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.

The gap between 14-18% and 66% is still significant in my view.

Not when you take subject into account. The admissions tutor may not have had, or been prepared to reveal, the applicant data but I'd still bet they have far more from private that state. Hardly their fault, and certainly not worth having a go at the tutor.

It is fairly well known that Durham and Bristol are full of privately educated Oxbridge rejects.

I went to Cambridge and school wanted my brother to apply to Oxbridge as well. (He’s much cleverer than me.) He refused claiming that Oxbridge was “full of posh people”.

Got to Bristol, roommate was a privately educated and an Oxbridge reject. Of the 12 of them on his corridor 9 were privately educated and 7 were Oxbridge rejects.

I was very very impressive and only sniggered the teeniest tiniest bit when he told me!

Having said that the classics department of any university is obviously going to be full of private school students because it is classics! Shockingly the lacrosse team is also pretty full of private school kids too. A very quick google gives overall percentages of about 60-something percent state. (With the remaining 30-odd made up of private and non U.K. presumably.)

As someone who has done lots and lots of “Target Schools” talks for Cambridge and whose husband (also state school and Cambridge - in his case also “first from school”) once worked on “widening access” for the university I can say with quite a lot of certainty that the big thing that stops more people going to Oxbridge (plus presumably Durham, Bristol etc) from state schools is applications. People use ridiculous, out of date stereotypes and think it isn’t for them.

Students from state schools and students from private schools are very very similar. They want to get laid, get drunk and pass their degree. Generally in that order of importance.

shouldnt the uni be doing more/ different things to make that less so or should it just be down to the schools system.

They will be, but there will still be subject bias simply because of what gets taught at schools. I suspect the figures applying for Ancient History would be something like 90% private, in which case 67% on course is pretty damn good.

I think for Classics it more to do with what schools offer that leads you to classics. Are the statistics the same for other departments?

I went to Durham with non-standard qualifications and never left that I didn't fit in.

And why is it so bad that Durham (and Bristol) are back-up choices for Oxbridge? Realistically, the pool of straight A applicants applying to those 4 universities will be by and large aiming for Oxbridge. Those two institutions were my back ups for Oxford which I didn’t make and I was very happy to have offers from Bristol and Durham.

What would you suggest Durham could do about it? I don't know what their general outreach is like, although I suspect it could always be improved; but realistically they can't be held entirely responsible for schools not offering the options to pupils aged 14.

Sorry - forgot to add though that widening access is bloody hard. You can spends weeks, months, talking to schools, offering targeted summer schools, getting students to go into schools.

But then someone goes on a forum with a load of wrong and mis-leading statistics and says “Durham / Cambridge / wherever is full of posh people” and 50 people read it and decide that it isn’t suitable for their child and so encourage them elsewhere.

Applying to Oxbridge as a comprehensive student takes a certain level of “fuck you” grit. Not because the university ever says anything to imply you shouldn’t be there but because every bugger you meet has a view. And surprisingly few of them are “Cambridge - oh how lovely.”

Mummyoftwoyoungkids - the stats are on their website so not ones I have made up and certainly not misleading. they are what they are.

I havent anywhere on here said that all private school educated pupils are "posh". They arent. Someone earlier posted about this.

Would there be different views if this was about race or sexuality or some other measure rather than being privately educated?

my point is that there is clearly a bias here. And that is something that I would have thought plenty of people would be concerned about.

CatherineMaitland - one of the Durham students on the bus was an ambassador and going into schools in St Albans. Which ones I asked - the private ones and none of the state ones. so yes there are things that the Uni could do to redress the balance and perhaps its around outreach but also imo its about the personal statement.

I'm nowhere near this stage, but it's an interesting and depressing read - I've realised we have 2 secondary schools in our town, neither offers Latin or Greek, both only allow one language to be studied.

We do have a couple of private schools in the area, both offer a much better range of subjects, particularly languages, but both are out of our price range by a long long way.

