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.

Maybe. I suppose there are some people who it works for perfectly. I certainly wouldn’t try to prevent such a club. I just wonder if the cost is worth it, in terms of perpetuating the idea of insiders and outsiders.

The two most ‘extreme’ non-posh people in my cohort were a hugely entertaining Welsh valleys drunkard with an encyclopedic knowledge of every political detail of the last 300 years and a voracious appetite for re-litigating the battles of any year you cared to name, and a common-as-muck white working class inner city boy with seven As at A-level (back when three was normal).

As I hope my descriptions convey, they were both immensely impressive people and needed no further justification of their place (neither did the polished head-girl types, from either the state or private elite schools).

but we know state school students do sometimes suffer from imposter syndrome or feel they don't belong in the rarefied Oxbridge/ RG experience.

Or perhaps state school students have the difference in their backgrounds pointed out to them (and not in a nice way!) by some of the more privileged students who make it very clear that they don’t belong. Not pleasant, or indeed acceptable, but it happens.

I write this from my own experience as a bright (I think!) working class kid who went to a rough Northern comprehensive who ended up mixing in circles with those from much more privileged backgrounds. Back then I probably would have been summed up as “completely out of her depth but has attitude”. There’s one incident in particular that has stayed with me after all these years. The antagonist, Jessica (real name), quizzed me loudly and very publicly about which school I went to. When I answered, her response was a look of utter disdain and “what on EARTH is someone LIKE YOU doing in a place like THIS?!!” 🙄

Let’s just say that things didn’t go so well for Jessica after that. Whilst us bright state school kids may lack the cultural capital to eloquently debate our lack of privilege (at that age anyway), we are fierce and determined and we fight to win. Because we have to.

@Comtesse The Bullingdon, as far as I recall, was men and very very tiny! Not 93% or even 7%. Frankly - who actually cares? Once dc are at Oxbridge, make the most of it intellectually. The Bully wasn’t organised by the colleges either. It’s now more or less defunct so hardly any comparison with the division of leavjng out 30% of new students! Maybe they should heckle the 93% club? Division at university is so short sighted!

DS is in Y13 at a small, non selective private school. He’s got an offer from a uni where a high number of students are likely to come from grammars so they too will have had a privileged education. I wonder if he’ll be considered a posh thicko? I hope not.

As others have said already, the title of the 93% Club seems to be something of a misnomer….

Visited a younger YP at Oxford early on in the first term at the start of Year 1 and noticed that there was a party going on. I … was told they were not invited as it was only for state school kids.

What if the student went to private school until 16 and then to state school for 6th form - or vice versa?
Would they be allowed to go to this party or does any contact with a private school make them the enemy?

Or perhaps state school students have the difference in their backgrounds pointed out to them (and not in a nice way!) by some of the more privileged students who make it very clear that they don’t belong. Not pleasant, or indeed acceptable, but it happens.
@HundredMilesAnHour

My privately educated dad had her background pointed out to her (and not in a nice way) - “going out with your posh friends? Aren’t we good enough for you then’ “you’ve made your bed. Aren’t you used to servants doing that for you?”and so on.
Do you think that’s acceptable?

@38thparallel You find out that rudeness is only permissible in one direction! Privately educated dc are on the receiving end of very blunt discrimination and often they would never be as rude to state educated dc. Unfortunately this leads to division and is unhealthy for our country.

All this talk about private vs state educated young people is leaving a nasty taste in my mouth. All of state educated DD's best friends have been privately educated. Luckily, both she and they have been brought up to look past stuff like this.

Same! The lovely kids don’t care. If they did care then our kids wouldn’t want to be friends with them.

Dd has been asked by various parents at grand events which school she is at and is met with bafflement and “not heard of that one” response when she replies. Hadn’t realised how much of a “club” it seems to be. Hey ho.

Given the famously high socioeconomic status of state-educated students at Cambridge it would be both dimwitted and nauseatingly hypocritical to try to pass themselves off as representative of the general population.

Regarding the pointlessness of that 93% figure, 24% of pupils who achieve the typical Oxbridge A-level grade profile are from independent schools.

Impossible to know about the party. But according to a Telegraph FOI, as far as the university is concerned it is most acceptable for privately educated pupils to recant.

Private school pupils more likely to get into Cambridge if they move to state sixth form www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/16/private-schools-university-entry-cambridge-state-schools/

If they are inclined to suffer from imposter syndrome, they should keep strictly away from the university's data and research on examination results.

I think a lot more is made of the private/state school gap by parents and the media than there is in real life.

I went to Oxbridge. I cannot remember ever being asked, or asking which school anyone had come from. I honestly couldn't tell you among the people I was with either subject or college or university wide group who was state or private - except Eton who normally stuck out like a sore thumb. It certainly didn't help them being obviously from there anyway.

Dd1 went to Durham. Another place that apparently is very bothered among it's students according to the media. I asked dd1 one time what percentage of her friends were private/state and she said she had no idea (and she's the sort of child who normally picks up on every tiny aspect). She could tell you who was catching the train home v who had lifts, who had a brother/sister, who was the youngest/oldest in the family, who had done grade 8 music and in what instrument etc but schools, something no one had ever commented on either in her friendship groups or in bigger groups.

