How Far Backwards Are Oxford and Cambridge Bending For State 6th Formers Where You Are?

[SeekEveryEveryKnownHidingPlace]

The last time Oxford and Cambridge were in the news for their largely white and privately educated student body, I remember a lot of talk about how they 'bend over backwards' to widen participation.

So I am surprised that the session where I live (how to apply, what it's like, secrets of successful interviews etc) delivered by an Admissions Tutor from Oxford is happening at the most expensive and exclusive private school in the city. Other sixth formers can go, and our school has let anyone interested know about it, but something about this doesn't scream 'WP' to me.

I know there's an argument that this school probably has the Oxford contact, it works fine this way, if everyone can go then what's the problem... there are three private sixth forms, one state college and four state 11-18 schools here: it had to be somewhere.

But the message this gives out is - private schools are where you go, to go to Oxford and Cambridge, and Oxford and Cambridge are where you go from private schools. The link gets made. The very vast majority of state sixth formers here will never have been through the doors at this private school before: for some of them, it might actually be quite intimidating. The whole thing just suggests an inextricable link between private education and these universities.

So I wondered whether this is the norm, or just us? Anyone?

In GCSEs!

Well, DD did
Maths, numeracy, english lang, eng lit, history, geog, pe (compulsory), RE (compulsory), Welsh (compulsory), financial education, Welsh Bacc, additional maths, physics, chemistry, biology (all compulsory but one of her options was to double each of them up to do them in more detail. And 'world of work' too. No exams in PE, but exams in all the rest.

This is what I have heard as well.
I am not sure what is the benefit of doing so many subjects😳

So many able children do non traditional A levels - had to advice one of my colleague regarding this, her child inGCSE is interested in science wants to do vet med but no advice was given regarding A level choices - she was thinking of doing sociology,psychology and maths!
I advised them to look at the university requirements for vet med and make sure that the necessary subjects will be taken!

Going back to original question asked by the op we live in East Yorkshire, close to the North Sea, our county is classed as an outreach hotspot for Oxbridge, in other words low applications and lower offers, our recently graded inadequate rural comp, as 50% offers rate, on 2 students in 10 years.
So both Oxford and Cambridge have area colleges, Mansfield and Kings I believe.
so where have they chosen to hold these important outreach meetings
Pocklington School:- independent Boarding school, fees up to £30000/annum, average wage less than £25000 in area,
it uses the link with local comps as part of its charitable status so kind
Hymers/Hull colleigate schools other 2 local private schools OR
Hull Wyke sixth form college, STATE, but always has sent more students to Oxbridge as its the selective Sixth Form in area, with lots of ex private students too.
SO OP it would seem your area isn't only one, still think Oxford and Cambridge are sadly stuck in the past.
To prove the point all the main defenders of them, who work at admissions and dons, on mumsnet, all seem to have kids at Eton, sendsummer or westminister getahaircutcarl or other expensive boarding schools dumbadore all spring to mind.
They all claim to be totally signed up to widening access, but don't have a bloody clue what likes to attend a 21st century comp, rated outstanding, yet alone one like mine attend which was required improvement for 10 years now inadequate.
plus using offspring of the likes of goodbyestranger and the likes aren't going to attract kids from comps like ours.
My old headteacher at same comp, 30 years ago, used to say
words are cheap my boy/girl, actions/behaviour is harder but that is what counts
Sadly think outreach at Oxbridge falls into above category so FAILS

Interesting article in The Times today. Christ Church College voted down a motion to have an office on their union to champion state school students.

The Times interviewed a couple of students, one of whom told the (therefore recent)story that when he was interviewed he was asked by the don 'Where did you go to school?' . When he told him, the dismissively uttered reply came :'Never heard of it'.

He also recounts (which I will remember from my own days when my friend was asked where she went to school and replied 'St George's'. When the questioner discovered she did not mean the elite school in Berkshire she never spoke to her again!) that the first question asked when you start is 'Where did you go to school?'

The Times does point out that Christ Church has one of the least inclusive reputations : but why should that be allowed to persist?

Apparently , there is to be a revote. I fear Christ Church has not moved out of the 80s...

Gosh some of these stories resonate. My DS, who is now at Cambridge first applied to New College Oxford. In the interview (bearing in mind he must therefore have passed his ELAT entrance test with no preparation from his comp) was asked 'what school do you attend?' DS replied, and the response was 'never heard of it. What makes you tbink yiu could make the grade here?'
DS was rightly riled and the interview nosedived from there Fortunately he is bloody minded, took a gap year, and reapplied to a more inclusive Cambridge college.
True story.
Must try harder.

My ds went to a bog standard comp.

