AIBU - gutted for them regarding early entry subject rejections (non-oxbridge)

[westerdays]

I teach a STEM subject at sixth form level. in the South West of the UK.
I'm also involved in the UCAS process for our school's applicants.

Our school extends support to would be medics/dentists/vets etc who don't get a uni place on those type of courses first time round.

Some pupils resit an A Level (or 2), some just need reassurance that many very able applicants do take more than one UCAS application to get a place or advise on their chances given their UCAT score/likelihood of increasing that score, or a realistic opinion on their chances.

I've noticed that the non ethnic lads at our school are having the toughest time securing places to study medicine/dentistry/vet sci, no matter how good their academic track record or how high their UCAT score, the interview performance seems to trounce all of that. I had one lad who, having applied for a third and final time for dentistry last year was rejected again post interview. He's going abroad to study dentistry and his plan is then to return and work his way through all the processes required of "non uk trained" dentists before they can fully practice dentistry in the uk. He's always been an extremely able all-rounder and I have no doubt that he'll pick up enough of the local language quickly enough to assist with his studies.
We're fortunate enough to have enough parents who are doctors/dentists/pharmacists/vets etc volunteering to do multiple practice interviews, but it's generally the girls/ethnically diverse boys who seem to have most chance of getting the offers after interviews these days even though our "mock interview panels" haven't found any major distinguishing factors between many of our school's applicants when it comes to feedback to aid interview performance in the real thing.

From google:

In 2020, 29.3% of UK undergraduates admitted to the University of Cambridge were from Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds. This was a record number of BAME students admitted to the university.

Perhaps your DS's college is more diverse but overall figures for the university in 2020 were as above.

Do you know for how long your DS's college has been diverse? I am curious because a few years back there was a report some Oxbridge colleges had not admitted a single Black student for at least 5 years. I don't doubt what you say about your DS's college, I just would like to know as it sounds like an outlier.

My preference would be to select on the basis of potential, including the value added to be gained from being in an Oxbridge environment.

DH went to Oxford from a school which virtually never sent anyone (still don't), on one of those famous two E offers. His school was in the new fervor of comprehensive education, so no setting, no streaming and a very streamlined curriculum, and he was roundly bullied. Only two in his class went on to tertiary education, the other to teacher training college. His sixth form tutor spotted something in him and encouraged him to apply. Apparently the school report suggested he was a chrysalis, though the tutor later told him he meant to say "slug".

His A level grades are fine, not great, and I suspect his interview wasn't either, but at the end of his first year he was given a scholarship.

The important thing was that he was admitted as individual, with context. Not as a statistic. No one was saying we need more LGBT, or people with specific family backgrounds for the sake of our statistics.

The statistics may say that the student population is unrepresentative of the country as a whole. Fine., Who is missing and why? More outreach? Money? (Very true for students from Scotland and NI, but they have good universities of their own so it probably doesn't matter.) Fears of "snobbery" - get some students on social media to explain that Oxbridge life is great, and clamp down on misbehaviour in colleges or classrooms. Not wanting to live away from home? Probably not much you can do about that, and part of the reason London Universities achieve good diversity. Poor preparation? Kings and other maths schools are a start, as are the various maths outreach programmes. Could something be done for humanities, to stretch students and ensure they are University ready, and so on.

What you presumably don't want to do is take more applicants who belong to your target group than you would have done otherwise, favouring them over better applicants. Nor should you actively reject strong applicants from certain schools. This is discrimination.

The University probably needs to work out for itself. What do they want to achieve. Do they want to discover talent and potential, or are they looking to achieve some form of equality objective that will show up in their stats, by selecting partly on, say, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion or skin colour. If so they should be open, and it should be possible to have a discussion without resulting to calls of Trump or Badenoch. If Oxford and Cambridge cannot manage that, who can?

A friend's daughter applied for medicine last year.

What she noticed amongst her peers (both male and female) who were also applying was she was carefully picking where she was more likely to get in and not going for some of the more prestigious universities.

Now given she flunked UCAT and still got in, it suggests there's more going on here than discrimination.

She'd managed to get hospital work experience, had a job and had volunteering experience. On paper other than her results she looked really good. And this was stuff she could talk about in interviews.

She spent ages looking at each course and how they differed and what entries they had previous years.

She had done her research on the whole system of getting in rather than just picking a university and applying. She'd realised that as a rule kids who had doctors for parents had an advantage because of the way the system worked and she didn't have this.

She had also previously failed an interview for something she really wanted to do, so this focused her mind about her interview technique. She'd previously thought that she was good and got a nasty shock. In hindsight it probably helped her.

In the end some of her peers with better results didn't get places. She'd been smart about it and got in. She wasn't surprised because a couple of her peers didn't do the leg work she did but were miffed she got the place. A lot that was very much owed to entitlement on the part of her peers. They thought the grades and better UCAT score were the be all and ends all.

