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?

DD goes to a crappy comp and wants to apply to Cambridge, neither me nor OH went to uni. She has applied for a scheme to help less advantaged students, where she gets to go and stay at Cambridge uni and attend lectures etc. The application clearly asked about schools attended prior to sixth form, they aren't stupid. Yes, parents from a nearby private school send their kids to our school sixth form in the belief that they are more likely to get better consideration in uni applications, it's kind of funny as our school comes as a massive shock to them. But not funny in that the parents have money to throw at tutors, so the shock doesn't last long.

What silly parents. I feel very sorry for their DCs, imagine being ordered to get into Oxbridge and told that anything else is a failure. And they have to leave behind their friends, and the private school resources and way of doing things that they’re used to, to go to a state school where I doubt the students will be particularly welcoming. And for what? Oxbridge is intense and stressful and doesn’t offer anything you can’t get somewhere else.

Of the two people I know who have tried this, they both had to re-do year 12 back at their old private schools. Definitely a case of beware of what you wish for.

@foodiscomplicated

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'm really surprised about that. Most of my Oxbridge friends were from comps (we're talking some decades back, but I would have thought the numbers would have increased, relatively speaking.

DD (also Oxbridge, though the Wrong One) is state-ed throughout, as are several of the friends she's mentioned. I can imagine that subjects differ in the proportions from each type of school, though.

Should maybe clarify that I do mean state comprehensive, not grammar.

I went to Cambridge from a state comprehensive, graduated within the last 5 years and was by no means the only one with that background. Yes grammars and private schools are overrepresented but it’s really not hard to find people who went to a comp.

Sorry posted on wrong thread!

I think I know the school. The main reason for the contextual offers is that higher education take up is extremely low for pupils living in that part of Bristol.
Assuming that your DN doesn't live in that area, she won't really fit in to be honest.
There are other state sixth forms in Bristol that would be a much better bet if she wanted to transfer from the independent sector.