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?

Or maybe the problem is the UK as a whole? Why bother with any idea of fairness within a country, albeit that it would aid the stability of that country, when you don’t care about the rest of the world? We’ll all be the death of each other one way or the other!

Another interesting statistic: 1% of the UK population holds more wealth than 70% of the population combined. And “ONS data is likely to vastly underestimate the share of wealth going to the richest households because the data does not include business wealth, and because “the very wealthy do not tend to respond to such surveys”.

Where there is massive wealth inequality, there is massive power inequality. You don’t live in a true democracy if you live in a country that is grossly unequal. Those with the money hold the power and have control over the situation, whether they will admit to it or not.

I don't mind that some people have more money than others. It shows our democracy and capitalism is working in what is one of the best nations on the planet.

The quad from the comp with identical results to the other quad at the selective schools might have a better chance. I have non identical twins who went to the same university (Bristol). They obviously don't share the genes identicals will have and they have been quite different although similar academically and in the same environment at home at birth. Oxbridge is a gamble anyway even for those with top grades so will just depend how the quad does in the interview etc

(Just on the point mentioned above that private school entrance exams are some kind of sop to parents that eveyrone passes that is genuinely not so in our part of London. There is massive pecking of order of those you hardly stand a chance go get in like St Paul's, Westminster, North London Collegiate, Merchant Taylor's Haberashers etc etc and those like Aldenham or Royal Masonic that might take almost anyone and plenty in between. If you are in a wise prep school first they will steer you to the one where you might have a hope of passing the entrance exam (and I write that as a parent of children who have been in 4 different such secondary schools in the private sector and with the children's father teaching in yet another fee paying private school). You don't pick the school if it is very selective - it is a question of if you will pass to get in.)

'You don't pick the school if it is very selective - it is a question of if you will pass to get in.)'

Exactly Xenia. There are London independents with 10, 12 or even 15 applicants per place. Full days of exams / assessment tasks at 11, plus interviews for a certain percentage. In many ways, it's more competitive than many courses at Oxbridge. It's hardly surprising they get good results when they can cherry pick like this. It's the same with grammars. There are grammars in Bucks where they take 1 in 3 applicants. Compare that to a (non-catchment) grammar like Tiffin where it's 1 in 15. No surprise that the Bucks grammar gets about 50% 9-7 at GCSE and Tiffin gets over 90%. It's not so much about the teaching. In my experience, there are good and bad teachers in all schools. It's the intake in the first place. Just like at Cambridge, there are tutors who can't teach and are peculiar, to say the least.

Completely accept that about the best London independents Xenia

Well, @JustanothermagicMonday1 - the one who went to Eton is already a better person, so they don’t need Oxbridge, although Oxbridge needs them😏. The one from the comprehensive needs the most help to become a “better person,” and Oxbridge offers the opportunity not only to gain a good degree, but also to access experiences and opportunities unavailable to most students at other universities, and we all know these experiences make you a “better person” even more than the degree does - you know, because of Kipling’s “If.” So, Eton should go first, then the comprehensive school student (unless from a blacklisted comprehensive which secretly offered world class theatre spaces, West End directors, world class physios, etc, to its students), then the grammar school and Rugby school kids at the bottom of the pile, because it’s obvious they don’t deserve it as much, as they cheated and are not better people, so aren’t needed, either. Or, actually, no - comprehensive school kid last, because they are a fictional human being 🤣.

Regarding the educational choices of the top 1% of earners, according to one ideologue, famous in left-wing circles for his anti-private school stance, at least 40% of them send their children to comprehensive schools or grammar schools.

Although I have been unable to find the origin of this figure it seems entirely consistent with the social/academic selectivity and outputs of some of these schools and it is reassuring to know that their unfortunate children have Cambridge University's support.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/jan/13/public-schools-david-kynaston-francis-green-engines-of-privilege

The top 1% of earners are not the wealthiest 1%, though, are they.

Nice try, though.

Indeed not. It is difficult to know how they manage to get by on £300,000 p.a..

On £160k, apparently.

"At the 99th rung – families with incomes upwards of £300,000 – six out of every 10 children are at private school."

As for top private school places for the poor - favouritism of the London area again, then? As if they don’t already get a disproportionately large slice of the funding pie even in the state sector? That won’t do much for the North East, unless Northern parents do not object to sending their male children off to somewhere like Eton to enjoy an excess of privilege which they might find morally repugnant?