The truth seems to be, it's not a university's fault if the state sector limits students.

But you used the Durham Classics figure and then compared it to the overall privately educated figure.

You didn’t use the sixth form privately educated figure.

You didn’t use the “studying a classics subject at A level” privately educated figure.

You didn’t use “get 3 As at A level so suitable for Durham” privately educated figure.

I don’t think you did it on purpose but your statistics were very misleading and comments like yours - and your actual phrase was “My DC will meet the predicted grades but honestly am just not sure I want them to be somewhere so incredibly elitist.“ - is incredibly damaging to access.

"Secondly, the often-quoted 6-7% figure for students educated in private schools is misleading"

It's also misleading because that 7% figure refers to all ages. If you look at just 6th Form, it's more like 20% (smaller cohort because of leavers, more into schools and private colleges)

For Classics, the main counfounder has to be how few state schools offer Latin, Greek or Class Civ

Durham has outreach programmes in all of the local state schools - only one of which offers any ‘classics’ subjects at gcse or a level. In the wider county I can’t think of any that I go into that offer classics or ancient history. It just wouldn’t be something that many state school students want to apply for because they will go for the subjects they have experienced.

I went to Durham, from a state school, and loved my four years there. Most of my friends were privately educated and I’m still friends with many of them now, I’m married to one of them, as are 70% of Durham graduates according to the statistics.

I used to work in widening participation (probably something different now) when I was a student and we definitely didn't get to go to any private schools! We went to former mining villages mostly which were on the university's doorstep. We also did summer schoolS

My DD did Latin GCSE at her failing church high school but couldn’t find anywhere in our town to do A level Latin.

She dithered about doing Classics or Classical studies at uni; would’ve liked a punt at Oxbridge but her college deemed her straight As and handful of A*s at GCSE not good enough to support an application, special measures high school notwithstanding.

Anyhow, she’s gone for a similar subject and her course is very much full of poshos. She’s gone to Ireland though where there are no personal statements and admissions are strictly on results. However, it has to be said that this system has advantages for kids who went to better schools with there being no contextual offers.

@OrdinarySnowflake pleas don't fret about it. You can see from this thread a range of views on the university. It's a personal choice. In my case for my DC it's not for them.

my point is that there is clearly a bias here.

No. There isn't CLEARLY bias at all - you ARE misleading people as mumtotwokids has spelt out. You are I'm sorry to say part of the problem.

Unless you know how many state vs private school applicants they had AND the offer rates of both you cannot say there is bias at all.

And why is it so bad that Durham (and Bristol) are back-up choices for Oxbridge? Realistically, the pool of straight A applicants applying to those 4 universities will be by and large aiming for Oxbridge. Those two institutions were my back ups for Oxford which I didn’t make and I was very happy to have offers from Bristol and Durham.

As a working class yorkshire lass who graduated Durham in 2007 I never understood how being an "Oxford Reject" was an insult.

And although I did at times feel slightly out of place (I couldn't just ask my parents for money for instance, I actually got a job) I never felt like I didn't belong. The weirdest thing was I left with a slightly southern twang because despite going to Uni farther north than where I was from, I was surrounded by very well spoken southerners (and quite a few from Manchester, presumably from the grammar areas???) Very strange.

I went to Durham and everything bad you've read about it here was true in my experience.

One poor girl I knew dropped out because she felt so looked down on. She was at Castle college. Really bright, I felt so sorry for her. I lived for the holidays when I got to hang out with my normal friends. It was all snobs and dope-smoking pseudo hippies who - I'm not even joking - were later given jobs in the City

titchy - I spoke to the departmental admissions tutor. she admitted that the number of state vs private was not what they felt to be acceptable. she apologised for it and said that the department were "taking steps" to address it.

I believe what she said, why cant you?

