To think universities should state separate entry criteria for Indies?

[Wacamole]

DD who is on track for 3A*s at A’level, thought she’d give Oxbridge a go after being encouraged by her teachers. All very excited, doing super curriculars etc. Only just been told she doesn’t meet minimum entry criteria that would be expected from an Indy, which is straight 9s. She doesn’t have straight 9s, she has straight 8s (couple of nines), not only that, the course she wanted to apply for at Cambridge doesn’t require Maths at all, but school has advised they won’t even look at her if she doesn’t do Maths AND Further Maths. She is doing neither. Apparently an EPQ is also mandatory even though none of this is mentioned on Cambridge website.

All this second guessing, reading between the lines has been really confusing.
I have no issue with universities asking for higher entry criteria for students from indies for obvious reasons but wish they would be more transparent and state this on their ‘Entry requirements’ same way they state contextual offers?

@goodbyestranger I've never posted where I work. Only a locality where I live. Very different things. And I can tell you've never driven a school minibus 😂.

You don't weekly commute and therefore your school won't be too far from where you live, seems a safe assumption.

I haven't driven the school minibus no; I've been a passenger often enough. The speed and road conditions tend not to vary according to which seat you're in. Some would say you're a bit of a drama llama mumsneedwine!

This is becoming very philosophical in a sense...that is why it is so interesting......

That wasn't the royal "we". Everyone in our house, kids included see a grade 6 as the minimum standard. I did also clearly state earlier that's for a child without PP/SEN, which they are not.

@mumsneedwine
You will usually find the web designers can pack the boxes. Possibly not vice versa. The engineers could build the roads and in fact go out on site to supervise. Also, those who create vaccines could actually give them. If no one had a higher level of education, there would be no jobs for millions of others. What use would a health service be with cleaners but no doctors? However, we need everyone to work together. And value each other.

That wasn't the royal "we". Everyone in our house, kids included see a grade 6 as the minimum standard.

And that's totally fair enough in your house because that's obviously a standard that your children are capable of. My dd sees 9 as a minimum standard, but that doesn't mean that everyone should expect to attain that.

For some kids - including many without SEN - 4s and 5s will be the result of really hard work and consistent effort. Their achievements are no less worthy if they have had to work equally hard for them.

I'm totally with @mumsneedwine. People should not be defined by their academic achievements and their value shouldn't be measured according to them. There is so much more to life than exams. I'm happy that my dd can achieve top grades, but I care far more about what kind of person she is, the quality of her relationships and her attitude towards life in general. I'm also very grateful for what she has learned from her comprehensive school about valuing people's different talents and strengths equally. Academic success offers no guarantee of being happy or a decent person.

I have to say I find the comments about monkeys and 6s highly offensive. I have a wonderful sparky DD who got mainly s and 6s in her GCSEs. SHe now has a full scholarship to the Royal College of Music next year which is n doubt better than her sister with a string of 8s and 9s will get next year even if she did get an Oxbridge offer.

I also know several people with straight 9s who struggle to circumnavigate the London transport system which both of mine were able to do at 10. So some monkeys still need training......

Good for your dd, @Londonmummy66. A full scholarship is certainly not to be sniffed at!

@AlexaShutUp @Londonmummy66 some monkeys definitely need training, or they might become drama llamas 😂😂😂.

@Londonmummy66 and a RCM scholarship is amazing. She must be so talented and have worked so hard to get that. It's a real shame some people only value academic achievement and can't see that others bring as much value to society. Kindness is something some people really need training to achieve.

@MarchingFrogs

I agree and in theory course selection should be based on the course itself not the institution.

However that is making the assumption that employers and society in general view all institutions as equivalent and there's the rub.

It would be common knowledge that at least currently Oxbridge degrees 'open doo rs' and many of our elites are made up of these university graduates. (Look at Sutton reports into this). We are therefore in a situation where some (not all) ambitious pupils would look at the Oxbridge label first and the course second.

There are interesting questions raised about the presence (and defi nition) of elite universities and whether their teaching style should be emulated elsewhere. For instance should other universities be given the resources to allow one to one tutorials (after all everyone pays the same 9K)?

@mids2019 what is ambition though. To be a top politician ? Or banker or lawyer ? Or is it to be a great artist, amazing musician, talented architect, AI whizz kid, sports physio. None of which an Oxbridge degree would help achieve. It's a very narrow view that success is measured by cash and perceived prestige in a few careers. Success to a lot of people is to have a satisfying career with time for family and friends.
And not everyone wants the tutor way of teaching. That's why they don't apply to Oxbridge.

I'm a long way from thinking that more basic jobs matter more than more expert ones. I also recognise that at times, the sentimental applauding of certain basic jobs is nothing more than a handy mechanism for keeping women/the lower classes firmly in their place - 'let us Oxbridge graduates get on with designing the robots. You wonderful people who empty the bins, sweep the roads, care for the elderly, are just so amazing - heroes!'

But....what do you think you should do - really, honestly - if you steadily come to realise that your child is simply not capable of getting more than a 3, 4 or 5 at GCSEs? How can you possibly stop loving them, valuing them, understanding the place they occupy in the world? If I felt that a '6 was a bare minimum', then wouldn't life, for both me and my child forever more, be one big swamp of disappointment?

