Applying for Uni 2019 Part 5: UCAS, offers and exam season looming

[NewModelArmyMayhem18]

New thread started. Here's the previous one

Students at independent schools still secure a disproportionately high number of offers. An average of43%of offers from Oxford and37%from Cambridge were made to privately educated students between 2010 and 2015, while just 7% of children overall are educated in private schools.19 Oct 2017

Dds private school didn't get a single oxbridge offer this year despite 15 interviews

Admittedly 2 years ago now.

That's partly why people pay, surely? They want to give their child the best possible start? Not that I'm suggesting they are wrong to.

Maybe they are deliberately changing their policies Fazackerley?

I wouldn't like to say - I know everyone I know at private school and at a couple of top grammars have said they didn't get many in this year.

I agree that “full of” is not exact, though the percentages are higher than the average. What I was trying to get at was that private & selective schools have a reputation for not entering their pupils for more exams than is necessary so as to maximise their chances of getting high grades (I admit that I don’t know if this is true). Therefore it seems strange that the universities with the highest proportions of those pupils would have tariffs that can only be reached by taking more than the standard number of A Levels so that can’t be the reason for those figures.

DS - with 3 middle of the road A-levels - has around 200 UCAS points because he has things like another AS level, music grade 8, an EPQ etc. (He was disappointed that you can only count one music grade, not everything on every instrument.)

Not sure anywhere cares about much except the actual A-levels/IBacc/Highers.

The 7% private figure is misleading in this context as the proportion for post 16 education is much higher - about 15%. Factoring in that not all post 16 education is 3 A Level with 2 facilitating subjects required for Oxbridge, the percentage of the available cohort in private may not be that out of step with Oxbridge offers made.

Dan, yes! The unis I visited with both DD and DS said they were only really interested in the Alevel grades. DS certainly hasn't done EPQ or DoE or music exams beyond Grade 1, as he plays his sport to quite a high level and hasn't got time! But he did get offers in line with the published grades.

Howabout, it would be interesting to see the stats on private/state based on those taking A levels only. Surely someone somewhere works that out?!

Yes Howabout and I think on mn someone said the statistic for getting 3 As (ie the proportion of those getting those results who were at private school) was even higher than that - though sadly I can't remember the figure!

(Though I'm not sure you actually need two facilitating subjects for Oxbridge - though I totally accept that the vast majority of students there will have done at least two. What's the word for those subjects that aren't facilitating (because you don't need them in order to study the degree) but are reasonably highly regarded - like eg philosophy A level? I can't remember that either!)

bigtilly i think someone even roughly worked it out on mn in the past year or so - possibly on one of these threads! I'm not sure what search term would find it though.

Yeah, it's around 18% of students attend a private school at 16-18 level so the 7% figure is not relevant. And of students taking pure A levels, it'll be an even higher percentage.

Not as far as I know tapas. On some courses , you can gain entry directly into the second year coming from England (but not , as far as I can see) form Scotland with Advanced Highers, even though they are meant to be harder than A Levels. It's all a bit complicated for my head to understand!

Ps. Ds's non-selective independent school has 3 students with Oxbridge offers this year which is in line with their usual figures (out of cohorts of 50-60).

Finance application done! Final performance done. Just got to sign off his two other subjects and that's it! Huzzah!

Ofqal produces loads of data on performance across the different sectors.

www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-attainment-at-19-years

Those brackets were so in the wrong place...

Yeah, it's around 18% of students attend a private school at 16-18

So do a significant number of state educated students then go into private education for A levels?

That isn't the case round here. We have one of the best 6th form colleges in the country not too far from us, and many students who have been privately educated until GCSE go there for A levels. There are three reasons for this: It is outstanding and offers a better quality of education than the private 6th forms nearby, due to its size (over 2300 students) the college offers a wider range of subjects, and it is free because it is a state 6th form college. Parents don't see the point in paying for what they consider to be an inferior education at A level.

Won't that % change soon though now all students have to stay in education or training until 18? Surely that 18% is accounted for by the fact that those most likely to leave school at 16 are state school educated , leading to a change in the stats.

The staying in education age was raised to 18 four years ago.

Piggywaspushed I'm not sure how they work out entry tariffs it may be that the UCAS points count Advanced Highers plus any other Highers that were not superseded by the advanced Highers. DS is at St Andrews and his points on entry would be 3x 56 if he counted his AH only, 174, a bit low, but then 174+66 with two Highers is awful high so I'm not sure!
You can get straight into 2nd year with AHs but it's usually only Maths and science depts, although last time I said this on a thread someone corrected me with info about Scottish unis with 2nd year entry for humanities subjects with AHs but I can't remember which ones it was.

For Scottish Unis the high average tariff scores do come mainly from the Scottish students but their offer level is in line with that for English students. This is because although most offers are based on 5 Higher results achieved in 5th year, which roughly equates to 3 A levels, the majority of students stay on for 6th year and do lots of extras (Advanced Highers and / or more Highers).

Advanced highers in relevant subjects do give Scottish students the option to skip 1st year, especially in STEM subjects but relatively few take the option - partly driven by the fact that the difference in school entry age in Scotland means they are on average 6 months younger than their English cohort equivalent.

It was tapas but I have seen myself that more students are staying on year on year. Even so, you can still leave actual school at 16 and this will still mean the % of students in state vs private alters a bit, I think.

X-post wiggly