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

[Thedogisdrivingmemad]

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?

This year. Private school. Predicted grades A, A, A and EPQ A*
Applied to Oxbridge - Not selected for interview so rejected at first hurdle
Applied to Durham - No offer - didn't give rejection until really late though like May.
Applied to 3 other Russell Groups and got offers of AAA, AAA (reduced to AAB if firmed) and ABB.

Went for firming the AAB one and insurancing the ABB one.

Got grades of AA, A and A* in EPQ, so achieved what was predicted.

Going to a good Uni and they are very pleased and love the course they have chosen as it is very broad.

I would have expected this child to at least get an interview to Oxbridge and probably a Durham offer. They got the offer they wanted though and the course they want so they are happy.

From the headline mumsneedwine posted, it looks like there are about 510 in Year 13 at Brampton Manor (ie, if 430 got A star or A and this is 90% of the year). So (to use Oxbridge success again as a benchmark as this is what all their headlines tend to be about) - if 85 got Oxbridge places this is a success rate of about 16%.

I think at SPS boys there is maybe 200 in a year (guessing though). So if about 30 receive Oxbridge offers, this is a similar Oxbridge success rate (for what that is worth). Especially as many there won't apply to Oxbridge
as they have the means to apply to Harvard, MIT etc instead.

From which I extrapolate (others will no doubt point out I've missed something!!) that students at top performing independents are not at a disadvantage (in terms of Oxbridge offer ratios) to those at equivalent top performing state schools, despite the impact of contextualisation.

I imagine there is a similar pattern for these schools in terms of the other top U.K. unis their students are applying to.

But of course, not all state schools are BM and not all private schools are SPS, so it's hard to know what's happening on a more general level.

Oh blimey... sorry for got about MN bolding with the asterix predicted A star, A star, A and A star in EPQ and achieved exactly that.

@Lessofallthisunpleasantness - which course? I think that can make a huge difference for offer rates?

Different courses but Science based. The course they actually got on is quite competitive although the actual uni not so much.

Well-spotted about Brampton's size. It seems to have around 2000 pupils in total but the sixth form appears disproportionately large. I will check what I can find for year 13 numbers.

Their twitter says 92 got Oxbridge places this year. That's up a lot on a couple of years ago when it was around 50. Amazing.

Brampton had 309 pupils taking A levels in 2020. Probably around two or three times the size of most of the highly-selective private schools eg St P, Westminster.

Watching with interest - kids at indie preps but planning move back to state for secondary

Indeed

Year 13 selective private school DS here. Predicted A star A star A star A.
Applied for pure economics ( competitive this year)
Rejected by Cambridge. ( very much expected)
Rejected by LSE ( very disappointed)
Got offers from UCL, Warwick and Notts. Firmed UCL and insured Notts.
Achieved exactly the predicted grades- A star A star A star A- and accepted UCL.

Others in his year are going to Durham, Edinburgh, Bristol, St Andrews and Bath. Several are going to the US: Duke, Johns Hopkins, Cornell... Not that many got into Oxbridge, but also a lot were keen on US unis. I don't think his school inflated grades as most achieved their predicted.

Both he and I are happy with the outcome, and not complaining!

Incidentally I think the advantages they got from their private education were huge. Someone who gets the same results from a non selective state school deserves a better chance of getting into the best unis.

Agree.

DS at a selective state school which traditionally has a decent percentage into Oxbridge I think about 16% a few years ago. Haven’t seen the figures but only knows of one offer this year, though am sure there will be a few more and DS just hasn’t heard. I think it might be as they are quite stingy on predicted grades . I did hear they have a tendency to under predict and did with DS who was predicted A Star AA and achieved 3 x A star.

Suspect predicted grades needed to be high this year to be in with a chance. DS into first choice so all good but I will be very interested to see the actual figures.

Year 13 DS here too - northern "minor" public school - selective but no harder to get into than old style grammar I'd say,. DS didn't get into Oxford (expected) but got his predicted a star grades and got into first choice UCL for stem subject. His school had 7 Oxbridge offers - all of whom made their offers. This is typical number for last 4 years or so - previously it was more like a dozen going to Oxbridge. Apparently 82% got into their first choice unis - not heard of anyone who needed to use clearing this year (though that has happened in the past, and maybe I just haven't heard). One of DS' friends missed her grades for KCL but was accepted anyway, another missed for Imperial but got into Warwick insurance.