The thing is, User(longnumber) et al, with the best intentions in the world, you cannot turn up to a school at A Level stage and start selling Oxbridge to pupils who have not gone some way already to reaching the level required.

Standing in front of 150 kids or more in Year 12 is not good use of resources. Far better to reach out to able (or very keen) kids lower down the school, if they can be identified. And also make sure that teachers dispense good advice. Sil (a teacher) was reprimanded at her school for telling a very bright girl who wanted to be a doctor not to take Health & Social Care, which she had been advised to do. Sil was told that the official line was that all GCSEs are equal and not to be elitist.

Btw ds had two shots at Oxbridge and certainly was not subjected to any "snobby" questions. Horrible questions, yes, but I really don't think anyone cared where he'd been to school. Not all the interviewers are 100-year-old professors eyeing old school ties. And fwiw ds is at an ancient college, not a "state-school friendly one" - if such a thing exists.

Furthermore, from these threads anyone would think that everyone at Oxbridge was public school and it's one long Brideshead Revisited and Bullingdon Club fest. The statistics show around 50% or more students are state-schooled.

50% isn't a very good stat though!! It is appalling , in fact. One university does trump Oxbridge and that is St Andrew's.

I think the thing about 'old school tie' is more than anecdotal. I was quoting from The Times, hardly a working class campaign journal. And then there is my experience, and the experience above, all of which featured interviewers who focused on making us aware that we were 'other'.

I have today forwarded an email form Pembroke to me about all the opportunities they have for pour pupils. I am not expecting any teacher to take it up, as they will feel they haven't got time : which is a whole other issues, and why so much of this comes back to parents. It's a bit self perpetuating.

DH's (private ) school has two whole members of non teaching staff who deal with university admission and aspiration.

According to 2016 data from Oxford, 59.1% of offers went to state educated pupils overall. Apparently around 2% of pupils gain AAA or better. I would be interested in the break-down between sectors for the 2%. The information is available for AAA but not for the higher combinations which would be more useful when addressing questions of over-/under-representation at universities with typical offers involving one or two As.

That data wouldn't say much unless it was subject specific. Science/Maths generally achieve a higher proportion of A*s than Arts subjects and the offers reflect that.

Only 2% achieve AAA or better? I am surprised. Offers are generally at least AAA so I would have thought near-on 100% would have got that!

Lady, so many of our opinions
Are shaped by anecdotes - stories which are true and very powerful when you're in the middle of them.
Yes, circa 50% state entrance sounds good. But how many of those are from super selective grammars, or places like Hills Sixth Form in Cambridge, where so many academics send their offspring (good for them by the way for sticking with state)? I'd really like to see the figures from comprehensives, which is where the vast majority of kids are educated. DS's experience is that he is one of v v few. And to be fair he has sharp elbowed middle class parents, so isn't even representative !

Can I just repeat 50% is rubbish. I can't recall what proportion of students are in private schools nationwide but I think it is 5% or thereabouts? Superselective grammars are also a tiny portion of the educated population

Now, obviously, many universities do not reflect that exactly ,a s private schools are largely selective so 100% of their cohorts will generally go on to HE.

However, York , for example, a university requiring high grades of entrance and with an excellent reputation has 18% of students from private schools : this seems a more healthy and representative figure .

Leeds is roughly the same ,as is Warwick.

Ladyincement
My Ds1 isn't bright enough, he go and study criminology at either Hull or Lincoln, wants to work in Police/youth offending. He has 41 pages of Lincoln's modules in front of him, trying to choose.
Ds2, well we will open the bubbly if he makes grade 4 in English and maths.
But why should it give a fuck which school, you went to. If you ask mine, most people less then 30 miles away wouldn't have a clue.
There are super bright kids everywhere.
Why should state kids like yours and Tall's have to take 2 years to get in. Every child we know would just go okay and go elsewhere'.
Can I ask you both did you or their father's go to oxford or Cambridge?
Eldest is a 6ft 3in hard tackling flanker/second row, with a shiny closed black eye from yesterday's game, he's a police cadet, who's trained riot police and faced with those interviewers, he would either go quiet or actually probably tell the interviewer he/she was dickhead and walk out and say that's your fucking problem not mine.
I think Oxbridge actually like private/public school kids and do everything to put up barriers to comprehensive kids

There definitely are 'state school friendly ' colleges : they fairly openly recruit with that tagline. There are also ones which are considered more open to applications from Scotland/ Wales/ The North (no one told me this before I applied! I found out when I was there and went into the Pool!)

Churchill for example, and Pembroke, pride themselves on sate school intake.

But the fact that there are state school friendly colleges does rather imply the reverse is also true!

