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?

and cropped damn it

Anecdotally, I know a lot of parents view grammar schools as safer havens for their children if they also have autism, dyspraxia or other similar difficulties. It is possible that there is a bigger overlap between students with cognitive and learning difficulties and grammar school students at Cambridge, therefore, and that the extra help and support provided by the wealthier parents who managed to get their ND children into the grammar schools means this disabled group perform less well than disabled groups from other school types. Too much information is combined in the statistics. Which schools do disabled students predominantly come from, for example? How well are those students supported by Cambridge when they get there? The brightest of those disabled students may well not be the ones sheltered by their grammar schools to enable them to achieve.

There is also a lot of criticism of Cambridge with regard to its mental health support. Is it just reporting, or does Cambridge handle things far worse than Oxford does, because it’s more often Cambridge that gets the negative press on that in recent years? Is it taking in students who are plenty bright enough to have the potential to get firsts, but comparatively emotionally fragile and lacking in confidence, and so underperforming because their mental health is deteriorating while they are at university? Which socioeconomic groups are getting the firsts from each school type? How good are the good honours degrees from each school type? Why is Government systematically underfunding support services for those who need help and then expecting schools and universities to pick up the pieces, anyway?

Also, which schools are the underperforming black and Asian students coming from? Why only use POLAR statistics, which mix privately educated students and state educated students in together? Why not also use TUNDRA, so as to reveal how likely state educated students are to go to university compared to their privately educated peers from the same postcode area? There’s quite a big difference between the two in some areas.

On whether university will be relevant if the end of the world is nigh comments (Jehovah's witnesses have specialised in this which is why they don't let their children go on to university although they have had to keep postponing things as the end of the world never quite comes when they say..........) we shall see.

I certainly see my children's private education and what they are taught ath ome as also skills for life including survival skills. I even bought an island in the Pacific which I had for 10 years which people think is about being rich but in fact we camped, found water sources, survived on it. However I am sure we are nothing like as knowledgeable as the children who survived in the Amazon. Harold Wilson PM when I was a child said when I grew up we would only have to work 3 days a week as the "white heat of technology" would free us all up for masses os leisure time. Although to an extent he is right - my family working historically in coal mines until the 1940s no longer do so - we are not all quite a redundant as suggestion so I am certainly pleased 4 of my 5 children have followed me into law even if some of the more boring legal jobs will got to AI. In fact it's writing I have noticed is worse paid than 30 years ago because of the internet and words being free or cheap, rather than lawyers.

Strong stoic adaptable children with lots of different skills will probably help ensure that child thrives over the decades (and professional qualifications and a university education rarely does any harm in that respect)

Sorry I disagree on that one! You don’t need private education for that. Utterly anecdotalIy I took Dd aged 14 and a large gang of her pals from various schools to a very rough and ready festival recently the private school girls were utterly hopeless - squawking about phone chargers etc the state school girl from the single parent family who had had SS involvement due to her awful father put up the tents and sorted them all out.

My own Dd was a hopeless one I noted sadly

Anecdotally, I know a lot of parents view grammar schools as safer havens for their children if they also have autism, dyspraxia or other similar difficulties. It is possible that there is a bigger overlap between students with cognitive and learning difficulties and grammar school students at Cambridge, therefore, and that the extra help and support provided by the wealthier parents who managed to get their ND children into the grammar schools means this disabled group perform less well than disabled groups from other school types. Too much information is combined in the statistics. Which schools do disabled students predominantly come from, for example? How well are those students supported by Cambridge when they get there? The brightest of those disabled students may well not be the ones sheltered by their grammar schools to enable them to achieve

