Is Trinity Hall Cambridge right about elite schools?

[mids2019]

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/jan/07/cambridge-college-elite-private-schools-student-recruitment

Interesting position but maybe there are those at Cambridge that think encouraging students from the state sector has gone too far? Wonder if other colleges will follow suit.

I’m talking about tutors from primary years to get through entrance exams. We all know it’s a thing.

Resentment at putting my child through years of private tutoring so that they can pass entrance exams and then more tutoring once in do that they can keep up? I don’t think so. What a strange thing to be resentful about. I just laugh at those trying to get dumb but rich kids into oxfridge. The future for them will be snout smoothing and trying to stop people from working out tjey have lower ability. They will be subjected to a lifetime of trying to keep up with the jones’. That’s not something to be jealous of.

Just wrong all around. Plenty of state schools do teach classics and music! Also plenty of non elite private schools (I know all private schools by definition are elite but not all are competitive to get into eg schools in the midlands) my dd is state educated and studied music, rejected by Cambridge because her 3rd a level grade was not sufficient (teacher left in March of first year and school never managed to replace meaning they basically taught themselves from dualingo!)

My DDs school doesn't actually offer Music as a subject now at any age. No instrument lessons, no orchestra. It does have a choir and extremely good drama department.

Money unfortunately. It chose its vocational subjects (like Construction) which has 50 pupils per year in KS4 over Music which only had 7 or 8) or Dance which had 4 or 5 per year.

Latin they do offer in partnership with the local Private school... they can send 15 pupils each year for Geology Latin or Economics as an additional subject. (One of the ways the Private school likes to appear the be a charity...)

Realistically most of the top pupils will be at Private schools

Define ‘top’. Top kids are about intelligent kids, creative kids, kind kids, compassionate kids, problem-solving kids, methodical kids, etc.

society needs all sorts of kids, not just ones who can rah-rah meaningless word salads in a booming voice. These kids are valuable for entertainment purposes, but it’s the rest of the kids who make up society.

In this context, just the best trained musicians and other access to niche subjects.

Guardian click bait. Why do you trust everything you read in the press? This is bound to be twisted half truths.

I think people are reading this wrong. I think private schools have more sway to convince their intake to keep doing eg Classics or Music to A level, not least because they have the Oxbridge educated staff teaching those subjects. These are difficult subjects which require some innate talent as well as a strong work ethic.
The head at DDs grammar is committed to classics, Music and languages, properly committed. It’s costing him a fair chunk and they go above and beyond to encourage kids to do it, but the demand just isn’t there anymore.
One just needs to google it, 100000 A level maths enrtries vs 200 Ancient Greek versus just over 2000 for German now.

I am wondering what the naysayers on this thread want? Tell Oxbridge to ditch Classics and offer more Science, Maths, law and Economics places? Limit it to just a few colleges? Ditch Music and some of the next generation of choral masters, heads of music, composers?

From experience, it they are ‘actually quite thick’ then hot housing ceases to work long before A Levels. You can’t get A*s in subjects like Latin, French and Maths unless you are actually quite bright.

Parent of state school kids and at our local state school Latin is not an option even picking your own modern language is not an option, half the kids get allocated French in year 7 the other Spanish. Children and parents have no choice.

I thought it was really rare for state schools to offer Latin or classics?It wasn't an option at my DDs state school .When she wanted to study it at GCSE/A level we looked at other schools in the county and they didn't offer it either.We paid for a private tutor for 4 years at it was literally her only interest outside of school (cheaper than DD16 ballet classes)..She is at Cambridge now - good mix of state and private on her course but ,more importantly ,she fits as they are all as obsessed with ancient languages as she is. But she's only there because we could provide the education, interest and confidence through tutoring her state school didn't offer.

My child's school didnt offer Latin or Classics and language was French only.

It did offer music but the school said you had to be learning an instrument outside of school (no peri teachers) to do it. There were not enough children playing instruments to form an orchestra type thing. They did cobbler together a jazz band though.

My school was also a state school we had german, spanish and French, Latin, classics, had an orchestra and a swing band and instrument lesson.

Its a real decline.

Makes sense to me.

There is, at the very least, a perception that elite privately educated applicants are held to a higher admission standard.

