Which Oxbridge Courses / Colleges take most state school students?

[KingscoteStaff]

Is the state school/independent school split very different on different courses? Is it very different at different colleges?

Is this data available for last years offers/places?

Is it available for this year's offers?

A super curricular activity would be something like an applicant for Architecture, doing A levels in Maths, Physics, Art and History visiting buildings of note and creating a sketchbook and reading about the architects and the period of the building.

Apparently Kings College Cambridge actively discriminates against private school pupils. I can well imagine that given its 'lefty' reputation. However, I think it has close ties with Eton and it certainly used to be the case that many OEs went there.

I think that counts as interest in the subject , MariaNovella, and the poorest of students could, in your example, nip down to their local church/old building and do a few sketches. It costs nothing to do further reading, whatever the subject. Ds didn't have any fancy trips under his belt, but he had read a lot.

It begs the question about how much allowance do you give to "unprepared" candidates. You could argue that many bright pupils from a bog-standard comp do not know that the expectation is that they should be reading widely. But do Oxbridge really want the English candidate who has only read the set books? Does this indicate a lack of polish or lack of gumption?

Irma do the pupils who read around their subject at the suggestion of their school or their parents( who read mumsnet) have gumption?

Well, that's part of the question, really. Obviously some pupils have a great deal of handholding... expensive handholding, if they're at private school.

But for English say, surely someone who loves the subject should want to read more, even if no one has specifically told them to? There has to be some basic level of personal responsibility and drive.

Bow Regardless of perceived gumption or not, I do not see why ALL schools should not be encouraging pupils to go beyond the set curriculum. What I was trying to say up-thread, and obvs failing by being slightly facetious, was that it doesn't have to be expensive, or high brow. As pp's have said, you can encourage your brightest pupils to read books, magazines, watch TED talks, surf YouTube, sketch buildings......

My point was that super curricular activities do not have to be super inaccessible or super expensive

There has to be some basic level of personal responsibility and drive.

While I agree that this indispensable, the question is what a child has been exposed to in order for an interest to be sparked? If you grow up in a cultural wasteland, it might be quite hard to have an interest sparked in, say, drawing architecture.

That's true. I return again to Music. Woeful in state schools. Only school productions are musicals and lessons wasted listening to Grime and Beatbox. In fact scandalous. Making me just thinking about it!

• They are at a bog standard comp that has had no luck with Maths or Science or MFL Oxbridge offers, but quite a few successes in History, English, Politics, Geography, Philosophy.

I originally thought that it must be due to really good / really weak teaching staff in those subjects, or perhaps pessimistic predictions from certain teachers, but the school’s results seem similar across the subjects.*

Maybe the difference in success between these subject areas is that the aptitude tests for STEM will assume good grasp of yr 12 A level content and methods, so if the teaching has been weak it is bound to be a disadvantage. Maybe the humanities tests rely somewhat more on broader skills/aptitudes - I don't think there are even any specific subject requirements for some of them eg philosophy.

And the second thing, related to this, is the predicted grades - the STEM courses really do want high achieved grades so that the courses can start on the assumption that the students can hit the ground running. Whereas in the humanities it may be a bit different - I knew a geography student who was told when applying they'd be perfectly happy for her to drop geog at AS level if she wanted, as they'd be teaching her all the geography they wanted her to know.

"The children can't access classical music. It is outside of their experience and is not fun."

Irma That is so depressing to read, so patronising and limiting to the ambitions of pupils. Of course they can access classical music. It's available on every radio and computer - you don't have to go to the Royal Albert Hall. It all stinks of the "not for the likes of us" attitude that puts so many able children off applying.

It’s easy to cite English and suggest these children should read more books. What about the children who want to do other subjects that require musical instruments, trips to museums etc? I should also point out that our local library closed and the nearest one is opened for limited hours and poorly stocked. That’s down to the Tories cutting LA budgets to the bone in some regions.

I'm not defending the Tories per se, but councils decide what to cut, and often it is a political move to hit the libraries as people see them, rather than other less visible things, eg the councillors' salaries (which are quite sizeable with all the allowances - £8k + each for local councillors + all their allowances for a few meetings a month...and county councillors can be on more than £30K).