Medicine was hard this year - lots of candidates only had one offer. One got in off the waitlist and one is trying again next year,. But conversely the cohort also had acceptances for Oxbridge, ucl and kings fo medicine/denitsitrty

Would rather have sent both my kids to state school but I really wasn't happy with our local provision (I went to state grammar). So with that caveat, I am pleased with the quality of education he received and the expertise/advice/opportunities on offer. My daughter went to same school and think she would have done well anywhere (including the local school) but I think my son might have been more easily distracted/influenced if he wasn't in an environment where being smart was "cool"

Meant to add - pretty much all the uni places seems to be to Russel Group, with the London universities, Durham, Newcastle, Manchester, and York being most popular. Bath is also really popular with some really strong candidates choosing that. There's 3 or 4 off to St Andrews and 1 to Exeter. A few sporty ones to Loughborough. Nottingham and Liverpool seem to be the main "insurance" unis . I think 2 got into Edinburgh, but a few were rejected from there and we get advised to only put one Scottish option on the UCAS form. LSE was hard to get into this year and Imperial offers were very high (as always - they can be higher than Oxbridge).
A couple of students who got great grades have decided to take a year out and reapply to Oxbridge - this usually turns out well.

One thing not mentioned re students at private schools and their predicted UCAS grades is that they were/are given multiple chances to ‘try again’ for higher grades. If results on mock tests weren’t ‘high enough’ they were given the chance to try again. And again. Whereas at state schools, it’s one set of mocks or ‘transfer exams’ that inform UCAS predicted grades. My sample size is admittedly small (4 families in the SE at private, and about a dozen in state) but it does happen

Just one example to highlight the enormous difference choice of course makes: at Durham in 2020/21, only 29per cent of UK applicants to economics were offered a place but on various other courses the figure was over 90 per cent and the overall figure across all subjects was 64 per cent.

What they say in more recent years at the "super-selectives" mine were / are at, is that if you don't have at least 3 very realistic A* grades predicted, don't bother applying for Oxbridge (unless it's one of their least competitive subjects like classics or Anglo Saxon and Norse or music possibly). They are very blunt about it!

They say to take no notice of the minimum published grade requirements eg A*, A, A because realistically, next to nobody actually gets in with that, unless they are applying from a very underprivileged school or have other very significant mitigation factors.

I agree with this. A student from a disadvantaged background getting say AAB likely worked much harder to get results than a child in private education who got same or better marks.
I heard a comment once about privately educated children, the good ones go into industry, the bad ones who still got spoon fed through school and exams end up in politics ... kinda sums it up really!

One thing not mentioned re students at private schools and their predicted UCAS grades is that they were/are given multiple chances to ‘try again’ for higher grades. If results on mock tests weren’t ‘high enough’ they were given the chance to try again. And again.

That's not my experience at all.

of course. it’s only anecdotal, but it does happen.

I don't think snippy generalisations about "private school pupils" or "state school students" get anyone anywhere.

As I understand it, all schools have to have a UCAS profile which is seen by uni admissions. You can ask to see the UCAS profile page for the school your DC is in. - just ask the school. This school profile includes factors such as whether it is state or independent; the average grade profile of its students for the last 5 years; class sizes; ethos; proportions on FSMs, etc. A whole load of contextual info basically.

Uni admissions are looking at a student's achievements in relation to the cohort at THEIR school. So AAA would clearly be an exceptional result in a school where the average A-level grade profile is CCC, whereas a student with AAA in a school where the average grade profile is A*, A, A could be seen to be in the lower half if the cohort of that school. In other worlds, it's all about context and this is what unis are (rightly) trying to weigh up as best they can.

Uni admissions are looking at a student's achievements in relation to the cohort at THEIR school.

That's really good to hear!

So UK students will lose out....

International students subsidise the loss-making situation of admitting UK undergrad students. So those UK students who are offered places will have a better experience.

Quite a few private school friends only got 2 offers this year. As others have said tho it’s prob because they only put top 10 unis down so they get swamped

I would have expected this child to at least get an interview to Oxbridge

How did this child do at the test/assessment at Cambridge or Oxford? Those matter at least as much as school grades!