If you are the one Oxbridge college (of 70) actively signalling you want these students you will reap a disproportionately large number of those applicants. And because the schools being discussed here are highly selective there will be large numbers of extremely good candidates to choose from.

Same logic would work the other way. If all other colleges were holding state students to a higher standard there would be a massive opportunity to being the one college that signalled it actively wanted those students.

Oxbridge educated DH sighed when I told him about this and said ‘Is it Trinity Hall? Yeah not surprised, they’re a shit college anyway’

Hmmm they arent wrong unfortunately.
overall I dont think this is a bad initiative as it designed to protect arts and humanities.

For boring convoluted reasons I went to a modern languages dinner in oxford (college may remain nameless to protect the innocent but its one of the "good" ones) and honestly the quality of current students is pretty dire.
Forget fluency - these guy were fumbling through conversation. I was talking with the tutor and she said quality of students has nosedived in the past decade or so and its a real problem.

@SanctusInDistress I'm sorry but you are so off the mark these schools are generally getting 100 applicants plus per place and all of those applicants are generally top in their primaries. These are academically the top 0.5% or higher.
Your bog standard rich "thicko" might have a jolly time at Bedales... but they are not getting a place at somewhere St Paul's irrespective of how much mummy and daddy have in the bank. It just doesnt happen.

Quite.

The irony of the story being behind a paywall is not lost on me.

Then it’s a particularly good strategy for them. If you aren’t the market leader then it makes even more sense to do something different.

My college went from mediocre to top-tier in the Victorian era by publicly signalling it wanted non-social-elite students at a time when virtually all other colleges were signalling the opposite. It’s the same trick. The other colleges were all competing for applicants from one pool, while my college suddenly had the pick of a different (large) pool.

Absolutely.

But this is too inconvenient for poor "thicko" to accept.

What do you mean by "the state school kids are all offered Latin?" Is that just in your particular school? Less than 3% of state schools teach Latin so as pps have said its already a self-selecting admission. I'm not sure about Cambridge but in Oxford you can still apply to do classics if you don't know Latin or Greek but you used to have to do an extra year.

Now theyve changed it to be 4 years fir everyone - which again will be disproportionately more off putting to poorer students than richer.

If trinity manages to establish a Classics pipeline for these schools then it’s going to a be a huge draw for the children to take classics and get pretty much guaranteed entry to Cambridge which in turn keeps the department open. You can’t do it with state schools because it’s not funded. Simple self preservation on Trinity’s part and a fast track to getting into Oxbridge for those children (and parents) who prize that above subject choice, which is many. Actually very clever.

DS goes to a grammar, one of the best in the country literally, and at A level they had 12 entrants for Latin/Greek last year.

https://www.westminster.org.uk/westminster-a-level-results-2025/

They are definitely mostly very bright. And doing 4 A levels “on average”. The stats for Eton, Westminster, St Paul’s for Oxbridge entry for 2025 and the results show they are strong.
The schools cannot opt them out of standard A levels so the kids are competing with each other nationally for the top grades. The only place the private schools may be cheating is with extra time in exams and I think that may need further regulation. If you get more time and only a certain percentage get an A or A star that is obviously going to help.

Ironically it does seem to be lost on you, given the guardian don't do paywalls..

The pop up that comes up (for me) can just be minimised and specifically says "this is not a paywall."

I think after x amount of articles per day they ask you to sign in but that's not a pay wall either....

@latetothefisting - yes clearly I was talking about DD’s grammar school, hence the reference to music and orchestras there. Another PP referred to strong drama offering in their state school, but no music.
The state schools have to pick and choose and can only offer some stuff. Our grammar head has committed to the languages (modern and ancient) and music and has excellent peripatetic teachers too, fundraising etc etc and yet still, hardly anyone signs up for it.

And Labour are now funding an extra £2000 for Maths and Science heavy A levels at Sixth Form. To encourage even more of that to “boost the economy”.

So if some Oxbridge colleges have given up on politicians etc and do their own thing to keep ancient languages and thought alive then I applaud that.

The Government could offer online Latin courses for all with some talent for it, if they wanted to!

On a thread regarding education, the irony of not reading the message on the Guardian link and then posting about it is not lost on me.