I think a lot of parents (and kids) have no idea what genuine passion for a subject looks like. They think that students chugging along doing the bare minimum, who scrape an impressive range of grades at GCSE must be suitable candidates.
Many people can’t imagine kids who love their subjects and read widely through choice, and who are just hungry for knowledge on that topic. It’s not unhealthy to have that hunger and passion, alongside excellent GCSE results and great A Level predictions. It’s what they’re loooking for and to be honest schools can’t generate that hunger. Fee paying schools which run Oxbridge programmes that give out reading lists, run groups to discuss books or papers (that half the group won’t have got round to reading) and practice interviews, cannot and do not replicate the true genuine interest.
In the past, when applications were lower, some of those who’d been prepped by their schools but weren’t that bright or genuinely interested could get places. Those days are going, because with so many more state school entrants actually applying, amongst them there are numbers of genuinely passionate high achievers…and they are the ones who are pushing out the middling, good GCSEs on paper but limited genuine interest candidates.
The non-top tier independents have hoards of kids who achieve good exam results but lack the genuine drive. Unless they are really top tier, most of these schools will see numbers drop. Even the top tier will see numbers drop a bit, it’s quite simply a much more competitive market. Yes, independent schools will be digging around to find mor sways to polish their students and help them compete, but the bottom line and trajectory is that with Oxbridge feeling like a genuine option for really clever state school kids, instead of the previous ‘it’s not for people like us and only for the rich’ a higher proportion of places will go to state school kids.
As much as independently educated kids and parents might like to think it, fee paying schools don’t by their nature have a monopoly on clever kids….most of them of course are in the state school system. Fee paying schools might have more clever kids than their numbers would predict, by dint of clever parents (with clever kids) being more likely to be able to afford fees, but the vast majority of clever kids are in the state system. And there are also lots of bright but not top notch kids and decidedly average kids in the independent sector. Money still buys privilege without a doubt and it still buys options and opens doors….but the extent of this is shrinking. It’s gradual, but it’s shrinking. And it results in posts like the OPs, where fee paying parents are outraged that Oxbridge numbers are down at their school and looking to blame the school or the system, because surely the kids who have had fees paid all their lives should be getting the places. They cannot conceive of it being simply that in a wider market, most of the fee paying kids won’t be good enough, or that throwing money at the issue cannot rectify it. Because surely by paying you can have whatever you want??