Do you feel Prouder about Oxbridge because of going to the local comprehensive?

[Verysadatwork]

I confess I do feel extra proud of ds getting to Cambridge for this reason

Dd didn't apply to Oxbridge, no interest as too far, but she is still waiting for StA's and has four other offers, including the one she wanted which is what she'll probably take regardless of StA.
Damn right I'm proud, not only did she go to a state school, she moved schools in 5th year, was in care for 14 months and I raised her completely on my own from when she was 6 weeks old.
On top of that she has ASD and was my carer from being 8.
If all that gave her a leg up, then good.

ISpyCobraKai - Damn right you should be proud of her (and yourself)! Congratulations.

Thank you, I am.

@Sunshine4Ever2 here is the Alan Rushbridger article, a bit old now but interesting www.timeshighereducation.com/alan-rusbridger-lifting-lid-oxford-admissions

Oxford also publish admissions reports for each subject - in some subjects (Maths) everyone above an MAT cut off gets an interview automatically and everyone below another is rejected automatically. In between those 2 scores other factors are looked at. What is surprising if you look at the Maths stats is that some very high MAT scorers who were invited to interview were actually not offered places and some of the lower scoring ones were made an offer. I assume this process is the fairest way of sifting people. I imagine other subjects have similar methods but it's worth remembering that the margins are very very small - the majority of applicants will by exceptionally bright dc.

People need to stop making sweeping generalisations about private vs state. My DCs go to state school and they have lead much easier lives than their cousins who went private (horrible messy divorce, parent suicide attempt, brothers drug addiction - total car crash). I also dislike the insinuation that state schools are full of oiks that make it so hard for the precious Oxbridge bound genius’ to achieve…. We have plenty of disruptive kids at my DCs school but my DCs aren’t actually in a class with them as they stream them. Contextual offers are essential but let’s not pretend that any of the parents who have the time to be on a mumsnet thread aren’t massively invested in their own child’s education and inherently gifting them the biggest privilege of all.

Sorry - rant over now - I just hate it when these threads go down the same predictable rabbit hole…

@Igglepigglesblankie

People need to stop making sweeping generalisations about private vs state. My DCs go to state school and they have lead much easier lives than their cousins who went private (horrible messy divorce, parent suicide attempt, brothers drug addiction - total car crash). I also dislike the insinuation that state schools are full of oiks that make it so hard for the precious Oxbridge bound genius’ to achieve…. We have plenty of disruptive kids at my DCs school but my DCs aren’t actually in a class with them as they stream them. Contextual offers are essential but let’s not pretend that any of the parents who have the time to be on a mumsnet thread aren’t massively invested in their own child’s education and inherently gifting them the biggest privilege of all.

Sorry - rant over now - I just hate it when these threads go down the same predictable rabbit hole…

What thread have you been reading

I thinking is blooming great if state then Oxford educated young people are choosing to become teachers - presumably in state schools. They will have very lucky pupils!

"Why did your son go for Oxbridge OP?" I kind of stayed out of it, tbh, didn't want to bring my own hangups into the equation. I guess he was confident in his own abilities.

“I thinking is blooming great if state then Oxford educated young people are choosing to become teachers - presumably in state schools. They will have very lucky pupils!”

Why? By far the best teachers mine had went to unis such as Durham, Birmingham and Bath. The ones who went to Oxbridge were fine, but I wouldn’t say they were outstanding. A few were socially a bit odd. Being an academic does not always translate into being a great teacher!

"“it's about training people to believe they are special isn't it? It starts with the playdates when they are 4 and they tell you they are "lucky" because of their car....”
What does this even mean?"

I think that's another thread! but I guess that I think the private schools encourage people to feel special, different and therefore entitled to more than ordinary people. From there, it's a very short step to thinking ordinary people are entitled to less.

Mind you, it goes seem to be contagious. DS has just arrived home and apparently Cambridge Union had a debate on "should NATO send troops to Ukraine?"
"But surely they wouldn't vote to go?" I said
"But it wouldn't be us going!" he replied
"who's us?" I said
"Cambridge students" he said
"stop being a dick" his brother said.

etc,etc.
If he's going to end up like this, I'm glad it's only starting at 19, not 4.

@goldenembers I think I meant more in terms of this thread, that those teachers then pass on the wisdom of how to apply to those Uni's and present yourself to the next generations, gradually eroding the old access issues.
I am not an oxbridge or nothing person at all, my DC won't be applying for them as wouldn't get in, but I can see that having Oxbridge educated teachers in a state school then helps other pupils that want to apply for that path.
My best ever teacher wasn't even a RG educated teacher - I owe my career to their inspirational teaching I am sure.

You joke @Verysadatwork but you do make a valid point. I know a number of people from my own studies and career who came from quite normal backgrounds and went on to Oxbridge and strong career paths. A number did sadly seem to reinvent themselves, drop their regional accents and take on a different persona. Very sad and probably reflected insecurity more than anything else. One former colleague confided in me in her late twenties that her mother (a nurse) had said that she had been so proud of her when she got her Cambridge offer but looking back she thought it was the worst thing to happen to her as sometimes she felt that she could no longer properly relate to her own daughter and vice versa. A different topic to this one but there can sometimes be an element of be careful what you wish for.

‘I think that's another thread! but I guess that I think the private schools encourage people to feel special, different and therefore entitled to more than ordinary people’

People just know what they know. I have a niece in a state school in Hampshire. It’s a comprehensive but the catchment is very affluent. She is quite academic and so a massive hoopla is made out of everything she does. The school has no qualms about putting certain children in the “gifted and talented” class . Yes they call it that. If that label isn’t setting pupils up as entitled, I don’t know what is. It’s a lot of pressure actually, being the specially declared “gifted and talented” ones in the school for years on end. Where can you go from there? In a selective school my niece would be a good average and attract less attention. Certainly nobody would be proclaiming she was “gifted” because they never say that about anyone. I wonder if she’d be healthier for it because at the moment, she’s really struggling mental health wise.

