The "Durham difference" - huge bias towards Private schools

[mummymeister]

I have just been to the open day at Durham Uni with one of my DC. I have other children in Uni and at various stages of education but have never felt so incredibly angry before.

My DC wants to study a subject in the Classics department. There was a last minute room change which meant we missed a talk and had 50 minutes to kill so I looked at some stats and wished I hadnt!

66% of the 100 students taken by the Classics department come from Private education. In the "real world" only 6% of students are privately educated.

When I challenged the admissions officer about this massive bias against state pupils she just ummed and erred with no real idea of a plan but kept saying that they were "working on trying to improve this"! Sorry but this is just not good enough imo. And to make it even worse this year the figure has gone up by nearly 2% so clearly what they have been doing has made stuff all difference.

They seem to put great store on reading all applications and personal statements so this is clearly where something needs to be done. I know many parents of children in private schools so I know how much time, effort and money is spent on making sure that the personal statement is perfect. No such help at our state school.

My DC will meet the predicted grades but honestly am just not sure I want them to be somewhere so incredibly elitist. It feels like a waste of a choice to me.

I guess I thought we were moving towards a level playing field and that the school you went to didnt really matter but clearly at Durham it does. I cant be the only parent that feels like this can I? I am unsure what to do next, whether to write in and express these feelings again or just to accept that life isnt fair.

We had a parent in the Maths subject talk whose daughter was at an independent. She was most put out when she found out that "her daughter's" place may be given to a state school student who, horrifically, may have lower grades than her daughter! So it works both ways!

The point was that places are allocated proportionally to the number of applicants in each sector. So if 80% of applicants are from state schools, the most suitable 80% of state school applicants get an offer. If 20% of applicants are independent, the most suitable 20% of independent applicants get an offer. That means that the "bottom end" of the 80% state school applicants may not be as suitable (i.e. gradewise, personal statement wise) as the independent students who didn't make the "top 20%". It's effectively two lists, one for state, one for independent.

That sounds like a fair system to me. Offers based on the number of applicants of each sector. It's crazy to compare offers with the general population - it's a mismatch - it can only be a valid comparison if it's offers against applicants. The Uni has no control over external factors!

It's effectively two lists, one for state, one for independent.

Yes, that seems fair, although in an ideal world the university would make offers to the most suited students regardless of previous schooling.

As a state comprehensive educated, child of a redundant miner from the north east, Durham was my dream in the early1990's

I had 2 A's and a 2 C's. Rejected without even an interview.

Yes, that seems fair, although in an ideal world the university would make offers to the most suited students regardless of previous schooling.

Just imagine the howls of protest when it turned out that proportionally more independent school students were being given offers - they're bad enough when it's proportional!

I went to Open days at Oxford and Cambridge this year. At both they said that exams results were taken in the context of your school. So if you went to Eton they don't give a stuff about your 10As (one admissions officer pretty much said that) but if you went to a comp in a really run down area where no one stays on for sixth form and very few people get good GCSEs then your three relevant As in suitable subjects will be noted. I think that's fair. And my DC go to a high performing independent school.

I don't completely buy that growlingbear.

Since the top 30% of Eton goes to Oxford/ Cambridge on an annual basis.

Bollocks they said that.

They probably give contextual offers like other unis.

Ex teacher here.

The majority of state schools dont have Classics as a taught subject.

I went to private school where I got my Latin GCSE. They had a Classics department too. I had some short spells in state schools too, as a pupil, and none of them had Classics departments.

As a teacher, I saw none. All state school teaching. No classics.

I think with alot of funding cuts and budgets, Classics is not seen as essential or important (much like my own subjects 🙄) so they're usually the first ones to go.

I don't know if anyone is interested, but there is another discussion on mumsnet about the decline in take up of some A level subjects:

Here

Sorry, but direct your ire at the right target.

It’s a classics course, how many of your local secondary’s are offering Latin and Greek civ? Of course it’s going to skew to private schools.

@mummymeister

And thank god they aren’t doing maths, because mum isn’t going to be a lot of help with statistical analysis based on your responses.

Actually what they said at Oxford was that contextualised gcses together with their own aptitude tests were scored and then pupils were invited for interview. So there is a lot placed on their own aptitude tests. They don't write off 10 A*s/9s/8s at high performing schools but they will look at those with decent grades at a low performing school in context. However it comes down to aptitude tests too.

If you don't do gcses/igces or IB the History department said the decision as to whether you got called for interview would be 100% based on HAT.

@goodbyestranger - it's what they said. There was a very overt message form Oxford throughout the Open Day in the subjects we visited that they were trying to even out the bias against state schools.

Actually what they said at Oxford - this makes it sound like there was one sole statement by the university.

In fact there are different admissions officer for different subjects in different colleges and we attended several for various subjects and at various colleges so we got a very wide overview of the admissions procedure. What I said about Eton was precisely what one tutor said to us. He was the subject head at one of the colleges with the highest state school intake. He was pretty outspoken about not wanting Etonians.

growlingbear I know exactly what Oxford means when it talks about contextualisation and there's still going to be room for the brightest Etonians. Which is as it should be. The question is whether there should be room for the brightest Etonians and then some, which has been the position for as long as anyone can remember. Your post doesn't convey Oxford's position accurately. You might well have chanced upon a fervently anti Etonian tutor but he was either not speaking for the whole university and let his fervour get the better of him in public, or you've misunderstood exactly what it was he was saying. Diversity doesn't involve the wholesale banning of Etonians from Oxford.

Not sure why this has morphed into an Oxbridge thread .

I suspect it has gone off at a tangent as it was being touted as where Ocxbridge rejects go!

Eeek typo! Oxbridge!

Durham do give lots of stats on their website which are helpful www.dur.ac.uk/student.registry/statistics/summary/1.11school/

I think I read an article stating that the split between private/state children applying to ALL Universities was 10/90%, although given that the private schools tend to be selective you would expect more applications from these DC to the top Uni's.

I remember the "waiting to hear" from Durham post earlier this year ...worth reading.

I think I read an article stating that the split between private/state children applying to ALL Universities was 10/90%, although given that the private schools tend to be selective you would expect more applications from these DC to the top Uni's.

Given that the percentage private in sixth form (which is what's relevant for the stats) is ~14% that doesn't sound right.

I’d consider the OP’s perception of ‘ massive bias ‘ against state school pupils is merely a reflection of the paucity of classics coverage in the state sector .

Hmmm - just at a peak at National Statistics and unless I'm reading them wrong it is roughly a 9/91% split. www.hesa.ac.uk/news/17-01-2019/sb252-higher-education-student-statistics/numbers

The large number of 'unknown or not applicable school type' makes those data fairly useless tbh.

The large number of 'unknown or not applicable school type' makes those data fairly useless tbh.

They'll be students who have been working for a few years. Not everyone who starts at university goes straight from school or college....