Oxbridge: Blatant social engineering - not admission according to potential.

[Marchesman]

Despite resistance from some tutors, Cambridge University’s Access and Participation Plan 2020-21 to 2024-25 includes a target to increase the proportion of UK state sector students that is entirely separate and independent of aims for POLAR4 quintiles 1 and 2. Formulating admissions targets for the University of Cambridge’s Access and Participation Plan (2020-21 to 2024-25) | Cambridge Admissions Office

The university's own research in 2011 had "found no statistically significant differences in performance by school type, and there was no evidence of the phenomenon observed at other UK universities of state sector students outperforming their privately educated peers" https://www.cao.cam.ac.uk/sites/www.cao.cam.ac.uk/files/ar_gp_school_performance.pdf Subsequent data shows that students from independent schools performed better in examinations than students from state schools by 2015/16, at a level that is highly statistically significant: https://www.informationhub.admin.cam.ac.uk/university-profile/ug-examination-results/archive

Therefore, APP 2020-21 to 2024-25 makes no attempt to justify the state school target on the basis of student performance. In fact the only justification given is: "We recognise that school type is not a characteristic used by the OfS or contained within its Access and Participation dataset; we recognise too that the state versus independent binary masks a range of educational experiences…[however] each of the under-represented groups identified within this Plan appear in far greater numbers in state maintained schools, as do students from low income households who are not identified by any of the measures currently available to us."

The result of this can be seen in https://www.cao.cam.ac.uk/files/attainment_outcomes.pdf

In final degree examinations: "The per cent mark remained lower for the three secondary school types: • Comprehensive (estimate = -0.70, SE = 0.19, t = -3.63, p< 0.001); • State grammar (estimate = -0.98, SE = 0.19, t = -5.22, p< 0.001); • State other (estimate = -0.87, SE = 0.20, t = -4.32, p< 0.001)" To put this into context, these are the figures for students with "cognitive or learning difficulties (estimate = -0.88, SE = 0.33, t = -2.67, p< 0.01)"

Regarding the acquisition of a First: "The probability of the outcome remained lower for the three secondary school types: • Comprehensive (coefficient = -0.20, SE = 0.06, z = -3.13, p< 0.01); • State grammar (coefficient = -0.30, SE = 0.06, z = -4.81, p< 0.001); • State other (coefficient = -0.24, SE = 0.07, z = -3.57, p< 0.001)"

Selection according to potential? Really?

Starving state schools of adequate funding is an absolute disgrace.

Tying state pupils hands behind their back then squawking and when universities try to redress the inequalities.

I don’t think some in this thread have the faintest idea what’s going on in state schools right now (post covid). Even the “good” ones are massively struggling. Sorry I really don’t have it in me to give two flipping hoots for privately educated kids I just don’t. I don’t judge you do you whatever put please don’t look for sympathy by throwing stastistics and long words around. We are fine but my dds classmates really really are not.

It suggests they are not an irrelevance at Eton. It suggests nothing about their relevance elsewhere

Marchesman the figures show that Oxbridge applications are a key focus at Eton and at all the other independents on that list quoted from the Spectator. They absolutely do not suggest that they are merely 'not an irrelevance''. The number of applications in relation to size of cohort at the independents listed completely trashes the idea of 'not relevant'.

I do know that in less good schools students at the lower end of the ability range are being much more strongly advised than in previous years not to bother making an application, because they won't cut it. That makes good sense but it doesn't mean that Oxbridge is no longer relevant.

The figures suggest

The figures suggest

(Screen jumping due to young cocker spaniel jumping).

I would add that judging by your creation of this twenty four page thread and your very many, very lengthy contributions to it, the matter seems far from 'not irrelevant' to you too, as the champion of independent schools and their claim on Oxbridge.

Goodbye, from my own observation this is not so. Yes lots apply. You have five spaces on your UCAS form, the school is set up for Oxbridge entry, and the majority of your peers are applying.

