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Higher education

Talk to other parents whose children are preparing for university on our Higher Education forum.

This year's university places for dc at private school - what's the reality been?

137 replies

Thedogisdrivingmemad · 20/08/2022 19:47

I'm reading and hearing lots of anecdotal information suggesting it's got much tougher for private school pupils to get top university offers. Things like "hardly anyone at dd's [private] school got an offer for Durham this year".
If you have dc at private school who've just left year 13, how has it been for your dc and their friends?

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mondaytosunday · 20/08/2022 20:46

Not this year but last. No there's been no drop in offers from top unis at our school, though the offers have been higher due to the over enrolment from the 2020 A level debacle which is still having a knock on effect.

MidLifeCrisis007 · 20/08/2022 21:09

Durham plans to increase its percentage of international students from 30 to 39%. www.palatinate.org.uk/durhams-international-intake-to-reach-39-by-2026/

So UK students will lose out....

Thedogisdrivingmemad · 20/08/2022 22:03

Interesting about Durham, and at a time when the population of 18 year olds is increasing.

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Marisquita · 20/08/2022 23:46

Thedogisdrivingmemad · 20/08/2022 22:03

Interesting about Durham, and at a time when the population of 18 year olds is increasing.

Very interesting. The approaching demographic bulge in the 18 year old population is very significant, according to this graph from the Economist.

This year's university places for dc at private school - what's the reality been?
EssexCat · 20/08/2022 23:50

I have friends with y13s at state and private.

They’ve pretty much all got places at good unis to do the degrees they want to.

certain subjects (economics and medicine) anecdotally have seemed tougher but as tough for both school types as far as I can tell.

Thedogisdrivingmemad · 21/08/2022 00:00

Economics seems tremendously competitive these days with very low offer rates. I don't think we had the same transparency in my day but I don't recall it being so very popular.

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Marisquita · 21/08/2022 00:12

Thedogisdrivingmemad · 21/08/2022 00:00

Economics seems tremendously competitive these days with very low offer rates. I don't think we had the same transparency in my day but I don't recall it being so very popular.

Economics has increased in popularity - but not as dramatically as psychology. Some good stats here in case anyone’s interested.

Marisquita · 21/08/2022 00:14

Sorry - those are A level stats, not degree stats, but I find them interesting anyway!

Lillith111 · 21/08/2022 00:23

Levelling the playing field is not unfair. It’s not “much harder” for private school students given all the advantages they get given

Thedogisdrivingmemad · 21/08/2022 00:39

Much tougher than in the past. Not much tougher than for state school pupils.

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Delphigirl · 21/08/2022 01:20

All but one have got their first choice uni. The one who didn’t was predicted A star, AA; got an offer if AAA for vet med; got BCC. Really surprising (and devastating for him, it’s all he has ever wanted to do) and nobody has yet worked out what went wrong.

in terms of offers, some didn’t get offers they had hoped they would from LSe and Edinburgh in particular, but I don’t know if that was different to normal. The same hordes of offers and acceptances from Durham as always… for those lacking in imagination/wanting to keep the same social circle as school 😁

jayritchie · 21/08/2022 02:07

I get the impression that the London Universities have been way more popular than normal. Not sure to what extent that's a Covid effect or a move towards more kids staying at home for university coupled with huge improvements in London state school results?

Pieceofpurplesky · 21/08/2022 02:14

I think that private schools have had grade inflation over the last couple of years to the extent that their results are unreadable.

I teach in a big standard comp. Next to us is a private school. We share a very popular six form college in the town. Two years ago loads of our kids missed getting on their chosen courses (mainly science) as the private school literally had all A/A grades. Lots of these kids have failed to get the higher grades needed whereas some of the kids from my school have come out with A. Lots have missed theirs first choice - but mainly the private school
Kids.
I guess my point is that maybe universities this year are skeptical about predicted grades (and have been chosen right?)

Pieceofpurplesky · 21/08/2022 02:15

Proven right

jayritchie · 21/08/2022 02:20

@Pieceofpurplesky I did see some stats about this years grades compared with last years split by type of school. I wasn't sure if they were genuine - if so there were a lot of fraudulent grades awarded by private school teachers.

MummySaidBeKindAlways · 21/08/2022 02:42

This reply has been deleted

The OP is a troll.

MidLifeCrisis007 · 21/08/2022 08:20

This is very interesting - taken from the BBC website...

