, BAME students are not less successful when they apply. They are not applying in the numbers they could be - and black students are much more likely to miss grades/offers than other ethnic groups.

If you want to go back to anecdotes, then

1. I have never interviewed a black British student for an undergraduate place in my subject - because there was no such applicant in the years I was interviewing (despite huge amounts of outreach work by universities/colleges).

1. I have also never received an application from a black British student for a PhD place.

1. In my experience, gender bias in my own subject is a far larger and pervasive issue than class/racial bias (data shows that women are less likely to apply/get offers at Cambridge in my subject) but interestingly the media doesn't care about this. Intersectionality - e.g. BAME women - is an issue that gets virtually no attention from the media in the context of university admissions.

Tinycitrus, why do you regret not going?

For Masters DS had a choice between London and Oxbridge, both equally well regarded courses. He had seen plenty of Fb pictures of drunken contemporaries wondering the streets of Oxbridge after May Balls, and had no sense of missing out. Nor envy of formals, punting, arcane traditions etc. All fitted into shorter more intense terms, and with more social pressure. On balance I would have liked to see him live somewhere other than London, but given he is receiving an equally well regarded education in London, I cannot argue with his choice.

I wonder if the failure to recruit the qualified black students, who do exist, may be a bit of a canary indicating wider problems.

Oxbridge takes the same percentage of black students as the percentage of students who receive AAA+ at A level and who are black.

LSE does not actually have better numbers for black British students, if I recall correctly, because it also insists on high grades i.e. the barrier of AAA+ is still there.

BTW I would also comment, since people on this thread seem unaware of the huge amount of work internally and externally on analysing admissions data, that the ECU awards force universities to publish and analyse admissions data. In particular, the race equality charter submissions prepared by universities absolutely force universities to look into how their numbers of applicants, offers, acceptances by ethnic group compare with the national averages and with A level performance.

I wish I’d tried instead I went to Sheffield which was fine but a bit middle of the road really.

And yes all the sloaney images and the tedious ball stuff and posh boys clubs are very off putting.
It comes across as an extension of the public school system - terribly smug and entitled.
It’s enough to make you want to vomit

User. Thanks, but you are talking about applicants. There were certainly black students in both DCs years at Westminster taking double maths A levels, and not in bottom sets either. I assume the same is true of other selective independent schools. And good London state schools and grammars.

I accept that Cambridge maths-based subjects are extremely selective and so only a minority of the very best applicants from even the most selective schools will gain places. But it still does not explain the poor Oxbridge recruitment track record across all subjects.

It will be interesting to see whether sixth form colleges such as Kings Maths School, Harris Westminster, and Newham, make a difference. Both in preparing disadvantaged students but also raising their aspirations.

Or will they opt for UCL/Imperial and the known environment.

How many of the non white students at Oxbridge were born and educated in the UK?
What proportion of the black and asian students are paying overseas fees ?

When I drive past Winchester College a decent proportion of the boys are non white (OK the bulk of those are not British, but colour is not a bar there)
How come those non white boys are not in the 50% of WinCol students who go to Oxbridge ?

It is quite like a top public school - I remember when I arrived from comprehensive school there one of the boys saying this is just like school. I loved it though and in those days it was basically top public school for free. It was a third the price of going to London for accommodation and even travel was subsidised.

The secret societies/drinking clubs are rare - I only came across people going to them once in my 3 years when I got invited to go to one. I went with another female just to have a nose. They were drinking unlimited quantities of champagne and also phoned for a taxi offering to give it £20 to get them cigarettes. They were nice guys just very immature and possibly struggling to adapt to life after their all boys public schools. They don't help Oxbridge image at all and it might not be a bad move to ban them or make them open to all students.

I certainly don't think drunk students are limited to Oxford and Cambridge though.

I went to a comprehensive and we could all use cutlery and tables as far as I'm aware. Just a normal level of cutlery for most meals. Never came across any snobbery.

How come those non white boys are not in the 50% of WinCol students who go to Oxbridge ?

Many of the international students at schools such as Winchester College will choose to go to university outside the UK.

Also beware of different ethnic minority categories. Many of the international students are Asian, not Black. Lots of Asian students go onto Oxbridge.

Note also that many high achieving BAME students from London actually choose to stay in London, rather than go elsewhere i.e. they do not apply for universities outside London.

As an Oxfordbridge lecturer who is also northern, comprehensive school educated and from an ethnic minority (with working class parents, although I myself am middle class, whatever that is), I can honestly say that some of us try very hard to broaden who is admitted. But there are a lot of barriers, many of which also mentioned on this thread.

There are problems mentioned but also cost -- a student in Liverpool or Nottingham (say) can work part time to support themselves, rent a decent place to live, be self-sufficient (which being in college positively discourages). The thought of having to study with people you don't get on with is fine; but to live and socialise with them 24 hours a day? It is not attractive to someone who is used to being more independent. The person in charge of outreach at my college has repeatedly pointed out that it is difficult to make Oxford attractive in these circumstances. Tuition fees are a big problem and so the thought of adding to the debt by studying somewhere expensive makes Oxford unattractive.

Add to that the fact that the courses are often quite old-fashioned and students want to apply elsewhere for that reason.

Last round of admissions interviews I did, I had two BME applicants out of 40 (who got offers) and one person from outside the south east (who didn't get in -- he was privately educated BTW). It didn't used to be this bad when I started.

FWIW I would have hated Oxford at 18. I'm so glad I (deliberately) didn't go. Although it is a great education.

user918
So, what proportion of the ethnic minority students at Oxbridge are product of the UK education system?

And thus what proportion of Oxbridge students are BAME British
and how does that compare with the rest of the "top200" Universities in the UK ?
population at large is not a fair comparison, but other Unis that take AAA students is

Just apply to the new colleges ones with fewer applicants like girton Murray Edwards homerton Robinson or Churchill.

tealdeal
Why should kids have to apply to a college as well as a course?