Of those who are applying there will be a mix of those the school firmly believes merits a place, those that on a good day could get an offer, and those who really should not raise their hopes. (My understanding was that Winchester refers to it as an A, B and C list.) Every year there are surprises (in both directions.)

I have repeated the advice DS received often enough: Apply to Cambridge, LSE, UCL and Warwick, and be happy to get one. This does not imply a huge focus on Cambridge, simply a recognition that Cambridge hosts a strong economics department and that DS was a B List type who was good enough, and more than keen enough, but not certain. Similarly another boy looking for History of Art, who put down Cambridge and the Courtauld, as they were top courses, and he had five choices, and who surprised himself (and his mother) by getting a place.

It is also worth remembering that these schools have kept up subjects like classics, MFL and RE. A friend of DDs studied History and German. Is this course less competitive than straight history. Probably. Is having a language an advantage when studying history. Probably. A very bright friend of DS studied Philosophy and Theology, because he was interested. Entry is relatively uncompetitive. If he had been in the state system he might have been funnelled into science, or perhaps law, where he still might have tried Oxbridge but have been very pleased to be offered a good course in London.

Entry to some of these schools is highly competitive. These kids are used to trying for and working for things they may not get. The cohort is strong. DDs year 8 received Harvard acceptances, and others went to MIT, Yale and so on. There are kids who are very Oxbridge focussed, often those whose parents come from countries where Oxbridge is still the big big name, but the majority will have a go but accept there are no guarantees. Most of DCs friends went on to London. I think there were six from DS' year at LSE, and almost the entirety of DDs sciency friendship group went to Imperial. All would have tried Oxbridge, but then why not. Rather than accuse private schools of over applying, the problem may be of state schools discouraging pupils from applying who, if they play a blinder at interview, might be offered a place.

the problem may be of state schools discouraging pupils from applying who, if they play a blinder at interview, might be offered a place

There's certainly an issue about the lack of 'have a go' attitude in the state sector, even at our own very good grammar until more recently.

But Needmoresleep you yourself have given an account of the friendship groups at your DCs' school contracting to focus of those offered an Oxbridge place, and you've described previously the very real disappointment and loss of confidence for those not offered a place. That doesn't completely square with it not being important to these kids and their parents, at least at the time. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but the point is the relevance/ importance at the time of application, or prior to it.

Yes, but attitudes in Asia towards education can be very different. Not really down to the school. Some parents will be choosing to send their children to the UK for an expensive education because they see it as a pathway to Oxbridge/Ivy. The kids I referred to also had this expensive education supplemented by a lot of tutoring. In a small number of cases yes, the Oxbridge focus was evident. DD was then bemused when we were in Asia and having dinner with a couple of my friends who were aghast at her decision not to try for Oxbridge, especially as she had good predicted grades. She recognised the approach.

DS witnessed a case of extreme burnout in his first term at LSE. The poor boy had turned in all nighters to achieve the grades he needed at A level. There was no way he could keep it up at a higher level. Another friend, with 6 A levels, had to work immensely hard to scrape a 2.1. Again tutoring had got her to the A* in maths, but she struggled after that and was only saved by being able to take non maths options in her third year. (Her father had decreed that she should study economics when her strengths were in arts and humanities.) But this, perhaps, is another thread.

One curious outcome was that DC and their peers got to University and were actually stronger than they thought at subjects like maths, having never shone at school. Difficult though for Universities to work out who from the same school has room in the tank, and who is maxed out. The same dilemma that Universities have with selecting between those with educational advantage and those without.

I think the difference is rather more that at many private schools there is a large cohort applying so it feels normal and you might as well have a shot, and at most state schools applying to Oxbridge is not the norm and it feels like unnecessary additional pressure to put yourself under (in terms of the extra application steps and shorter timescale) unless you are very sure.