[user , you are coming across a touch aggressive !]

Piggy - the offer rate is not 50% but around 60% for both Oxford and Cambridge for state-educated pupils and the percentage of pupils attending private schools at sixth form is around 18%. It is important that where there are figures available we use those. There is so much misinformation in the Press at the moment, it is important to get the figures as accurate as we can.

I'm confused as to why what you are telling me makes things better?

Where did you get the 18% from? That seems very high?

They came to my dds school and then had a day where students went to the uni for a day and had lectures, a tour and a slap up lunch. Dd did it and were guaranteed and interview, she turned it down as they didn't like the look of the uni and wanted an interview on her merits not as part of a deal. She's now at a very good uni.

The 18% came from the Independent Schools Council. 60% offers for state-educated candidates is significantly more than 50% and so yes it does make it better. Perhaps it is pedantic of me (and probably a personal reaction to inaccurate/misleading reporting of much of what is going on in politics at the moment - another thread) but I feel strongly that where there is verifiable data from the universities, it should be used.

Sorry, but we have friends who foster(long time) a girl who goes to a school 3 miles away from us, Special measures, 4 A's at GCSE and 5 A's and one D. School gets between 21 and 33% A-C most years. she is in year 13 at school, predicted 3 A's at a level. But she is the daughter of an abusive father and alcoholic mother. Luckily she has a place at Newcastle, but she would surely be an ideal candidate for Oxbridge, but she was failed to gain a place on an UNIQ course, see pp comments and hated have to go to a private school to listen to the talk. She certainly couldn't have coped with the interviews described above, but why should she. I am sure she will love Newcastle, but surely if Oxbridge are for state kids she should be one of the target ones.
I said mine will never go. Just think its sad really, but don't think most people care about kids like that. Just upsets me that it seems if your wealthy, well connected etc you automatically win life's prizes.
I'll go back to lurking. Mumsnet seems to only be for parents of high flying kids or degree educated parents, if you are neither, your views aren't welcome or count. I was a school governor, but only have CSEs and still sometimes try and help kids like above understand better things then Hull/Holderness can sadly offer. Reading here is my only window on these things, if I ask questions I am aggressive. I give up. I think I will leave oxford/Cambridge to the rich and SE. I can't every win on here

Piggy -how do you find out which college is favourable to which region?
This is the first time that I am hearing such thing.

ford : all interesting but the ISC isn't necessarily impartial either!

I have no axe to grind with the data : I never said 50% were offered places. I said more than 50% of Oxbridge students (and at some colleges well over that) come from private school backgrounds . The story in The Times was saddening.Reporting the number at sixth form private schools is a bit disingenuous, as it certainly used to be a trick to take your child out of private education for the sixth form at the point in history when Oxbridge started worrying about widening participation.

I do think some issues are very ingrained and think people (including those whose DCs got in from state schools and are the lucky few) are in denial about the myriad issues.

professor : one way is to find out which colleges are linked to your region by contacting the Cambridge or Oxford outreach department. Google is actually a good source of this info , too.

State school pupils definitely stand a better chance if they take place in the widening opportunities activities put on by their link college.

I can no longer remember which colleges I 'should' have applied to from Scotland. But it definitely wasn't Lady Margaret Hall!

I ma aware there is also a pecking order within colleges , which increase the chance of getting in from state school. Chruchill in Cambridge is considered 'ugly', 'remote' [hardly!] and a bit 'oiky' byt he Bullingdon Club types (all right , I know that's Oxford...but I don't know the equivalent) hence the hooray Henrys , to coin a phrase, tend not to go there. I got this info from three students we sent there...

Sadly, when we invited students back who had been at our school, they were actively off putting to some of our year 13s as they had become so 'Oxbridge ' in their ways and mannerisms and seemed as distant as if they had been to Eton. So that backfired a bit...

Pembroke and Selwyn seem to actively recruit in Scotland.

Good Old Pembroke!

Piggy - have no axe to grind with the data : I never said 50% were offered places. I said more than 50% of Oxbridge students (and at some colleges well over that) come from private school backgrounds .

• More than 50% of Oxbridge students overall can't come from private school backgrounds if around 60% of places go to state school applicants.

The story in The Times was saddening.Reporting the number at sixth form private schools is a bit disingenuous, as it certainly used to be a trick to take your child out of private education for the sixth form at the point in history when Oxbridge started worrying about widening participation.

• But this shows the opposite - that people aren't trying to game the system and I am not sure why the ISC would lie about this figure. I wasn't trying to be disingenuous. 18% is a very different figure to 5%.

Sorry I haven't figured out how to quote someone else's post.