Article in the Telegraph. Which schools receive the most offers from RG universities.

[Tagcurious]

Very interesting article in today’s Telegraph. I think the article is alluding to the fact that state schools are doing well compared to private schools in terms of offers made.

I wonder why these statistics don’t account for disability?

@Tagcurious

I wonder why these statistics don’t account for disability?

The links I posted? The first one has stats by disability.

The big northern sixth forms should surely be sending lots of students to Oxbridge too?

Don't assume lots want to go. I grew up in a town in the north east and Oxford, Cambridge, London all seemed a very long way away, so I didn't apply, despite having the grades. Distance is a factor inany people's choices. Now I live in London, and it takes a very long time to get back to my hometown - too far for regular weekend visits. Many young people here in London who would be more interested in Durham and Edinburgh if they were closer.

The IFFS does research on salaries obtained by students from RG universities after graduation. They are higher then the non RG sector. They are pretty similar to several non RG such as Bath, Lancaster and a few more but it is not just about being a RG club. Some RG universities are not any better than the top of the non RG but the majority at the top such as Imperial and LSE are world leaders.

Hills Road Cambridge was in lots of lists and so were schools in Asia. Very much so for Imperial! Westminster appeared a lot too at the upper end of RG. Plenty of RG universities didn’t list a single private school in their lists. Places like Liverpool, Sheffield. Newcastle are very state dominated. The startling info was not about Eton (I would have guessed that) but about the hundreds and hundreds of students from Singapore and Chinese schools

Russell Group, such a successful marketing ploy. And they care so much about their students they overrecruit and leave them sitting on floor. Avoid!!

The startling info was not about Eton (I would have guessed that) but about the hundreds and hundreds of students from Singapore and Chinese schools

I don't think it is a surprise at all. We are very lucky in the UK to have a number of Universities with strong international reputations. And obviously the numbers are even higher if you include international students in British boarding schools and sixth form colleges.

Things that continually surprise me about MN are:

1. The focus on RG. The reputation of the course matters more. So Product Design at Northumbria, Art History at the Courtauld, etc.
2. The obsession with Oxbridge. Other Universities offer courses that can be just as strong, even stronger, and open the same doors.
3. The implication that "foreigners" are a bad thing. My own view is that the main reason behind big name schools achieving reduced numbers of Oxbridge places is competition from strong overseas students, rather than the use of contextualisation. I would predict that the sharper falls are in quantitative subjects and quasi vocational subjects like law, the subjects popular with students from Asia. DS was the only British student out of 40 on his Masters course, and is perfectly happy with his strong international network. DD, when studying engineering, had no complaints about being taught by some world class researchers and academics, even if none were British.
4. The state/private obsession. We paid because our local state schools struggle, and we could not play the religion card. If we had lived near PSC or had access to a good Grammar or Comp, we would not. Outcomes would have been similar. My observation is that the biggest single factor in children's outcomes is parental profession and attitude. No matter who was on the top table at Primary, London bankers children become well paid bankers, professionals' children become professionals, the children of creative types follow the same path, plumbers and electricians encouraged their children to take on apprenticeships. My DC seem destined for the public sector, like their parents, grandparents and greatgrandparents.

@enufforlrite I agree about distance, practicalities like this and the associated cost of travel is often not mentioned. My son's friend is a genius, strings of A stars and from a disadvantaged background. He comes from Yorkshire and didn't consider Oxbridge because of distance, parents don't have a car. He's at Newcastle.

I didn’t say I didn’t welcome these students. My surprise was that the overseas schools the DC went to were amongst the schools listed as sending the most students. They were not, by and large, British boarding schools. Maybe reading the article in the Telegraph would explain that if was about schools who sent the most students to RG universities. Nothing to do with saying anyone didn’t want overseas students.

@Needmoresleep agree with point 4 about what children end up doing, that's true for almost everyone my dc grew up with.

I don't agree with point 1, it depends. Course reputation might count for something specific or specialist. But I know for certain that some big employers don't look past the name of the university and RG equals a tick. They don't admit it of course.

TizerorFizz, that is not what I said. Large numbers of overseas students who end up in the UK have been to a relatively small number of private international schools. Their parents will always had their eye on an international tertiary education, for all sorts of reasons, and will have picked the schools most likely to deliver. A popular alternative option is to send DC to a UK boarding school. Westminster, say, has huge numbers of sixth form applicants from Asia, and is able to pick some very strong students. The "7% of British students attend private school" so only 7% of top University places should go to pupils from private schools does not add up.