Interesting. Again anecdotally, but with nineteen years behind me, our grammar school was for years very poor indeed at pushing for ed psych reports/ extra time for its students. It seemed to be only the seriously pushy parents who managed to secure it (there were notoriously pushy parents in each cohort, always calling the school and emailing members of staff about this that and the other). A few miles away at the private schools the extra time thing was endemic. My older six DC were astonished at the number of their peers who qualified for extra time at Oxford. They thought it a bit of a joke, almost an industry at the independents, that was their view. Our grammar has picked up the pace since a new HT came into post but there were two issues until very recently: one, the cost of assessments to the school (this was a major issue) and two, the fact that most of the students with suspected issues were performing very highly, objectively, so didn't fall below whatever threshold it is that's required for extra time. Possibly the rules have changed in the past few years, no idea. Anyhow as I said I've always been hands off other than not missing the annual parents' evenings and was confident that I could rely on the school to deal with the educational side of life so I was seriously surprised when DS4 was picked up in sixth form by one of his outstanding teachers and bingo - massive processing issues and dysgraphia etc etc. etc. In retrospect it's absolutely clear that several of his older siblings share these traits too but too late for them (and didn't matter other than extra time would have been a major relief). In fact it was too late to secure extra time for DS4 for A level as well but again, he did well objectively.

Long account that (apologies) but I am 100% clear that if the situation at our grammar was replicated across other grammar then that alone would create a discrepancy in results at Cambridge level, certainly vis a vis the independently educated students.

Very good point about mental health support too. Over the years that the DC have been in Oxford (2008 to now, with at least one DC always at the uni), there have been multiple rustications or serious struggles among their peers. I think it fair to say, again anecdotally, that those students who have struggled have also been among the brightest in the cohort.

On who seems to get to Oxbridge from the grammars - should probably issue the old anecdata warning again - and since the pushy parents were well known at school - it may well have been those who would have been the keenest for their DC to try for Oxbridge and get an offer but there was no correlation whatsoever that I could detect, looking back. I only mention that as it relates to the extra time thing. But there are a few false premises flying around here, particularly the idea that kids who only got into the grammar thanks to additional tutoring and only kept up thanks to further tutoring also went onto get Oxbridge offers. Those were very definitely not the group which went onto Oxbridge.

Those pesky kids insist on having their own opinions. Cambridge was life changing for Dh but Dd currently lower 6th and who has the grades to give oxbridge a shot is adamant she wants to go somewhere livelier and up north. Her choice!

Goodbye some of the difference between state and private on dyslexia may have other causes.

DD was picked up aged 7. She was a very early reader (she still has an amazing facial recognition and was probably learning what words looked like rather than how to decode letters) but put into a remedial spelling group, which suggested a problem. The school had a couple of staff focussed on SEN and so were able to give her early screening. We could pay the, not inconsiderable, cost of a specialised report. When the psychologist said to her that she must have been working very hard to be performing in the middle of her year group, DD gave a huge sigh of relief. Keeping up had been hard work, yet it was her brother who was in top sets and getting the praise. She also saw a behavioural opthalmologist who noted that she was left handed and right footed but had not developed a lead eye, which would be contributing to problems.

We were open to both her selective secondary and sixth form, so she went to schools who felt able to support her. Her sixth form, who had a number of the seriously intelligent students you have just described, were brilliant. (They interestingly were very conservative about extra time. I think there were only a couple, DD and a boy some way along the autistic spectrum, who got extra time in her subjects.) DD also effectively got extra time in class tests (she was marked on what she got done, and finished the rest at home). She got to give a talk to the staff room on the issues facing a dyslexic student, a repeat of a talk she had given earlier to a teacher training college.

DD was very surprised to find that there was only a tiny handful on her course of several hundred who qualified for extra time, though others got diagnosed later. At 10 she was told by a prep school head who "did not believe in dyslexia" on the basis of a dreadful CAT score that she would not cope in a selective London school. She also did very badly in a grammar school 11+ (800th on the wait list) and not great on medical school aptitude tests.

So some of the discrepancy will be that the private sector will have the resources to spot pupils with issues and to put remedial provision in place, which allows pupils to maximise their potential. DD might well have got lost in a middle set in the state system, with low targets and doing well enough not to arouse attention. (My guess is that she would have then been bored and naughty which would have compounded the problem.)

