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?

OP would you post the response to your 2022 FOI request? The exam results one?

The only beef I have with this is that the percentage getting firsts being at around the 25% mark and no more is what I would be expecting to see. So why are more people getting firsts at Cambridge, now, from other sectors? Have they dumbed down the content of their degrees; lowered their expectations of the quality of original thought required to gain a first (is this even a requirement, or is it the degree of polish in the answers which makes them appear more impressive?); or is this a symptom of an improved quality of education in other sectors in the last 20 years which exceeds that in the comprehensive sector? Or a combination of these factors, in which nobody is certain as to the weighting of each?

I can see why @Marchesman thinks you can’t tell much from the number of 2:1s - I didn’t realise such a high proportion of students now achieve this.

Actually, no - where have 25% of the results gone?

Looking at the comprehensive school 2:1 results it is again around what I would expect, I was just distracted by the incredibly low numbers getting 2:2s and 3rds. It seems the way Cambridge calculates its degree results for these tables is not very helpful!

Our posts crossed OP.

Another way of looking at it is that the proportions of each degree type for those from comprehensive schools look about right, as in they are letting in the same sort of ability range as they always did. To enable this in the state sector, they have reduced the share of the bright, but not hugely rare, talents from the private sector and grammar schools, and only let in the more exceptional from those schools. This then shows up in the by-sector results, as you would expect, but is it really a problem, so long as they are successfully identifying the most talented from each sector to let in? They are still tapping into excellence. As for the rest - the privately educated and grammar school educated have already had a leg up earlier on by being given an education more tailored to their needs and wants, so they don’t need the extra help offered by a Cambridge degree that those from comprehensive schools do - they can be successful without the need for the extra input provided by the Cambridge supervisions, etc, and can also, in any event, probably access Cambridge if they want at a later stage, for postgraduate qualifications. So that just leaves us with whether they are successfully identifying the most talented comprehensive school students or are still missing some due to an unacceptably poor quality of education. Regardless, I don’t think the answer is to claim the privately educated are being unfairly treated, rather than that too many state educated children are being let down.

As for the rest - the privately educated and grammar school educated have already had a leg up earlier on by being given an education more tailored to their needs and wants, so they don’t need the extra help offered by a Cambridge degree that those from comprehensive schools do

Strongly agree - with the caveat that the widening participation efforts at the top grammars is intended in significant part to help those same students access Oxford or Cambridge, with an identical philosophy behind the Oxford and Cambridge initiatives.

To be fair though those same students might well be flagged according to address.

*identical philosophy to that

To provide context for recent comments, in 2021 Cambridge admitted 9 more Q1 applicants than it had in 2017 from grammar schools. Total admissions from comprehensive schools differed by 281 comparing 2017 with 2021 but Q1 admissions increased by only 19.

As I said the price of this is that it gives an entirely false impression of improving socioeconomic mobility, and 1 in 3 students from independent schools now achieve firsts while only 1 in 4 do so from comprehensive schools. The discrepancy will increase and without intervention it will become unsustainable. The logical conclusion is that Cambridge will make its offering across the board more "accessible" as Oxford proposed doing for its classics course: "It is also hoped this will reduce the attainment gap between students from state schools and private schools". The Oxford Student 28 Feb 2020.

If this were a Machiavellian plot to trash the UK's best universities you would have to admire it.

@Marchesman - in what way trashing the universities, though? Is the quality of the degree courses diminishing; the quality of the prior education of those admitted; or the genuine raw ability of the admittees? What about those students from the middle quintile? Why the focus on the extremes? Surely a more fair picture would give us information about everyone? What about those who are from a postcode with high levels of higher education participation until you strip out the privately educated and then reveal low levels of participation amongst the state educated? This doesn’t always coincide with areas of economic deprivation - in fact, it probably occurs more in areas of high employment, where there is less “need” for a university degree, but not necessarily less talent. Are these people being let down by their schools for not being encouraged towards the possibility of an academic career, or not being encouraged to aim a bit higher in terms of future earnings or influence, or should they just be allowed to do what they want without guidance or encouragement? Why are they not going on to university when the privately educated in the same area are? Or is there an inaccuracy in the postcode area measurements?

Some grammars have introduced lower score requirements for certain children eg FSM. I think all comps should have similar obligations at 11 plus level. Why not let the poorer children choose their schools (and provide some council funding to get there aka transport). It would be a start to addressing the issues around buying into catchments. In addition, we need a register of gifted children from poorer backgrounds so they really are tracked properly from an early age.