Yes. At DCs school, the UCAS deadline was October for everyone. University briefing for pupils and a separate on for parents in the summer, with discussion around choices and possible Oxbridge colleges. (I remember that DS did really well on a mock TSA exam so was encouraged towards a college that used TSA as a filter, only for that college to drop this. Another college looked for STEP so that was off the list.) The timetable then asked for their first draft PS at the start of the autumn term. The school encouraged pupils to enter various essay competitions over the summer, which presumably would have helped provide additional material that Oxbridge colleges might look for.

Since you were meeting the deadlines anyway, adding Oxbridge, even as a stretch choice, was pretty straight-forward. And since everyone did, there was no effective announcement that you thought you were good enough that might happen in another school. Other than your friends no one knew until it became clear who was called for interview.

@goodbyestranger
I would add that judging by your creation of this twenty four page thread and your very many, very lengthy contributions to it, the matter seems far from 'not irrelevant' to you too, as the champion of independent schools and their claim on Oxbridge.

It turned out to be relevant to my children. So much so that when they applied they only used the first of their UCAS form places, because they had decided that if they didn't get in they would reapply with results in hand. This was because they knew them to be by far the best universities for their subject, they knew that financially they would be standing on their own feet thereafter, and they expected correctly that they would not be challenged anywhere else in the UK. It was not however the reason for the manner of their education. When that decision was made they were far too young to predict where their interests would lie, in fact they looked more likely to become professional sportsmen than Oxbridge candidates. If I had to pick one reason for their style of education, it was to keep their options open for as long as possible.

Oxbridge is obviously also highly relevant more generally to a good proportion of school management teams/governors state and private, to the UK in terms of learning and research outputs, to the economy, to journalists, educationalists, politicians, to other universities that follow Oxbridge policies, and to the UK's standing in the world.

But to me it is relevant because it is used as a barometer of educational mobility, and therein lies the problem. As someone downstream pointed out, a cosmetic balancing of the books in terms of Oxbridge entry is an easy way of papering over the fault lines in British education, hence the reference to social engineering in the title. The lack of understanding on this thread - you only have to look at the comments at the top of this page to find examples - shows how successful that can be.

However, for most fee-paying parents it is definitely an irrelevance.

@goodbyestranger
Define "less good schools" please.

Schools 'less good' academically than Eton, St Paul's, SPGS, Westminster would be Harrow, Rugby, Radley, Sherborne etc. Rather obviously I would have thought.

they expected correctly that they would not be challenged anywhere else in the UK
😂

Actually that is a good point above - the trying and failing. I recently was asked to write a profile about me and I decided to concentrate on failures which was quite fun (as I have nothing to prove at my age). It was as if my life had been an Aunt Sally at a summer fair who keeps getting hit down and just bounces back. I won't generalise and say fee paying schools help you deal with constant failure rather than make life a walk in the park but some (not all) state schools do have a prizes for all, you are so worth it, you can do whatever you choose in life (even if that is an utter lie) ethos that may damage a child more than the child seeing themselves not getting into schools at 11 or 13 and not winning at sports day etc. The Robert the Bruce try and try again principle is worth trying to instill in all children at home and school. Mind you that is an interesting balance as no school or parent should be telling a child they are useless on a regular basis as there is bound to be one thing they can do well.

Whenever there is talk about 'private schools' on these threads, people always are talking about Eton - as if it's representative of the independent school sector as a whole. Obviously it's not. Nor can you compare schools like St Paul's or the other top London Day Schools with Eton. The boarding school 'demographic' (if you can call it that) is totally different.

Most people in London only put their kids forward for 11 plus for super-selective schools simply because their school are right there, practically on their doorsteps (or easily commutable at least). You have your local secondary that might achieve 20% 9-7 at GCSE, (alongside issues of drugs and knives); or you have many independents all around achieving over 90% 9-7 (not saying there will be no drugs, but at least knives are not a prevalent issue). For anyone who can possibly afford the fees, it's a no-brainer. But boarding schools are a totally different matter, different entry procedures, different lifestyle and higher fees - and not something the vast majority of day school parents would have even considered at any point.