That said huge numbers seemed to get extra time at a nearby high achieving girls school. Anecdotally those that did not have a diagnosis would rush to their GP and seek a written confirmation that they had a sprained wrist so needed more time. (I don't know if this is still possible since they tightened up.)

Livelier and up north has a lot to recommend it though TheaBrandt!

Needmoresleep absolutely resources is a critical issue. And I'm not actually surprised at all that your DCs' school has a better moral compass on this than some without its leadership or reputation.

I am not sure that it is moral compass. I was told by a teacher that because the school was well known, they could not afford to, say, over-egg A level predictions or be seen to be playing the extra time game. Their A level predictions and school reports needed to be credible to be taken seriously by people like Oxbridge admissions teams.

Real life does not give you extra time, so unless you really needed it you were probably better off not getting used to it. DD apparently had the slowest processing speeds in the whole school, so she became a bit of a guinea pig for new softwares etc. Support at medical school has been a lot more patchy, and it has been for her to have to point out when she has an issue. My guess is an Oxbridge college, with its high level of contact, would be a relatively good place to study.

@Walkaround
Too much information is combined in the statistics. Which schools do disabled students predominantly come from, for example?...Is it taking in students who are plenty bright enough to have the potential to get firsts, but comparatively emotionally fragile and lacking in confidence, and so underperforming because their mental health is deteriorating while they are at university? Which socioeconomic groups are getting the firsts from each school type? How good are the good honours degrees from each school type?

The analysis deals with these questions by testing which have an effect and then controlling for them. SES is not mentioned because presumably it was not significant in the univariate analysis. The results in the multivariate analysis are therefore not "combined". Here, the individual effects of each characteristic are teased out. In the case of school type, the outcomes are not explained by a varying prevalence of disabilities, mental health problems, ethnicity etc.. For grammar schools, the plain fact of having attended one predicts a poorer outcome.

Once this is acknowledged it is possible to ask why.

Needmoresleep I suppose it isn't a question of moral compass when you're simply doing the right thing.

“There is also a lot of criticism of Cambridge with regard to its mental health support. Is it just reporting, or does Cambridge handle things far worse than Oxford does, because it’s more often Cambridge that gets the negative press on that in recent years? Is it taking in students who are plenty bright enough to have the potential to get firsts, but comparatively emotionally fragile and lacking in confidence, and so underperforming because their mental health is deteriorating while they are at university?”

I think questions regarding mental health are really complicated. Because against a backdrop of issues with child and adolescent mental health in the NHS itself it is really difficult to hold educational establishments to account. Yes, it is a high pressure environment and yes good pastoral support should be in place. However, where students actually see their tutors every week is it not a given that the actual contact students have with adults 1:1 or 1:2 is typically greater than at other universities? You could also assume that given many live on campus and are surrounded by other intelligent young people (who presumably are responsible and also know how to ask for help?) there should actually be less mental health issues that reach absolute crisis point.
A lot of the issues in schools and across education are caused by poverty and lack of easily and readily available children’s services rather than education itself? If every teacher could easily refer each child quickly for all sorts of easily available support services I doubt education would be in the mess it actually is. In addition, there are lots of recent issues caused by the pandemic itself.

@Marchesman - That’s all very well, but if they are having previously healthy students kill themselves in their college rooms, they really aren’t using accurate data on mental health, are they? All they are aware of is the very tip of the iceberg - students officially diagnosed and recorded before going as being mentally unwell, or formally diagnosed while there (presumably). They are not going to be recording all the students whose GPs have merely prescribed them anti-depressants for their anxiety or depression, or are feeling acutely anxious but are not being taken seriously. Those are the students finding it hard to focus and concentrate, so underperforming, but who are not getting any support, not the ones who are officially recorded.