I am not "part of the problem" people with their heads in the sand who believe everything is equal are the problem because they wont try and do something about it. I dont know, perhaps the fact that I spoke up yesterday might mean that someone in the department does consider what I said. I am not so arrogant to believe that my view is more important than anyone elses so it probably wont. but maybe if the feedback forms reflect the comments I was hearing then they will have to take a harder look at this.

fotheringhay

Thanks for making me feel old: in my days at Durham, Castle was all-male!

And what would you say if you found out that they actually offered a higher percentage of places to state students in relation to qualified applicants?

Almost 20% of 18 year olds were educated in the private sector.

47% of private school candidates get a grade A or A*. 27% of all candidates do (so fewer than 27% of state school students.) Most of the Latin and Greek candidates are from the private sector. Most of the appropriately qualified students will be from the private sector.

I'm not saying these are good stats, I'm saying it's not a University's fault.

For 33% of the successful Durham applicants to be from the state sector suggests they are already using some positive discrimination.

We were at Durham on Monday , I should say that I went to Durham as did my dh and I was rather surprised to find myself there as dc had always said there was no way 😮.dc is privately educated but not at a ‘posh school’. He also has lots of state educated friends and relatives and could not care less about what school you went to .

The thing that annoys me about the OP is that she is exactly why the independent school bias persists . If dc like hers do not apply then the dept will continue to be skewed, to not apply through some sort of inverted snobbery is ridiculous and short sighted.

I did cringe though in the Durham difference talk, why oh why did they let Collingwood dominate the college talk with their ‘in jokes’ and mutual back slapping.

The embarrassment of riches at one college is far more concerning and should not have been allowed to happen in my opinion . The contrast between the facilities at Collingwood ( which in my opinion were almost embarrassingly ostentatious ) and those of the other colleges means that students allocated there will have a completely different experience to those allocated for example to St Johns or Cuths . It was, as dc concluded, like a holiday camp, in what world is it appropriate to spend over £1m on a student bar or £3m on a gym and dance suite whatever wishes the donor expresses. Interestingly it was the only college tour where they derided other colleges as well.

Dc loved the subject talk , more academic and focused than some others we have been to , it’s a pity the questions were dominated by parents 🙁

I’ve been trying to do something about it since 1998! The problem (at least for Cambridge which I know about) is not with admissions departments. The problem is with applications.

Brilliant state school pupils who are exactly what Cambridge is looking for and would do amazingly there do not apply. Because they read sentences such as this:-

“My DC will meet the predicted grades but honestly am just not sure I want them to be somewhere so incredibly elitist.”

I have been that child. I know what it is like to be discouraged from applying. Luckily I’m a contrary and stubborn little madam (with very supportive parents) so I applied anyway.

The work that Durham will be doing will be going into schools to try and encourage applications. If the admissions department was biased it would be easy to fix. It’s the work of an afternoon to say “oi - Campbell-black - stop only letting people in who go to Eton!” It is a lot harder to persuade someone whose parents didn’t go to university, who doesn’t know anyone who went to Cambridge to apply.

OP, I have just read this thread with interest, as my privately-educated Ds has just finished his first year studying Classics at Durham.

Don't think a single person on here has suggested that they believe the system is 'equal' as you put it. They have put forward many reasons why they think the intake is so unbalanced, all of which seem to me to be compelling.. In terms of fairness the only statistic which is really significant is looking at and comparing the number of applicants versus acceptance rates from the two sectors.

Any university classics department wants their subject to be taught widely in schools, and for students to continue studying the subject at degree level - preferably at their university. As PPs have pointed out, Classics tend not to be because, like modern languages, they are hard subjects, and at GCSE level require a huge amount of rote learning to do well. It is ridiculous to expect university departments to remedy this problem, and they are not going to clear out students from private schools so that students from state schools won't feel uncomfortable.

We don’t have to do everything our kids ask us to, you know. But you seem determined not to review your ideas on anything. Your business but yours is not an example I’ll hurry to follow I’m afraid.