At the school mine were at, not one teacher congratulated them on Oxbridge. It is simply not seen as any different to getting onto a competitive course anywhere else. As I said, many families are non-British and, to be honest, would see three years studying a humanities subject, for instance, as an indulgent waste of time - even if it is at Oxbridge. They are far more likely to be pushing their kids into Medicine, Economics, Finance or STEM and, for many of them, the US system is what they know.

@Marchesman - there is plenty of understanding. Nobody has disagreed with you that there is social engineering going on and a lack of educational mobility, and attempts are being made to paper over the cracks. People disagree with your idea of exactly who is to blame for that, and you have admitted you do not have sufficient data from the statistics provided to prove your hypothesis, as it is not detailed enough to explain what is going on. Out of you and Cambridge University, I vote for Cambridge being more genuinely knowledgeable. And it has its own international brand to protect. The brand you want to protect (elite public schools) is actively trying to harm the reputation of Cambridge in particular, so yet again is doing sweet FA to help prevent the cracks from widening - in fact, it patently wants to exacerbate them. You have not engaged at all in the crisis in state schools created by the current Government, or comments on underfunding, which speaks volumes about your motivations.

In the meantime, increasing state school numbers actually does force through a few more candidates from state schools that previously never sent pupils there, whether that suits you and your own political agenda or not. So, stop treating others as though they are stupid. We are not actually that stupid.

Elite public schools have priced themselves out of favour with their old supporters and now appear to want to have control over which plebs to let into their institutions.

Stranger, you don't mean "less good", you mean "less selective".

The schools you mention are all high preforming, with great resources. A child with the same ability is likely to do as well in any. Indeed some might say that some might benefit from being a big fish in a small pond. Whilst many can confirm that being at the bottom of a top performing school (and I assume the same applies with Grammars) is not a great place to be.

(“their” institutions being anything they can wrestle away from state influence, even though they have no interest whatsoever in the education of the vast majority of the population - they can just be collateral damage in their political gameplaying, hence the lack of interest in underfunding and real inequality, which apparently wouldn’t exist if they got their way, unless you were “undeserving,” which almost the entire population apparently are).

Anyway, rant over - I’m off for the weekend!

@worldstillturns
Nor can you compare schools like St Paul's or the other top London Day Schools with Eton. The boarding school 'demographic' (if you can call it that) is totally different.

I don't agree with that. Eton is very much like the selective private London day schools, and when their results are adjusted for their selection processes they are not significantly different from other schools', despite all the nonsense that we hear from their groupies.

This is directly analogous to the difference between grammar schools' results vs comprehensive schools' results for comparable children, which is non-existent (except for FSM eligible pupils who unsurprisingly do better in grammar schools). E.g. Coe et al Evidence on the Effects of Selective Educational Systems 2008.

The character and purpose of most of the other boarding schools are quite different.

@Needmoresleep

I'm pretty sure she means, and believes, what she says.

The culture described at Westminster School is now prevalent at a number of London superselective grammar schools, aka lots of Oxbridge applicants but very happy to do PPE at Warwick or go to Imperial for Sciences etc if they don’t make it. It isn’t the schools pushing, it is the peer group. Suddenly the pupils think it is the done thing and encourage each other to apply, discuss it amongst themselves etc. and want to go for it. I don’t get the impression there is much upset if they don’t get in. They rationalise it amongst themselves. What is nice in this kind of environment for the pupils is the support they give to each other. What is surprising about some of the most academically selective schools in the country (on entry) is that they don’t actually compete that much with each other because they realise pretty early on that they are not going to be the best at everything and need to develop and work out their own talents.

I can imagine that the whole experience must be a lot more lonely and disheartening for a pupil being the only one in their school to go for it. I had some friends in this category back in the late 90s. State school kids from more deprived areas who were innately academically interested and for whom it was a big dream and who reapplied with grades in hand, following not getting in the first time. To which I would also add that sometimes if you want something really badly, you can overdo things at interview and I am speaking from direct personal experience here. Nerves can get the better of you. Interestingly several of my friends in that category are now academics. So I would assume if such a friend interviews that type of student, they understand the challenges.