@Walkaround - well if Cambridge really have just shifted the middle class kids around from private sector to state sector and no true/real social mobility has occurred and degree standards are slipping, then the uni is being hypocritical and it is just paying lip service to a social mobility idea that isn’t properly translating in practice, either due to methods applied in admissions or actual bad faith in the system somewhere.
Having said that prima facile it does seem that they are trying to do the right thing, but it may be going wrong because admissions by uni level is just too late. And a foundation year is far from attractive for poor kids who need to get earning asap. So the whole education system needs to start working better for those kids from the start.

The logical conclusion is that Cambridge will make its offering across the board more "accessible" as Oxford proposed doing for its classics course: "It is also hoped this will reduce the attainment gap between students from state schools and private schools"

This is another funny one. Major misrepresentation too.

https://www.oxfordstudent.com/2020/02/17/94749/

As you should very well know OP, this is still in the consultation process and won't come into effect for a long while yet (2027 has been suggested), if ever, given the concerns raised about it. The concerns raised are not just from purists but also from those concerned about access to Classics for those students who haven't had any Classical language offered at school (overwhelmingly state school students). There's a very strong body of opinion within the faculty that the more challenging ride for the latter students on the Classics course which is currently creating the attainment gap is going to increase not decrease if these proposals are implemented. So it's still a subject causing major arguments and those arguments are very much unresolved. The current Course II students (the ab initio/ state school ones) are dead against it because the reality is that they're already at a disadvantage through no fault of their own natural ability and don't want that disadvantage increased by an ill thought through proposal. Some even like the idea of Homer and Virgil....

Of course it's easier to get a high mark when you've been taught Classics from the age of seven as compared to those who simply can't access it at school at any stage and are expected to come up to the same level linguistically in a year and have no prior education in the literature or history or art or anything at all. That is bleedingly obvious. The competition for places for the ab initio course is also strikingly high compared to the competition for Course I. The attainment gap has nothing to do with potential or lack of it.

Anyhow, good try OP but absolutely rubbish in terms of transparency. The Classics thing as I said before is niche but this point illustrates how misleading some posters can be by quoting something with no absolutely no context, to make out that something is so when in fact the opposite is. Not great.

Again, I don't know if anyone will be able to see this as it's a screenshot. It's from the most recent Cambridge admissions stats (just Google if you are interested - everything is broken down for the last ten years or so).

In terms of WP, you can see that for 'direct offers' (ie offers from the college applied to) the offer rate is roughly consistent between the independent and state sectors.

At Cambridge, as I'm sure you know, any candidates considered worthy of a place (but considered not quite as strong as other applicants to a given college) are put into the 'winter pool.'

You can see that the pooling rate for independent candidates is actually higher than for candidates from the maintained sector (roughly 1 in 4 to 1 in 5 of total candidates per sector respectively).

However, it appears that where the WP calculations come in is at the winter pool stage. This is where the difference is - roughly 1 in 5 pooled candidates from the maintained sector go on to be made offers, whereas only about 1 in 10 of independent school pooled candidates are 'fished' (despite the fact a higher proportion of these were pooled in the first place).

That's how it seems to me anyway. Disclaimer - neither my eyesight nor maths are the best these days, so I may be missing something?!

@JustanothermagicMonday1 - but who says their standards are slipping? Should more than a third of all students be getting firsts?! How meaningful is that? If we let more privately educated children in at the expense of the state educated, would they retain their advantage, or slip back themselves, so that the overall picture remains exactly the same, with the exception that the privately educated are massively overrepresented again? And, who is paying attention to those not at either extreme? Do you not care about their social mobility?

Certainly nobody I can see has expressed the slightest interest in the families in quintile 3. What the hell do we even know about them?

I think it is wholly separate debate about so many ghigher degrees . In my day only 15% of people went to university at all (in my own school hardly any of us went) and about one third got at 2/1 or higher (which I managed and was a condition of my first job). One girl gor a first in my entire law year and I was top in 2 subjects but still did not get a first. Now 2/3rd of people not just one third get a 2/1 or higher.

So my 2/1 being of 15% of people who went to university and only 5% that level put me in a sense in the top 5%.

Whereas today if 50% of people go and 2/3rds get 2/1 or higher our person with a 2/1 is in 2/3rd of 50% is in the top 33%.

However the above is all wrong if the old system meant many people just as clever as the 1980s 5% simply did not have a chance even to take A levels I suppose.