Anyway, just to report that dd came home today and said that one of her teachers said that Oxbridge is full of white, rich and posh people and had the least number of black students. I just googled and the least diverse universities in the UK are actually in Northern Ireland and Wales (and I suspect St Andrews and Durham may be up there).

You see, you are up against this in state schools. Teachers who seem to have a chip on their shoulder and are not in the business of encouragement.

Are you joking Irma Since the austerity cuts Liverpool LA can now spend £150 less per person. Oxford City Council spends £800 more than it did before the cuts. Does that explain why some children are struggling when others aren’t?

But for English say, surely someone who loves the subject should want to read more, even if no one has specifically told them to? There has to be some basic level of personal responsibility and drive.

It's great to tell kids from deprived backgrounds about personal responsibility – especially when they are struggling in the face of library closures, underresourced schools, no private study space, little encouragement from seriously overworked teachers to go beyond the curriculum, perhaps caring responsibilities too. I wonder how focused your personal responsibility would be in such circumstances, IrmaFayLear.

As for 'discrimination against private schools' – all Oxbridge colleges are looking for potential. Some make rather more effort than others to see beyond the polish of a private school education. Those who do are richly rewarded in terms of results (as the league tables for both Oxford and Cambridge show). It is hardly discrimination against the privately educated elite to apply enough rigour at interview to spot potential talent from other sources. Around 7 per cent of pupils are privately educated. You'll forgive me if I don't shed any tears for the fact that 'only' around 40 per cent of them are now getting Oxbridge places.

Cambridge has just been given a large amount of money from a former student,£20 million of which is to pay tuition and maintenance costs for underprivileged students, and £1 to attract applicants from low income and black families.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tycoon-david-harding-gives-record-breaking-100m-to-cambridge-university-znldrl3t0?shareToken=5d3bb506725c47d691224f70c3be41f7

Around 7 per cent of pupils are privately educated. You'll forgive me if I don't shed any tears for the fact that 'only' around 40 per cent of them are now getting Oxbridge places.

That's an irrelevant statistic though isn't it?

How many kids WITH OXBRIDGE GRADES IN THE REQUIRED SUBJECTS are in the state sector?

Compare that cohort to the privately educated cohort - that's the valid comparison.

Also, that's 7% of all age groups nationally.

The number in private 6th forms is around 20%

it's often not terribly clear whether state/private surveys are looking at all schooling after age 13, 11 or 7 (depending on which KS you think the baseline should be) or just the final school attended before university

It's anecdote but a friend of DS at Oxford was told from her school - you should not apply there . She ended up with a 1st . Not a school which aimed for the highest universities & by the way I do not say Oxbridge necessarily - there are very very many universities for various subjects which are very good & very possibly better than Oxbridge for subjects - of course there are . How sad she was not encouraged at school ( One school , I know , it is not general - anecdata )

So what should happen? Admittance by percentages? 7% of places for privately educated pupils, 93% for state? What about foreign students? I should think most of them have been to private schools. And then percentages for BEM/LGBTQ etc etc?

Bow A question for you. Where are your DC's, what age are they, how are they doing academically. What are your aspirations for them. Do you feel the system is failing them, and how.

Just need to understand where you are coming from.

Bow A question for you. Where are your DC's, what age are they, how are they doing academically. What are your aspirations for them. Do you feel the system is failing them, and how.

Just need to understand where you are coming from

How on earth would the ages, grades and aspirations of Bow's children affect the validity of her arguments about the appalling inequalities in the education system in this country?

Older That’s extraordinarily impertinent.

I agree with you, Bow, it is impertinent, and a way of dismissing your concerns about society in general.

This Guardian Long Read is very pertinent to discussions about class privilege: 'The idea of a “following wind”, a gust of privilege, gets to the heart of what we call the class ceiling. It neatly captures the propulsive power provided by an advantaged class background – how it acts as an energy-saving device that allows some to get further with less effort – deftly shaping career trajectories, delineating what courses of action are possible, what kind of support is available, and how one’s “merits” are perceived by others. Equally, the metaphor also describes the experience of the upwardly mobile who, very often, have the wind against them. It is not that such individuals cannot move forward, or never reach the top; just that, generally, it takes longer, happens less frequently and often represents a markedly more labour-intensive, even exhausting experience.'

Human beings do not develop in a vacuum. Of course people born into those parts of society that do a lot are going to learn more and have more opportunities - many of which will be largely unconscious.