Moving to state sixth form the get into Oxbridge

[shreddies]

My cousin is planning to move her dds from private to state school for sixth form because she feels it will give them a better chance of getting into Oxbridge. She and her husband both went and this is very important to them.

One of the schools she is looking at has a pretty good sixth form but is a big mixed comprehensive with poor gcse results. It is on Bristol's list of aspiring schools where contextual offers are made, I assume Oxford and Cambridge use the same/similar data.

www.bristol.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/entry-requirements-qualifications/contextual-offers/

Leaving aside what I personally think of this, is this likely to be successful?

I can't imagine universities have time to dig down and spot that the high gcse grades come from an expensive private school, so I suspect they will be taken at face value?

As someone who’s spent their career in state schools teaching genuinely disadvantaged kids, this is grim. Your cousin is a scumbag @shreddies, you can tell her that from me.

Obviously the person in this case has a particular agenda, which I don't support and which doesn't look like it will be successful anyway. However, I don't see that moving from private to state at 16 is necessarily all about playing the system.

Our children went to state primary school and then private at 11 because we weren't happy with the local state options. There is a good sixth form college locally though and we thought about sending the children there at 16, not to help with university admissions but because we thought it was good college. We kept them where they were in the end, because we decided that moving them would be too disruptive, but I'd have been very cross if we'd wanted a place and been denied just because they had been at a private school for 5 years, as @Twizbe describes. There are other 6th form colleges but this one was by far the nearest, and it was the only one accessible by public transport. At the time no local state schools had 6th forms, so options would have been very limited.

@DeclareThePenniesOnYourEyes

As someone who’s spent their career in state schools teaching genuinely disadvantaged kids, this is grim. Your cousin is a scumbag *@shreddies*, you can tell her that from me.

It's indefensible isn't it. Makes me want to hurl.

I am glad we're not seeing them this Christmas. Btw she didn't tell me, someone else on the family did.

The two previous posters are correct in my experience. Students often move from my DC's indie school to local state sixth forms for either a) financial reasons b) and the most common reason, a greater range of A level subjects (and BTECs) on offer or c) by age 16 the DC themselves sometimes want greater freedoms and no Saturday school etc in a College environment. All of that is perfectly valid but absolutely will not give them a better chance at Oxbridge entry.

And yes my DC would score well in the Oxford contextual measure in relation to GCSE's having strong GCSE's from a non selective Indie school low down in the league tables ie performance was top of the cohort even though privately educated.

The move suggested by the OP's cousin is completely uninformed whatever the moral questions.

Deprivation flags are based on home postcode.

Contextual GCSE results are based on the school at which GCSEs were undertaken.

State sixth forms commonly write in their reference that "X joined us in Year 12 from Y school, which is a high-performing independent school". They don't need to do this as the information is already included on the UCAS form.

Admissions tutors weren't born yesterday.

Even putting aside the moral element, I can't see any obvious advantage to moving a child from independent to state sector post-GCSE in terms of Oxbridge admissions.

~An Oxbridge admissions tutor.

Playing devils advocate, maybe that's what the parents have told people, but the reality is they can no longer afford the fees and don't want to admit that?

Playing devils advocate, maybe that's what the parents have told people, but the reality is they can no longer afford the fees and don't want to admit that?
Actually, I wondered that. They can't be stupid, and if they were that desperate for their children to go to Oxford, they must have looked into the rules pretty rigorously, and realised there was no point, surely.

@titchy

Playing devils advocate, maybe that's what the parents have told people, but the reality is they can no longer afford the fees and don't want to admit that?

Definitely not to do with money. I must admit I had thought it might work.

[quote Isabellabasil]www.varsity.co.uk/news/19783[/quote]
And there is this. What do others make of it?

That said, it might be a great life experience for your niece to go to a state 6th form, will widen her outlook on the world etc so I'd let them crack on.

Absolutely. They sound like horrible, controlling parents so this might be the making of her.

Yup. DS attended Cambridge and struggled to find other comprehensive students. Loads of grammar students and of course private. But few like him, which saddened and maddened him. He went to a crappy comp but had two university educated parents, one of whom went to Oxford. So he had an advantage.