“Key findings. To be in the top 1% of income tax payers in the UK (i.e. to be among the 310,000 individuals with the highest income), a taxable income of at least £160,000 is required” (Institute of Fiscal Studies)

And 2 x 16 is?

So, as the top 1% of earners clearly don’t come anywhere near being in the wealthiest 1%, this is another example of the elites trying to blame others for a problem not of their creation, because obviously getting everyone to tell high earners they are the greedy ones stops people focusing on the real 1%.

And you understand the difference between earned income from a job and where the real wealth lies, @Marchesman?

So - what is the benefit of telling rich people they are abusing the state sector, exactly?

It shows how the elite have stitched everything up beautifully, doesn’t it? Just keep squeezing incomes, then pretend there’s nothing left to tax, when actually, you’re hiding the overwhelming majority of it.

None they know it, although they probably don't regard it as abuse, merely using the system as it is set up to be used - with considerable legitimacy.

However, if there were greater awareness, the university would be obliged to focus its attention where it will do more good, and faults in the system might actually be addressed instead of merely swapping one privileged group for another to make the figures look better.

There are grammars in Bucks where they take 1 in 3 applicants.

'Applicants' is probably not quite the right word in Bucks as it's an opt-out system and hardly anyone opts out, so the vast majority of DCs sit the 11+ exam.

It's not so much about the teaching. In my experience, there are good and bad teachers in all schools. It's the intake in the first place.

Interestingly, that's not what the data shows. Research studies repeatedly indicate that a good teacher is the single most important factor in academic achievement at secondary stage. Followed by such factors as a supportive home environment and peer group ambitions. Class size is much less of a factor than is commonly believed (absent the issues of SEN DCs). There are numerous studies showing that DCs do better in big classes with a great teacher than in smaller classes with a poor one. So we should celebrate and be grateful for the good teachers!

Yes, but as I have pointed out to you already, you are talking about a tiny number of schools in a tiny part of the country. You do not have to leave the South East even for it to be entirely untrue that it’s the families earning £300,000 and more a year that are bagging the Oxbridge comprehensive school places, as people on these incomes are few (but not far between). And Oxbridge does take into account where these people are, because as you have also already said, they are funnelling themselves into a small number of schools, which reflects in their exam results, and Oxford and Cambridge contextualise these schools due to their results, and the areas around them for their wealth. And Oxbridge has recognised it still hasn’t gone far enough, because it is still not reaching all the state schools it needs to in order to capture all of those with the “best potential.”

You have also both claimed that these people, whom you believe are earning too much to use the state sector legitimately, are going to the best comprehensives and that where the schools they attend are going makes less than 1% of a difference to their attainment. So, how are these schools actually “best”? And what about all the rest? There are plenty of comprehensive schools getting good results, including some kids in those schools with stellar results, without containing any families whatsoever who are earning £300,000 a year. Plenty of families neither wealthy enough to pay for a private education, nor poor enough to want the “charity” of private schools - far, far more of these people than the tiny numbers private schools have any interest in subsidising in any way. As wealth inequality grows, due to the accumulation of the country’s wealth among the true 1%, and private school fees continue to rise astronomically, it only makes sense to increase the state school intake, and to invest more in ensuring state schools can deal with the problems caused by the true 1% who have profited from “austerity.”

I think the UK is an unproductive mess because all it has to sell to the world is social exclusivity and if we take that away, we have nothing worthwhile to offer. We can’t afford to upset the elites by touching their private schools, because they are the ones providing the wealth creators (who cares that’s because they rigged the system and then hoard the wealth, eh?). The elite are responsible for running the country down, but they point the finger of blame at everyone else. Firstly it’s the “feckless poor” who are to blame for ruining the country, then it’s the hard working middle who are taking advantage of the system. It’s just so hard to find the deserving amongst all that rabble.🧐

And such a shame we Brexited just as the British form of social exclusivity and its links with exploitation of other countries went out of fashion and became embarrassing. We can neither move forwards nor back, now, because nobody thinks much of us whichever way we travel, they are just determined to get their pound of flesh as punishment for our past imperialist behaviour. It’s fun to kick the British while they are down, especially when they did it to themselves.

But yay, we can bring more elites into the country, we’re not limited to the EU. Because we all know how much the elites have done for us. They are bound to make us a more productive country.