She will be a fab doctor - her attitude of going above and beyond is great, and unfortunately, possibly very necessary.

Years ago a friend flunked his A-levels. He'd planned to medicine and that didn't go well. In the end he did a different degree and then did a conversation to medicine course.

I can't help thinking that some of these candidates just think they should get the place at the university of their choice because they are great, not realising just how competitive it is and suddenly everyone is as brilliant as you. And can't see or research other routes to achieving an ultimate goal. And in some ways this marks them as taking less initiative and being candidates who perhaps don't have as much to offer than others. And thus actually it's perhaps not discrimination but a lack of understanding what others have done to get that tiny edge or to find a better way in that maximises their chances of getting a place.

As it goes the friends daughter at one point really didn't think she'd get in. I don't think that was a bad thing because it made her more realistic and play the odds. She's an amazing candidate even though she didn't get the top grades and I'm glad that was recognised. We know her well and were sure she'd get it, even with that, because of those extra things she had.

I'd have to question some candidates suitability if they are trying to apply for a third time in the same manner tbh.

I'm not sure it's changing that fast. We have known around 40 families whose children were offered Oxbridge in the last few years. Almost without exception, lots of them had a connection either a sibling attended or one or both parents. Or they had a teacher/lecturer parent. Often the grades were good but not stellar. If you're a regular reader of the annual Oxbridge threads on Mumsnet you will see this pattern too. I'm sure that these 'hidden' markers give a huge advantage to candidates. They know the system and know how to work towards taking advantage of it despite the annual protestations that Oxbridge saw something in their particular child.

I understand the criteria for Cambridge is changing as they're finding the state school kids that are offered are similar to the independent school kids that are offered ie; from advantaged homes that are more likely to produce a confident, articulate child able to achieve more easily. I think they'll now be placing more focus on postcodes/Polar data and I think that's a fairer way to do it.

Personally, I cannot begrudge teachers the ability to successfully prepare their DC for Oxbridge. We have never had teachers in my family, yet I would be okay with Oxbridge being 80-90% teachers' DC. I see it as a perk of their job and doubt any of them went into teaching with the long-term sole purpose of sending their DC to Oxbridge at some unknown future date. Perhaps it's fair compensation for the relatively low salaries teachers receive.

The people I take issue with are the very entitled families with bottomless resources (some think nothing of hiring tutors for their DC at £600 per hour). I happen to know a few such DC who all made it to Oxbridge — arrogant and entitled without the intellectual clout to back it up. A case of artificial intelligence being no match for natural stupidity.

@AQKTW how do you feel about the DC of Oxbridge (or other elite universities such as Imperial, Durham, LSE and so on) parents being admitted to Oxford and Cambridge)?

My DC are the first Oxbridge graduates in my family but what if they have DC who excel academically and want to apply? Should they be barred? Expected to attain a higher standard in admissions tests?

The book was John Rae who has Westminster Head from 72-76.

The school has changed a lot since. Like London, it is an awful lot more international, and educates some very bright pupils indeed. (I once asked DS when he was taking a PhD what he felt he had gained from the school, and his first was that he had never been top of his class, indeed never top set. Some of his PhD peers were struggling as they had been top at school then top at University but merely "average" within their PhD group.)

From observation both Oxbridge and US recruitment was uneven. Both rejected some of the very strongest applicants and took some who were not expected to get in. The star of DDs year got in through the pool and went on to take a PhD. The people most likely to get in were those who wanted it most. Often because their parents went to Oxbridge, or because their parents were from Commonwealth countries where Oxford and Cambridge are still big names. A Malaysian friend was absolutely confused by DD who had decided not to apply even though she would have been quite a strong applicant. Oxbridge clearly meant more to her than it did to DD.

I guess the people who want it most look more closely at the process and put more effort in.

The other advantage schools like Westminster have is that they teach more subjects. History of Art, Philosophy, Classics, MFL alongside humanities - perfect for applications for History with German or Russian, though in practice there is a very strong STEM bias.

They also advise treating University applications as a two year process. So for say economics try for Cambridge, LSE, UCL, Warwick and Imperial, all very oversubscribed. If you get one take it, if not apply again with an extra year';s maturity and achieved grades, though this time add a fall-back.

Strong applicants who are being rejected to help improve some statistical target will go elsewhere. A lot to highly regarded Universities in London but increasing numbers go overseas.

I would be interested in how much the strength of Oxbridge's undergraduate cohort matters to the strength of the University itself. Or whether it is more important to recruit the best and the brightest at Masters level and above.

This inference strikes me as a bit orthogonal to the point I have been trying to make all along. I am not anti-meritocracy. Also, a fair number of teachers are Oxbridge graduates.

https://www.suttontrust.com/news-opinion/all-news-opinion/oxbridge-graduates-teaching-in-state-secondary-schools-double-in-decade/

BAME make up 18% of UK population according to 2021 consensus, so if they make up 30% of admissions, they are over-represented.