Of course it's easier to get a high mark when you've been taught Classics from the age of seven as compared to those who simply can't access it at school at any stage and are expected to come up to the same level linguistically in a year and have no prior education in the literature or history or art or anything at all. That is bleedingly obvious. The competition for places for the ab initio course is also strikingly high compared to the competition for Course I. The attainment gap has nothing to do with potential or lack of it.

This point illustrates how misleading some posters can be by quoting something with no absolutely no context, to make out that something is so when in fact the opposite is. Not great.

I said proposed, and proposed is precisely what it was, and for the reason that I gave. As an example of dumbing down a syllabus it is perfectly apposite. Though why it sent you off on another Mods diatribe I have no idea.

Ab initio students do not read Homer and Virgil. They read one or the other and neither in the same breadth as Mods A students. Nor do they read the same untranslated texts for other papers, and as is bleeding obvious they are doing Greek or Latin for the first two years at least, not both. What do you think the proper classicists are doing while this is going on? Punting?

It evidently hasn't occurred to you as you fondly imagine that the competition is strikingly high compared to the competition for Course I that you are confusing quantitative with qualitative. Quite obviously the field is small for Mods IA - all but the cleverest shy away from Latin and Greek at school. Some posters really can be misleading can't they?

@worldstillturns

I don't think you are missing anything. The winter pool used to have, and most likely still does, objective criteria that mandate the inclusion of high performing candidates who have nonetheless been fatally torpedoed at interview. Applicants from independent schools are much more likely to fall into this category (for obvious reasons). It is a bad system. Much better to pass such candidates on for a further round of interviews so that they start afresh, as practised by Oxford.

It’s a pretty tough call to be any sort of classicist let alone a ‘proper classicist’ if you attend a state school which doesn’t offer any classical language or even Ancient History or Classical Civ. By the end of the four years those who learned their languages at Oxford would definitely be considered bona fide by the tutors, and their opinion is probably worth a little more than yours, given that it’s their area of expertise.

It’s fairly well accepted that the ab initio course is astonishingly tough. I’m not sure why you seem to be on a mission to denigrate it.

Of course I understand the difference between quantitative and qualitative but on the Higher Ed threads you’ll frequently find posters saying that eg Economics and Management or PPE is much harder to get an offer for than Classics or Music. It’s definitely something people believe and I think the point about quality is valid there, but probably not between applicants for Course I or Course II. Therefore the numbers do matter, given the general parity of quality.

Why does Oxford Classics get you so wound up though?

What do you consider to be the obvious reason that causes independent school kids to be fatally torpedoed at interview?

Being pooled does not mean a student has 'torpedoed' at interview. Probably the opposite! It could mean that, for instance, Downing History applicants all had perfect grades and high interview scores but Downing can only take 6 out of 25, so the remainder have to be pooled. At Oxford, those strong candidates would be sent to other colleges for interview.

At Cambridge, colleges seem to operate as separate entities to a greater degree than at Oxford - eg. they don't look at applications on a departmental level from the outset and reallocate students across colleges so that ratios of applicants to places are broadly consistent across colleges for a subject.

The pooling system at Cambridge is supposed to ensure that strong applicants in over-subscribed colleges can be picked up by other colleges. But I'm not sure

Has anyone ever done IQ tests on children who choose to do both Greek and Latin to see if they really are “the cleverest” of clever children? And if genuinely required to be super-clever, then those doing it ab initio at uni must be undeniably exceptionally bright, surely, and exactly the sort of people Oxford should be desperate to attract. So, Oxford clearly understands true potential when it sees it. Or, possibly, there simply aren’t enough super-bright people at private schools any more, because most of them sidle out of doing Greek and Latin, so to keep classics going at all, they are having to resort to super-bright people from the state sector. Or, alternatively, it’s nothing whatsoever to do with super-cleverness, just with availability of the option, and if you do learn two dead languages at school, you have a very high chance of a place to study Classics at Oxford. You’ll certainly have demonstrated the requisite interest, after all!

Tbh, as Boris Johnson was both educated at public school and read Classics at Oxford, I think @Marchesman has a lot of explaining to do on how his public school education failed so badly to instil desirable qualities in him (with the exception of resilience), and how his time as Prime Minister demonstrated his superior intelligence?

Which leads me on to my point that university is supposed to provide an academic education and engage in academic research, and I do have a beef with the use of universities by people who have no great interest in the academic, but who have been told that if they jump through yet another hoop, they will earn more money in future.