I went to Cambridge from a disadvantaged background and this boils my blood.

Admissions tutors are not stupid - I had no preparation whatsoever and they saw something in me, so I’m pretty sure they’ll be wise to who’s gaming the system.

As for these god-awful parents, I hope their kids refuse to apply and disappoint them!

www.varsity.co.uk/news/19783
And there is this. What do others make of it?

It's really not surprising that the most successful applicants for Oxbridge are bright pupils who've had a good, challenging education. So applicants from grammar schools and selective independents are likely to do well!

@blubells

*www.varsity.co.uk/news/19783 And there is this. What do others make of it?*

It's really not surprising that the most successful applicants for Oxbridge are bright pupils who've had a good, challenging education. So applicants from grammar schools and selective independents are likely to do well!

Except there are vast swathes of the country that don't do grammar, and even caster swathes where most of the population can't afford to send their bright offspring to a selection fee paying school.

Are you sure that's the only reason she's sending her DC to state sixth form? If so, she is taking a huge risk. It is unlikely to increase their chances of Oxbridge - tutors aren't idiots. They can see what school the candidates went to up to GCSE.

However, maybe this sixth form is very good? I was lucky to go to one of the best state sixth forms in the country 20 years ago. Huge numbers of children moved from private schools at 16 to go to the sixth form because it had a fantastic reputation and top calibre teachers. The size of the sixth form (>1000 students per year) meant that teaching and facilities were superior to what many private school sixth forms can offer.

Perhaps your SIL is as silly as you make out, but there are lots of reasons why state sixth form after private school can be an excellent idea. Saving money is one element, but you can get so much from a good state sixth form.

Also, everyone knows Oxbridge is a lottery. For every student who gets a place, there are many more who would have equally deserved a place there. To send children to a particular school - state or private - purely for Oxbridge chances is weird.

Moving to a state 6th form will not get the DC a contextual offer. It may get her outside of the informal cap on privately educated students.
Oxbridge is so difficult to get into that it wouldn’t make sense to base such a big decision on it alone.
I can imagine parents starting to decide that private school is a perverse waste of money if they believe it will make getting into good unis more difficult.

@Moonlaserbearwolf
It’s not entirely a lottery. Tests and information about candidates supports entrance. It’s not just about A levels. You also get interviewed. I agree some decisions are very difficult though.

Private education is about so much more than university destination. Trying to game the system is just stupid. Especially if the teaching ends up being poor! Why risk it? And there are loads of brilliant universities that are not Oxbridge that privately educated young people aspire to without any barrier. What pressure this young person must be under. What stupid parents!

I also agree it’s not a lottery. For starters, some of the more niche subjects only have 2 or 3 applicants per place. I wish the lottery had those odds

Ha! Me too!

[quote Doubleraspberry]This explains the factors that Oxford look for when considering contextual offers. You'll see the results and FSM eligibility levels in the GCSE school are up front, as is the home postcode.

www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/applying-to-oxford/decisions/contextual-data[/quote]
I guess they'd be better off going private until 2 months before the end of year 11 then transferring to a failing state school to sit GCSEs, then.

Honestly, what the hell is wrong with these people? If you've had all of the advantages of private school and you're not smart enough to then get to Oxbridge without underhand gaming of the system then you don't belong there.

Regardless of school, thelikeliestoutcome for any oxbridge applicant is that they'll be going somewhere else.

Very wise reminder there from ErrolTheDragon which should be heeded by every applicant and their parents. I hope this family doesn't lose sight of the bigger picture.

@TooManyGiraffes
What is wrong with them is that they went to Oxford and clearly are worried their DC won’t get there! Someone needs to bang their heads together! Is this what Oxford does to its alumni? (tongue in cheek! I know Oxford grads who are not like this.) Seriously though, no one I know has put this pressure on DC like this. Why is it so important to follow in parents’ footsteps? Why is this so important?

I know a number of families - generally with a teacher in the household - who move DC into a comprehensive school at 13 and use the money saved from school fees to tutor the hell out of them - quite a few have gone on to Oxbridge