There are also often social class and cultural reasons for different rates of reporting and seeking of formal recognition for difficulties. Likewise with physical illness. A less well off state educated student may not be able to contemplate, in any event, being allowed time out to recover from an episode of acute anxiety or depression, due to the expense incurred in delaying completion of the degree and problems with student loans, and fear of being judged a failure who should never have thought they could aspire to this if they do not plough on regardless.

Cambridge don’t even confirm in the literature whether they are using all available data to refine their analysis - eg POLAR 4 v TUNDRA. At least with ethnicity, they are likely to have more reliable data on which to draw conclusions.

Basically, as I have already said, I think you really do need a far more unarguable statistical analysis to justify arguing that Cambridge is doing entirely the wrong thing and has totally run out of suitable state educated applicants. And, to be fair, covid has shown us what an art statistical analysis is, not a black and white science. A brief summary of their conclusions will not give a fair representation of everything they considered and why they came to the conclusions that they did. You would need to sit down with the people who compiled the statistics and argue it out with them for that - until then, you are rather fruitlessly arguing that you are more clever than Cambridge University.

@JustanothermagicMonday1 - that is why it is argued that Cambridge’s suicide statistics are shocking.

@Walkaround
"A brief summary of their conclusions will not give a fair representation of everything they considered and why they came to the conclusions that they did. You would need to sit down with the people who compiled the statistics and argue it out with them for that - until then, you are rather fruitlessly arguing that you are more clever than Cambridge University."

A brief summary should at the very least mention statistically significant findings for any factor that is investigated in depth - especially when the findings pertaining to that factor are statistically greater than those for others that are discussed. Since as a generalisation it is never possible to "sit down with the people who compiled the statistics and argue it out with them" a paper is normally expected to do that on the reader's behalf.

Whether I am "more clever than Cambridge University" is a fruitless argument entirely of your making - it is irrelevant.

@Marchesman - In other words you think Cambridge has not disclosed enough and has given an inadequate summary of the conclusions they have come to. It can’t actually be argued that they are wrong that there are far greater numbers of the students they are seeking in the state sector than the private sector, however, so your nitpicking is irrelevant. Their evidence proves nothing except they need to improve their methods for finding the best candidates. To argue it is saying that they should be picking more privately educated students is a bizarre conclusion, imvho.

(On "extra time" the rules did change between my older chidlren and 10 years+ later their youngest siblings. We had one child with extra time - dyslexia and I think one of the twins perhaps should have had it for GCSE according to his psychologist's report, but the rules had changed by then and he was not "bad" enough to merit it - which was fine - it was never something on which we banked (and he got the best A levels of the whole family.......) but it was definitely a different set of rules for eligibility by then.

@Walkaround
In other words you think Cambridge has not disclosed enough and has given an inadequate summary of the conclusions they have come to. It can’t actually be argued that they are wrong that there are fargreater numbers of the students they are seeking in the state sector than the private sector, however, so your nitpicking is irrelevant. Their evidence proves nothing except they need to improve their methods for finding the best candidates.

Other words, not mine. Cambridge disclosed plenty but neither summarised it nor drew any conclusions from it. I would not attempt for one moment to argue that there are not greater numbers of "the students they are seeking" in the state sector because they are seeking two categories of student, one of which is low SES and the other is state educated.* *

The evidence proves 1) they are not trying to find the best candidates 2) they are doing a pretty successful job of concealing it.

@Marchesman - the evidence proves no such thing. Since when have statistics ever “proved” anything? You can’t even come up with an explanation for the apparent underperformance of grammar school students - you just puff an awful lot of hot air about genetics, pushy parents, tutoring, and public school children being better people because they have had morally obscene amounts of money spent on offering them the best that far too much money can buy. And regardless, Cambridge is entitled to set the policies it wants and clearly has a different definition of who the best people are to the one you are obsessing over, as it wouldn’t have set out the aims it has, would it?

*wouldn’t otherwise