Do you not think Oxbridge could encourage people to feel entitled OP? Have you seen the government?

"The school has no qualms about putting certain children in the “gifted and talented” class confused. Yes they call it that. If that label isn’t setting pupils up as entitled, I don’t know what is. It’s a lot of pressure actually, being the specially declared “gifted and talented” ones in the school for years on end"

Yes, I've banged on about this on mumsnet for 15 years but no one seems to listen.

Anway, I keep acknowledging your points agreeing with 99% of what you say ... I think I'm doing more of the listening in this mumsnet relationship.

Fair enough Verysadatwork.

Coming late to this thread and have only skimmed but haven't Oxbridge themselves said that there's a big push on to recruit state school kids? Not sure why there is a debate. If Eton lose 50+ offers (or, however many) in a single year and Brampton Academy gain 50+, isn't the direction of travel rather clear?

Your OP referred to ‘comprehensive’ selection by parents’ ability to pay for housing in catchment.

My DCs’ ‘comprehensive’ is selective in this way - expensive housing - and exam results are good. So DC who get good scores are not ‘outliers’.

That point raised above is the interesting one - that someone who avoided privilege,used the comp then courts and believes in and likes the exclusionary privilege, the intellectual privilege of Oxbridge.

That you eschew the privilege of a fee paying school from which most people do not go to Oxbridge, even the very best academic fee paying schools only at most 25% to 33% go to Oxbridge, and are then proud to adopt the world you chose to reject earlier. As if you get a golden halo for following socialist principles when the child is 11 but at age 18 your morals utterly change.

@Xenia

This is something I have raised in the past. It’s a complete completely false position to say how others are privileged at 11 or before but then love joining the elite at 18 and crowing about it. By all means be proud of DC but who really cares about them vs us?

@GiantRedwoods

You joke *@Verysadatwork* but you do make a valid point. I know a number of people from my own studies and career who came from quite normal backgrounds and went on to Oxbridge and strong career paths. A number did sadly seem to reinvent themselves, drop their regional accents and take on a different persona. Very sad and probably reflected insecurity more than anything else. One former colleague confided in me in her late twenties that her mother (a nurse) had said that she had been so proud of her when she got her Cambridge offer but looking back she thought it was the worst thing to happen to her as sometimes she felt that she could no longer properly relate to her own daughter and vice versa. A different topic to this one but there can sometimes be an element of be careful what you wish for.

Nor is this a new concept, Hardy was writing about the issues around being educated 'out of your background' and subsequently struggling to fit it into either the world you were born into or the one you had acquired back in the 19th century. And for anyone not familiar with Jude the Obscure, let's just say it doesn't end happily .

@Xenia, the difference is that at 11 school choice (and socialist principles) is primarily down to the parents, whereas at 18 university choice is primarily down to the student. It's a weird notion to bring morals into a debate about academic excellence; being against selective education but in favour of DCs going to a top university is not a contradictory position. Oxbridge is academically elite but I don't think most people who go there think they are socially elite, do they?

But please don’t claim that his results are somehow worth less than those of kids from comps that got offers

We are now so used to the narrative of 'contextualisation' that we seem to be perfectly comfortable in stating that an A from a private school is really a C while a C from a comp is really an A, or, a lower aptitude test score from a comp is actually worth more than a higher one from a private, or, an Olympiad win from a private is worth less than the absence of one from a comp.

Oxbridge is academically elite but I don't think most people who go there think they are socially elite, do they?
The recurring dilemma of whether intellectual snobbery is more morally defendable than social snobbery.

It’s exactly the same on the 11 plus threads on the secondary education boards and it is bizarre.

Loads of parents talking about the open days or the exam experience at schools like St Paul’s - “Oooh did you see the prep school children in their blazers and shiny badges? Did you see THEM? Oh I’ll have you know my child just went to the local primary. Yes we are state school all the way. I bet THEY are all prepped to the max. Not like US who just rocked up in the day. No prep at all us - oh no - we are so much more WORTHY of a place you see ..,,, blah blah blah... yadda yadda yadda .. “

They don’t see the hypocrisy that they are all clamouring to get their kids into the same elite institutions as everyone else. Somehow, in their minds, it’s “elitist” to want your kids in a selective school at 4 or at 7, but not at 11. It is quite astonishing to read.

When their kids get into the private schools in Year 7, the very same “prep children” that they were so desperate to “other” and feel morally superior to at the selection stage are suddenly their kids’ best mates and coming to their houses for play dates or whatever.

On the Oxbridge threads it’s exactly the same thing, just seven years later.

Then when their Oxbridge kids enter the workforce and try to get in graduate schemes, these certain parents will probably be moaning that their educational privilege of having been to Oxford is now working against their children them as companies strive to recruit from a wider pool of institutions.

And so it goes on.,,

An Oxford education seems to help enormously with grad schemes, vac schemes and pupillages etc, and that’s to do with the education not the name.

@goldenembers
They don’t see the hypocrisy that they are all clamouring to get their kids into the same elite institutions as everyone else

It's the clamour for survival that manifests as hypocrisy. Nobody will stand aside to let other people's kids go first so people's hand has to be forced by institutions nominated to be "just" and "fair" such as universities. What is deemed "just" and "fair" are of the moment and reactive to public sentiment, which is why we see so many sudden changes to these types of programmes, ie, Eton losing half of their Oxbridge numbers overnight while Brampton gaining the same. We are actually no further in knowing who is Oxbridge-talented and who isn't, which is a shame not only for individual life trajectories but the country as a whole.