The problem is that with the media/social media bigging it up into a big thing is that it will effect state school educated students who will think that they won't go somewhere because they aren't welcomed because it's so private school dominated - which then decreases the number of state school applicants etc.

The essence of the thread is that you have the point of your last paragraph the wrong way round.

The problem is that with the media/social media bigging it up into a big thing is that it will effect state school educated students who will think that they won't go somewhere because they aren't welcomed because it's so private school dominated - which then decreases the number of state school applicants etc.

I totally agree. DD's undergrad university had about 24% of privately educated students. It never crossed either of our minds to consider this. She chose the course she liked and the city she liked.

Interestingly, the university with the highest percentage of privately educated students is the Royal Agricultural University (according to The Tab, so I don't know how accurate this data really is)

I think it’s both, to be honest.

Both in perception and in reality applicants are judged on their school background. Leaving both sides free to believe they are discriminated against.

@RampantIvy You will find MN littered with threads about how DC from a state school is avidly wanting to avoid private school dc. They calm them names (the Rahs) and don’t want to give anyone the benefit of the doubt. They have almost certainly been brought up to think like this because they have probably rarely met anyone at a private school, never mind an elite one. They just “know” they are to be avoided! It’s obviously ludicrous but that’s the society we live in. An increasingly stupid one.

I disagree.

You see it on here - people whose dc don't want to go to particular places because the perception is that it's private school dominated and they won't be able to make friends because people will stick with "the right schools".

I've also seen it in RL - dh was a governor at my dc's state comp. He every year had conversations with capable students who didn't think that certain unis were for "people like them".
Not that they felt that they weren't necessarily up to it academically, but that they thought they wouldn't fit in because the demographic would be so much towards the private school student who wouldn't want to know them because they'd been to a state school.
In almost all cases they cited social media as their main information on this.
On those who were persuaded to give it a go (and by no means all were) and went they reported back to the school that they had had no issues and were glad they'd gone there.

Just wanted to chip in and hope that no-one is put off applying from both state and private schools if they want to apply to Oxbridge. If you don't apply you won't know if you or wouldn't have got in.
DD did one of the subjects being discussed. She went to a non selective state school. She got a first at Cambridge. She has friends from all backgrounds and had a fantastic time.

In not a single university are private school kids the actual majority. It is always state school children.

DS 12 who is state educated has been doing a summer orchestra camp at a really nice private school and met kids from comps, grammars and lots of really top of the top London private schools like St Paul’s. Guess what, all the kids chat on their groups and none of them care who goes to what school. If you do not make a big deal of it, it is not.
DD17 also does a lot of music and has friends from all sorts of schools too. She is also at a grammar school but has kept in touch with all her local state primary friends, some who are in comprehensives, others in Sixth Form colleges, a few on scholarships/bursaries at private schools, some are paying for private school fully and one went to a proper girls equivalent public school St Mary’s. They are all lovely girls.
The vast majority of students at Cambridge are from Polar Quintile postcodes 4&5, that tells you all you need to know. Socio demographically and academically they are a pretty homogeneous group.

@MargaretThursday I think that’s correct but it’s more of an issue in non selective state schools in Labour voting areas. The stats back up that dc simply don’t apply. I think it’s the politics of parents too. Dc are told they don’t belong and that, eg, Sheffield or Liverpool are just as good and much more populated by their type of student. It means these dc don’t visit snd, even if they do, they pick up on any accent or chat that is alien to them and fixate on it. They don’t embrace it as they would if dc was black or disabled.

To get back to Computer Science at Cambrige, not many girls doing it or even accepting their offers it seems to me. Which is a real shame. Big advances in girls doing medicine though.

It's a shame. We live in a very red part of Yorkshire and DD's school was very pro pushing student to apply for Oxbridge/medicine/vet med/dentistry/RG universities.

Although I don't think they were being very altruistic about it. It just made the school look good. The 6th form is a small one and they were very proud to annouce that 5 students went to Oxbridge this year. One of them being very much a labour supporter and will go into politics. He helped campaign for our labour MP during the last election.

The characterisation of state educated applicants and students as disadvantaged bears no correspondence to reality. The top 1% of earners is more or less evenly divided between those who use the private sector and those who use the state sector to educate their children. Conversely, most families that used the private sector when the university set in motion its "participation" plan were not even from the top socioeconomic quintile.

Cambridge decided because of interest in this matter from "public, politicians and the media" to discriminate against applicants from private schools. This had nothing to do with widening access or giving bright disadvantaged children another chance, which was separately targeted. They were even happy for their exam results to take a hit as a consequence. Parks, who was the outgoing director of admissions predicted this would happen, and had he not, it should have been obvious.

Educationalists put a lot of effort into showing that grammar schools "don't work", the reason they get better results than other (nominally unselective) state schools is selection. However, the same educationalists assert that the rules for academically selective independent schools are different, for these schools a vague school-level attribute falsely elevates the performance of their pupils - class sizes (only shown to matter at primary level), coaching, take your pick - even though there is solid evidence that like grammar schools their results are driven by selection. So if academic selection drives outcomes, there was only one way Cambridge's move to non-academic selection would end.

I don't see any possibility for confusion regarding who is discriminated against when it really matters.

’So if academic selection drives outcomes, there was only one way Cambridge's move to non-academic selection would end’

Otherwise known as ‘you get out what you put in’. And so it has been.