"According to England's exam regulator, Ofqual, 58% of private school candidates in England were awarded A* and A grades, compared with 30.7% of state school pupils.
Fee-paying schools did particularly well last year when teachers' assessments were the basis for A-level grades.
In 2021, some 70.4% of private school pupils were given A grade or above, compared with just 39.4% of state schools."

Now you can interpret these results to suit your agenda but the fact is that private school kids did 21% better under TAGS than this year.... and state school kids did 28% better.

Circleoffifths · 21/08/2022 09:06

?? That’s not what those stats show

Harridan1981 · 21/08/2022 09:11

Those stats show that state school kids did 9 per cent better under TAG than under exams surely?

Igglepigglesblankie · 21/08/2022 09:14

DNephew is at superselective London Indy and I think it has been harder this year, especially for the boys chasing oversubscribed courses like Natural Sciences, Math, Physics, economics etc. DNephew wasn’t even interviewed at Oxford despite 12 9s at GCSE and predicted 45 points in IB (which he achieved, clearing the grade boundaries by huge margins) - there was no entrance exam for his course. He ended up with 3 offers out of 5….a few of his friends had no offers and are reapplying with grades in hand. Although to counter that, they were all applying to the very top universities - Oxbridge, LSE, Imperial. Durham, St Andrews etc. I think it can be difficult when your “context” is lots of other highly achieving DCs - the grades are seen as what is expected as opposed to a massive achievement. DSis says that if she had her time again she would have accepted DNephews place at the excellent local grammar school instead and had more holidays….

Circleoffifths · 21/08/2022 09:19

It’s all about interpretation and % versus % percentage points. One example of how stats can be interpreted to fit an argument I guess!

honkeytonkwoman38 · 21/08/2022 09:32

Universities no longer make money from uk students so the more elite ones are planning to attract more international students if they can. That's the reality. Soon whether you are privately or publicly schooled in the uk elite universities will not be within your grasp!

Wbeezer · 21/08/2022 09:44

Don't you think at least some the o perceived issue with private school applicants not getting places is that they are very aspirational with their choices and use up too many UCAS slots with unis that have v high grade requirements.
Its a risky strategy.
State school pupils are more likely to choose unis for other reasons like distance from home or cost of accommodation and anecdotally are encouraged to have "realistic" insurance choices.

sevenwonder · 21/08/2022 10:15

I think it's quite misleading to talk about "private schools" versus "state schools," It makes more sense to talk about "selective schools" versus "non-selective schools."

The fact is, private schools will always achieve higher numbers if top grades than state and this is because most private schools are selective to some extent - and many are super-selective. Just like grammar schools have always achieved more top grades than comprehensives. Similarly, you can't really talk about Brampton Manor in the same category as your average "state school." It's not comparing like with like.

It may well be that a lot of private schools inflated grades more than state schools last year. But this was not the case with the super-selective in London which are, between them, where a high proportion of Oxbridge entrants come from. You can see that the proportions of A star / A grades awarded this year are consistent with last year and many years before. If a school like Westminster or St Paul's is getting 96% A star /A grades year on year, there was not much room (or need) for grade inflation through TAGS.

If anything, super-selectives were more cautious with the TAGS because these schools all watch each other very closely (a swing of less than 1% in grades can mean a school is 10th in the league tables, rather than first or second - margins are that tight).

For instance, my DS is was at a London super-selective. They did exams as if A-levels were happening and results were 100% based on performance in these exams. No mitigations. But , even in certain MFL where the whole class achieved over 95% in all papers, they still didn't want to give them all an A star because they knew this would attract an investigation by the board and possibly negative press. My DC was one of these to be awarded an A, having achieved 96% overall and no less than 94% in any paper for that subject (oral, listening, written, etc). He appealed to the board and was awarded the A star that the school should have given him in the first place. And he wasn't the only one. So if anything, I think certain super-selective schools were over-cautious with TAGS.

Compare that to a local sixth form college where they did a variety of mini "tests" to inform TAGS. The students were laughing to my DC because the school didn't even bother to take phones off the students (!) and they could all confer (copy each other) in the tests and Google the answers!

mumsneedwine · 21/08/2022 10:24

I'm not sure any school was getting 90%+ A/A star grades before covid. NCLS for example went from a normal average of about 50% to over 90% last year. Funnily enough they don't seem to have published this years headline figures yet (website still on 2021). Many other 'top' (not sure what this means) schools did similar last year.

Places at Unis were much harder to gain for everyone this year.