If they want to do Chemistry, why should they have to do it through their "hall of residence" ?

You can look up the data as well as I can.

If I recall correctly, the proportions of Oxbridge BAME students are in line with the proportions getting AAA+. Oxbridge are not particularly better or worse than institutions such as LSE, Imperial, Durham which rely primarily on grades (rather than interviews) for many subjects.

Note that Asian ethnic minorities are high achieving and thus are well represented in high tariff courses around the country.

I may be slightly misquoting, but I think that for black students the figures are: they represent ~3% of 18 year olds but only ~1% of the students getting AAA+. They are much more likely to miss predicted grades and offers too, and much more likely to drop out of university. A lot of work across the whole university sector goes into understanding how we can bring down the drop out rates i.e. what more can we do to support black students while at university?

(BTW for the record I think there is quite a lot that could be improved with Oxbridge admissions procedures but I think it is important to discuss this based on data than anecdotes. Personally I would drop the interviews entirely as they are not good selection mechanisms and waste huge amounts of academic staff time. And I would personally positively discriminate in favour of black students, dropping academic entrance requirements, if I thought the student could cope with the course.)

Personally I would drop the interviews entirely as they are not good selection mechanisms and waste huge amounts of academic staff time
Too right.

Some of my students are pictured here I too am Oxford

That is at least one reason for the drop out rate. I officially report every case of racism (or North/South prejudice) I hear, but the fact that someone might say something outrightly racist in class in front of their tutor is shocking to me in 21st Century Britain.

I don’t think you need to drop academic entrance requirements to accommodate black students.

I think Oxbridge needs to shrug off the archaic nonsense traditions and enter the 21st century.

User918
I have just downloaded the data.
It appears to only be UK applicants.
So does not reflect the reality of the student body at either Uni

It would be interesting to know how admission criteria for students paying £35,000 a year compare with those paying £9000

• applicants to places
• entry grades
• drop out rates

As a product of Oxbridge, I can see the issue - and see that it is as much more about 'who applies' than 'who gets in'.

The collegiate system doesn't help, because it provides an extra layer to the admissions system and makes it more difficult to navigate.

It is also difficult because the 'apply before you get your results' UCAS system, especially with PS / college choice / interviews, means that the system as a whole favours those who attend schools who are able to advise them well- ie those schools who have already sent a proportion of their intake to Oxbridge.

It would be interesting if we were able to move to a system of 'apply with your results, as that would enable every student with results (context specific, so lower for some schools than others) to be mailed with a 'Did you know your results are good enough for you to be considered for...' type thing from the universities. A university-wide admissions process that matched suitably-qualified candidates with the colleges most likely to accept them (as a first stage, not a mop-up) would also be really useful in this context - you could manage a mass mailing and mass processing of applications much more easily, using a cross-college panel of fellows for all interviews (via Skype or similar?) if you still wanted to interview.

I applied to Oxford 20 years ago and everything that people in this thread are saying might put off a comp kid whose parents hadn't been to uni absolutely put me off. I came from what is now one of Justine Greening's 'Opportunity Areas', bog-all help with my application, a single mock interview at school and no taster days or trips to unis or anything to prepare me for an overnight stay at a quite intimidating place. Aside from that, I had no idea about colleges so left my application open and they assigned me a women's college - I came from a mixed comp and had no idea why they thought this might be appealing.

At every stage of the interview procedure I felt unprepared and disadvantaged compared to others who seemed to know exactly what to expect and do.

I found it a horrible, rather than inspiring experience, tbh. I really hope things have changed. I don't think the argument that if you're intimidated by Oxford then Oxford isn't for you really washes, tbh, when many children will have been groomed for those experiences and others won't.

I don't think the argument that if you're intimidated by Oxford then Oxford isn't for you really washes, tbh, when many children will have been groomed for those experiences and others won't.

I think that is absolutely true. I think it is very difficult to take that kind of 'preparation bias' out of the process, especially if the process continues to reply on PS and interviews.

Lots of people get pooled to the women's only colleges. They don't get enough good applicants to fill their spaces!

If you put in an open application you will likely get one of those or a new one or one low in the Tompkins table.

Another tip for state comp students is to apply for the less popular courses e.g. Classics, ASNC, Geography not medicine, natural sciences or law.

Tealdeal
Another tip for state comp students is to apply for the less popular courses e.g. Classics, ASNC, Geography
Oh yah, cos the Comp students don't give a shit what course they do

Shock. horror.
Kids who are taking on £50k of debt (more than both their parents earn in a year) pick courses that will lead somewhere other than being a SPAD.

Its only the rich southern private school kids who pick Oxford regardless of everything else.

In the real modern world, bright students care about their course and who they will be mixing with.

I've downloaded the data from David Lammy's website (here) and I wonder how accurate the fine detail is and how the data was collected by the different colleges.

Certainly I've admitted students who I would perceive as being black in years when the data says that the college hasn't admitted any black students. In fact this includes students who are on the 'I too am Oxford' link above. The total number of students for each college looks extremely low and only refers to black and white students, not to any other race. I wonder whether there are lots of 'refuse to say' or nil returns?

Not that I am suggesting anything other than that the number of black students is pretty low at Oxford overall but I would like to see where the numbers came from. It would also be very helpful to have more info on success rates/numbers of applicants broken down by race and to cover all races not just black/white. Without all of that I'm not sure it's easy to analyse what is happening. Has anyone got any data on the success rates rather than just raw numbers of students.

anacademic
It appears to ONLY be the UK students.

remember that an FOI request cannot breach DAta Protection.
If there are very few by number, fine grade divisions will identify individuals.