Uni offers and private school

[Mydogiscuter]

My DD attended a grammar school until sixth form when she was offered a significant academic and sports scholarship for a local private school, primarily because she plays sport at an elite level and also got all 7-9 grades at GCSE.

Our postcode falls in a deprived area and there is no way DD would have gone to the Private School without the scholarship. Will this be considered within her application?

@Mydogiscuter If she does try for Philosophy at Edinburgh she will certainly find her maths useful. Dd really struggled with the formal logic elements of the course which were very important-more maths would have been a great help!

It will depend on the exact course and university. However, the advantage she might get across all 3 A-Level subjects (which could be a grade higher in each subject) from going to a well-resourced school with stronger academics will far outweigh the balancing force of a contextual offer, which is typically just one grade lower eg ABB rather than AAB or BBB rather than ABB. It also depends on the school because not every private schoop is actually blessed with the resources and academic strength to give that advantage so choose the school wisely.

What I mean is, if staying at a challenging school where she might face all kinds of the issues that cause talented kids in those schools to not meet their potential, and might therefore get BBB when with great teaching and a school without those additional challenges she's more likely to get AAA, then it really doesn't matter if moving schools loses her the qualifying criteria to get a BBB offer because she won't need that.

RareGoalsVerge this DD was at a grammar school. There's not a single grammar in the country which could seriously be called 'challenging'.This DD has had a privileged education by any measure. It's not appropriate to have contextual offers handed out to grammar school kids.

@Auchencar whether it's appropriate or not, it does happen! My dd went to a selective independent up to 16, then moved to a grammar. We lived in a deprived area and she got several contextual offers. Nottingham just wanted one flag - so the area was enough. Others wanted area plus state school and her sixth form counted as state.

Her choices weren't made on the basis of whether she'd get a contextual offer though, and she didn't need it (she exceeded the standard offer at Nottingham, where she ended up). However, it was really nice for her to have a lower offer and it did make the A Levels a bit less stressful. Obviously she shouldn't really have had one, but the system is broad brush and there are lots of cases of fairly privileged students getting them.

I honestly would be very cautious about doing maths with neither an A in maths and no FM. One of my kids did maths at a top 5 uni. Not only did he get A in both maths and FM he also got 100% UMS on both. Even so there were still University topics he had to work hard on to understand.

That should say A star

Oxbridge and Russell Group will certainly look at which schools she's attended and will prefer state over her private sixth form.

You mention Bath, which may be different though.

OP - with respect - i think you are not being realistic. If DD were ‘naturally gifted’ at maths - it would have come through in her performance in maths during the year. And a little bit leas of revision at mocks would not have affected it. And private schools do tend to give a range - to allow for the wobble at the mocks, knowing what the child is actually capable of. If the school does not think that, with a bit of a push in second year of A-level DD could achieve A* - i am not sure you can keep saying that she is naturally good at maths.

Don’t get me wrong - A is a good grade, BUT not to do a degree in Maths at a university. And getting her through on a contextual offer is pointless, really. She will struggle…
If you are more of a humanities person - I don’t think you quite understand that.

She likes maths, and is good enough for a degree that uses math - say economics. But she is definitely not at a level for a Maths degree.
I think she needs to think hard over the summer what is realistic for her vs what she would like yo study.

This is utter nonsense! Russell Group universities each have their own admission policies, and the proportion of students from state and private school backgrounds varies significantly between different Russell Group universities. However, there are some RG universities where the proportion of students from private school backgrounds is disproportionately high!

The OP's DD could do a maths degree from a starting point of grade A in maths, but she would need to be realistic about her choice of university. Liverpool and Leicester are examples of universities with a standard offer of ABB for maths degrees.

Agreed. I guess I am in the Central London bubble and thinking about A* and RG unis only. But of course - she can try a lower ranking uni.

My main point is that OP’s DD needs to be realistic. And OP is not doing her any favours by overestimating her ability and letting her believe she could get into top university with those grades to study Maths and Philosophy.
That is a really difficult course - and she does not seem suited well for it.

People who go on to top unis to do Maths - generally find Math A level fairly easy. At my kids school - kids who take Maths/FM - cover all of Single Maths A-level by spring of first year of the Six form. And start FM. My DD - who took both - and is good at math (but I’d not say ‘gifted’) - barely revised single Maths for her A-levels. She did for FM.

They will, quite rightly, take into account the elevation in grades she has obtained by going to a private school (ask yourself honestly if the same child going to a bog standard comp would have got the same results).

They will also take into account your post code.

They don’t prefer state. They spend over 20 hours on each application to contextualise it. Obviously a student from a grammar and private school background will have elevated grades compared to if they had gone to a bog standard comp; they take this in account (quite rightly) to level the playing field.
They are looking for academic potential rather than academic attainment (assuming all candidates are already of sufficiently high calibre to apply). Someone that has got higher grades than the average student at their school or college they attended.

Uni lecturer here and I completely agree that maths is not the subject for your DD at a top uni without either an A or FM. If she’s capable of getting A in other subjects then I’d encourage her to go to a RG uni to study one of these.

A quick note on Edinburgh. If your DD applied to do philosophy she could do a maths course in year 1 (y1-2 at Edin and, I think, other Scottish unis, encourage you to do at least one different subject to your degree course). If she choose the hardest of these maths courses (used to be called maths 1a but may have changed now), she could progress to maths 2a, and from there to, effectively, a joint maths and philosophy degree. The first year maths course would certainly establish her natural talent, coming to it without FM, and if it was too much (as it was for me back in the day), she can switch easily to a less rigorous maths class designed for scientists or those doing humanities. If that happened she wouldn't then pursue maths up the years, but Edinburgh course structure is super-flexible so that wouldn't be any issue to her philosophy.