Equally I was referring to MN attitudes, not to you. You are new to the board but there was certainly one regular poster, who used to make references to "the Chinese" in a way that certainly made me wince. My impression is the relatively high numbers of overseas students at some Universities (LSE, Imperial etc) are often seen by MN posters as a negative rather than a positive. For my Central London raised DC it was a positive, indeed the shock for DD was the lack of diversity at Bristol.

@TizerorFizz

I didn’t say I didn’t welcome these students. My surprise was that the overseas schools the DC went to were amongst the schools listed as sending the most students. They were not, by and large, British boarding schools. Maybe reading the article in the Telegraph would explain that if was about schools who sent the most students to RG universities. Nothing to do with saying anyone didn’t want overseas students.

Some of those overseas schools are huge - and elite.

I assume the telegraph piece is behind a paywall, but it sounds pretty meaningless without details on size of school. The raw data for Cambridge is easily accessible anyway from here:

www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/apply/statistics

In the 'Applications, Offers & Acceptances by UCAS Apply Centre' links.

The 'Undergraduate Admissions Statistics' are more interesting and meaningful (if you're interested in this sort of stuff) - applications and success rates by educational type, region etc. The success rate for overseas students is generally quite a bit lower than for 'home' students, for instance.

Shitegarden, we can agree to differ. I raised an eyebrow at an earlier poster saying "Places like Liverpool, Sheffield. Newcastle are very state dominated."

Observation again, but pupils from academic southern private schools seem very happy to study engineering at Sheffield, or vetmed at Liverpool. And Newcastle, second only to Bristol in its reputation as a party University, attracts trains full of affluent students from the SE. Perhaps it is that for some employment but not all, course reputation is more important than University reputation.

The Telegraph shows only state schools for the 3 universities mentioned, and lots of others actually! It’s nothing sinister! Maybe that’s a good thing as we want wider access? I agree that size of school would put the data into context. However as I’m one of very few who has read the article and clicked on every university listed, I am at least reporting accurately. If you want real nasty comments, try reading theTelegraph readers’ comments on the schools and universities. I can assure you, wincing is the least of the feelings you might endure!

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/10/15/revealed-schools-get-pupils-every-russell-group-university/
However you really need a percentage of the children in the sixth form who go to the best universities - ideally the top 10 universities rather than raw numbers and all RG ones (there was no RG when I went to university but still all knew which were the best ones)

For my Central London raised DC it was a positive, indeed the shock for DD was the lack of diversity at Bristol.

My NW raised DD likewise. On an open day to Bristol a few years ago we encountered precisely one student helper who appeared to be south-east Asian - he spoke in an impeccable English accent.

It was memorably exceptional re other unis.

@Needmoresleep
All the universities you mention are RG and are well know leaders in the furies you quote so of course they attract private school pupils. The article wasn’t about that!! It was about which schools sent the most pupils! The most! For a number of universities, these were exclusively state schools but that’s absolutely ok!! It is clear that some universities have a different profile but the article was clear in terms of its remit.

Sash!! Well known leaders in the disciplines you quote…. That should have read!

TizerorFizz, first, many people do not subscribe to the DT but do have exposure to the University sector and view points to add. And MN threads do meander. I was directly quoting another poster, which is allowed. And as Xenia suggests, raw numbers do not tell you much. Indeed RG does not tell you a lot either. Liverpool, say, is popular with local pupils so can be expected to take a larger number from certain local schools.

Errol, it is very strange isn't it.

Thing is, it doesn’t really matter which is the ‘best’ uni in terms of course for most people (unless they are going to continue in a specific subject).

What matters is what employers believe to be the best. And for that, you are talking the big names - in other words, RG.

The article was flawed. Clearly a bias towards super large schools! However it also suited the DT agenda of allowing comments to be very anti foreigner. That’s the worst part of the article and should be countered. Not anything MN goes off on! It’s missing the point really.

My take on it was that the article was anti foreign and state schools.

I don’t really see it as anti state schools. So many universities only listed state schools as their largest schools for recruitment. Few people were arguing against that!

I could be wrong but I felt it was a message to parents that universities could be nudging private school students out.

Except that at the top universities this wasn’t the case really. A couple of big name private schools were there!

@TizerorFizz Yes, which I have referred to in an earlier post. The responses were, ‘well what do except and northern kids don’t want to travel down south.