'Basic' jobs don't matter more, they matter as much as any other. People may not have fully valued supermarket workers before COVID but I bet they were grateful that they went to work everyday to keep food on the shelves. Not everyone wants to be a lawyer or banker or have a job requiring a degree. The man who fitted my double glazing left school at 15 with no qualifications as he's severely dyslexic- he can't read. But he has just bought himself a £1 million + house in cash. Achieved through hard work and word of mouth recommendations. Has he succeeded ? In my eyes more so than someone who drifted through school not having to try.

@mumneedswine

That is quite a deep question - what is ambition.

I agree there are a huge range of ambitions that people may have and it will always be thus.

I agree whole heartedly that career should not be the only ambition in life.

I think one thing about Oxbridge is the fact that elite professions seem to pick disproportionately from these pools of graduates and hence it's important from a societal perspective about the make up of student bodies.

One interesting question - are their children whose academic ability interested than their career ambition? For instance if someone who has always say wanted to become a primary school teacher and gains Oxbridge entry will career ambitions change?

By the way that is no slight to primary school teachers and I am sure Oxbridge grads would have the requisite skills for the job (or is this an element of snobbery in my part?)

I suppose the contentious question why bother applying to an elite university of your career ambitions can be satisfied elsewhere (despite being very intelligent?)

ability is greater than

@mids2019 you might just want to go to Oxbridge because you like the course, the tutor style and the pretty buildings. And then choose to become a teacher because that's your passion. It's possible to want to go there and not be want to run the country I believe 😊. My DDs friend is doing languages at Oxford and has just applied for her PGCE as wants to teach. I know one very happy ex Oxford PPE graduate who became a farmer and another who runs a vineyard in France (lucky thing). And another who is Ambassador to a country in Middle East. They are all still friends after 35 years of very differing life choices.

By the way that is no slight to primary school teachers and I am sure Oxbridge grads would have the requisite skills for the job.

Um, I'm not - I mean, they might, anyway, but not necessarily; being academically very able in itself doesn't necessarily equate with being a good teacher but I'm willing to be guided to the bit in the description of, say, the Land Economy degree at Cambridge, or Biochemistry ( Molecular and Cellular) at Oxford where it states that the teaching of the skills needed for primary teaching are an integral part of the course.

I also recognise that at times, the sentimental applauding of certain basic jobs is nothing more than a handy mechanism for keeping women/the lower classes firmly in their place - 'let us Oxbridge graduates get on with designing the robots. You wonderful people who empty the bins, sweep the roads, care for the elderly, are just so amazing - heroes!'

Yes absolutely. It's also used as a vehicle to show other people how lovely and nice and kind the sentimental applauder is, which can be enormously tedious. My (slightly eccentric Polish) father always wrapped all our rubbish up in newspaper in the manner of fish and chips so that the bin men with their horrible work conditions wouldn't have smelly rubbish to handle from our house at least. Actions and all that.

There are interesting questions raised about the presence (and defi nition) of elite universities and whether their teaching style should be emulated elsewhere. For instance should other universities be given the resources to allow one to one tutorials (after all everyone pays the same 9K)?

It costs far more than £9250 annually to educate a student at Oxbridge, though I agree that some other universities seem to represent incredibly poor value for money.

The drama llama comment was only said lightly mumsneedwine, but google tells me a bit over an hour one way and just a bit more the other, so morphing that into twice or three times the journey time does seem excessive. So I wonder if your other comments are a little ott sometimes as well. Anyhow, not serious.

And she's off, it's only 9am 😂😂

@cumbersome - really interesting and diverse life choices.

Does the farming/vineyard careers suggest family wealth to own the farm/vinyard?

Passion is a wonderful thing and teaching can be a great use of that passion.

I wonder if there are differences in background between the ambassador and teacher though. Is it more likely that those from less wealthy families enter teaching to give back to communities?

Completely agree MarchingFrogs. Being academically able certainly doesn't of itself indicate suitability for teaching. On the other hand, where able pupils need stretching to reach their proper potential, having a teacher who is significantly less able than the top band of students can lead to a brick wall for those students when they ask questions beyond the syllabus which the teacher simply doesn't have the ability to engage with or answer. It happens a lot. A real shame. It can particularly be a problem in shortage subjects such as the Physics and Chemistry.

People going into teaching is an indicator of a dire graduate job market too mids2019.

I was going to say the sciences but then Biology hasn't been a shortage subject in the same way. So the.

@mids2019 the Ambassador came from an inner city comp in Birmingham, vineyard man from some grammar school up North. Farmers parents were a teacher and a plumber. He became an accountant after Uni, hated it but earned a fortune and used that money to buy his farm. He's done really well and now runs a farm shop and cafe, has cows, sheep and some crops. And is the happiest person I know, covered in poop. One of his kids has gone to Oxford and the other is becoming a nurse.
Think background definitely comes into it as well as parental expectation. Hard to follow your dream as a penniless artist if you are expected to become a lawyer 🤷‍♀️

Interestingly, a significant number of my lawyer friends used their ill gotten gains in the City to fund arty or literary ventures. Money can buy considerable freedom.