In summary, if she wants to go to Edinburgh, she could consider applying for philosophy and do maths as her "side subject", then switching to a joint degree in y2/3 if it worked out.

Yes, it’s unfortunate that it’s as broad brush as it is. Quite right not to seek out contextual offers where the education has been privileged though. Quite the opposite to look for additional advantage based on home postcode. Especially where - as lots of other posters are pointing out - this may ultimately lead to a student struggling.

It sounds like she is in lower sixth at the private school and is doing maths, economics and politics (possibly also philosophy?) at A level. I don't know if she is considering a joint honours degree (maths and philosophy - if that is possible) or not but single is better in my view. If one of her A levels if philosophy then a degree in that may be the best choice for getting into the best university she can given absence of further maths etc and I would also choose that over an economics degree in this case too.

I don't think she should worry about contextual offers. She should also consider her future career and what it might be and choose her degree subject and institution accordingly.
With my 5 children when at private school they had to do a draft UCAS personal statement by the end of the last term of lower sixth for the school to examine just to ensure they were thinking far enough ahead for application sin the Autumn (particularly as for anyone applying for Oxbridge applications need to be in very early in the Autumn compared with elsewhere). None of mine tried for Oxbridge.

3 of my lawyer children went to Bristol University which has had a contextual system for years but that did not cause mine any problems in getting in.

Dd1 was always a good mathematician and all rounder. As a family, we have not tutored our children (honestly tutoring never comes up on these boards, but it is as an important factor as state v private v grammar and all those other advantages.

she got a 9 at GCSE for maths. Due to being anorexic, she missed the entire y10 and got this on one year (but dropped FM). She has also done maths and needs an A. Tbh, she has really struggled and I am not sure if it is the missed content or what, but I feel perhaps she has reached the point where maths has come ‘easy’ to her. She needs an A for her offer, and after sitting a maths paper last week that she was very upset about, she feels like this may not happen.

dd2 is in y12 now, has recently finished maths content and is now focussed on FM - I can really see the different in what what comes ‘easy’ for them.

Dd1 has been restricting her food due to the anxiety of all of this. Perhaps in a less pressured education system she could actually show what she is capable of. I just cannot wait til all this is over!

University admissions tutors know their subjects and their cohorts best, and degree programmes have developed curricula and pedagogies to fit them.

Pupils and students develop intellectually at different rates. DH struggled a bit in his first year at Cambridge Maths, did not get First Class results until Y3, achieved a Distinction at the notorious Part III, turned down the offer of a (funded) PhD position there for a different one, and has recently retired from a career as a Maths professor at highly ranked universities that was full of esteems.

Yet when I once wrote on a thread here in commiseration only that he had struggled a bit in Y1, others were quick to jump in and say perhaps he had overreached and didn’t really belong at Cambridge.

I think a bit of that may be happening here. OP’s DD just got 96% on a Maths test towards the end of Y12. That’s mastery. We don’t really know what happened earlier.

Glasgow, Lancs, Notts, Loughborough, Liverpool, etc all produce many fine mathematicians. And if the DD here was in fact thrown by a discrete issue, like finding unexpected material on her mock, she may well have underperformed. I wouldn’t like to be examined on A level Statistics without brushing up, either.

PS Liverpool is RG and Bath and Loughborough are RG+. Leicester may be also but sadly its Maths has been essentially subsumed.

I agree with @NeedingCoffee - use the flexibility that Edinburgh offers in the first two years. You could get in to study philosophy - depending on her other mock results - and add a couple of side subjects. My only caveat is that I'm not sure whether you can add Maths if you're in the arts half. You used to be able to take 2 extra arts or social sciences but I don't think arts students could take sciences and vice versa - I'm not sure where Maths sits in this.

Do look at possible careers, then do a google search of linked in , career title and then whatever they company calls its newly hired graduates and see what subjects they did and where they went.

Where are you based? We have just breathed a sigh of relief as we have made our very last four hour trek each way to collect our DD from uni, so seeing Edinburgh and Exeter on her favourites just rang a few alarm bells for me!

As for contextual offers, I wouldn't bank on one for just postcode, even for postcode area. Our Peckham postcode gave our DCs nothing, as the second part of the postcode put us in an street of graduates. First generation to go to uni seems to carrymore weight. I would make sure the other two unis on your DC's list are both less than a 3 hour drive from home and have a typical AAB Russell Group offer.

How does a grammar school give an educational advantage? They are often the worst funded of any schools.

Grammars are similar to selective privates in the sense that you tend not to have anyone disruptive in the class, everyone is working to a similar academic standard, most people will be going to university so the peer norm is that and teenagers tend to do what their peers do and you probably have loads of involved bright and interested parents.

90% of comprehensively educated students won’t get any extra points or support for Uni entries. They are treated the same as private and grammar schools (despite the larger class sizes). The ones who will get WP are usually more than just a poor post code, most need at least one other flag. Except for Bristol who have every school that scores in the bottom 40% of A level results. Still many comps not on there and some grammar schools (& the odd private) are.

Each Uni uses WP criteria differently but private school parents to thinking it plays against them are a bit deluded. What had happened is because it outreach more state school students are applying to Oxbridge and other Unis so more are getting in. However 10% of 6th formers go to private s hook and they still make up 23% of Oxbridge so hardly disadvantaged.