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.

@Foggytree what they need and what they get are v different things. This thread seems to imply state students are somehow getting in with lower grades. Nope.

I'm correcting the assumption that 'everyone ' or nearly everyone gets in with much higher grades than needed. No wonder people start their uni lives with imposter syndrome.
For those considering applying - whether from state or private - this is not true.

mumsneedwine · Today 20:25
what they need and what they get are v different things. This thread seems to imply state students are somehow getting in with lower grades. Nope

How did George Abaraonye (recently in news for celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk while standing to be President of Oxford Union) get into Oxford with ABB?

When it comes to the meetings that tutors hold after results are released to the unis but before they're released to schools, then those at lower achieving schools who've missed their offer grades are undoubtedly (and rightly) give more latitude.

Also, Oxford doesn't vary its offer grades but Cambridge does, and so the idea that every student is set the same bar isn't black and white (nor should it be).

Probably my fault I'm afraid. I brought medicine into the discussion as an example of how badly things can go wrong when universities deliberately select applicants of lower academic ability for demanding academic degrees.

I should have known better.

An FOI request a few years ago showed that state educated students had substantially poorer GCSE grades than privately educated students at Oxford.

But do you think that that’s true of Cambridge? Or is yours a more general comment about other medical schools at the opposite end?

Sure. That’s at the selection for offer stage. Again, fair enough surely?

Only if you equate a state education with disadvantage, and if students from disadvantaged backgrounds outperform other students with the same prior attainment at the universities under consideration.

My point applies to medical schools in general, being illustrative of the problem that Cambridge now faces.

How do you feel about DCs from "excellent" state schools being preferentially admitted over DCs from independent schools who have better grades?

Or to put this another way, how do you feel about DCs from independent schools being 50% more likely to achieve firsts than DCs from state schools?

I guess choosing an obscure subject without an obvious career path is a risk too far for many state students. Some private school children with their cushion of wealth and wide social network can better afford to follow their interests.

For example: Trinity only received 6 applications for Classics last year I see.

Surely what the latest news tells us - falling standards at Oxbridge - it is true to say some students are getting in with lower grades.

Yes fair. It’s relatively granular though. I don’t think any tutor is under the illusion that leafy comps in Surrey educate pupils with the same disadvantage as those from areas of serious deprivation eg in faded towns along the east coast. Apart from anything else, recruiting teachers to leafy Surrey comps is way easier than recruiting in areas of serious and generalised deprivation, with all the knock on effects that that has.

At the end of the day your standard Oxbridge don reads the papers, sees the research from the Sutton Trust and knows that a DC from eg Tiffin is going to be prepped like a DC from Westminster - we are talking about some of the best academics in Europe here.

Ohdear is a bit of a disruptor - her DD is apparently a barrister and that means they think they know everything about anything from the jewellery to wear to a state banquet at BP toeverything about the law to how to apply for medicine to what is or isn't the correct way to decorate a bathroom...

The problem is that tutors behave as though pupils at leafy comps in Surrey are as disadvantaged as those from areas of serious deprivation, because it is overwhelming the former that have displaced privately educated students.

Is it that, or is it that the truly disadvantaged in educational terms remain so, with interventions starting too late and amounting to too little.

Not helped by tutors throwing up their hands and reverting to the easy old school option.

State education is an independent predictor of poorer performance after taking into account socioeconomic factors. Students' socioeconomic status is not very important.

I work in leafy surrey comp

I think people would be quite surprised what we see. Pupils sucked into county lines, dealing with gang violence relating to that, pupils living in domestic violence shelters, or temporary accommodation with no kitchens and overcrowded, parents in prison, no clean clothes, not enough food. We also find in a high employment area, to qualify for pupil premium, there is often something else going on than lack of work available. This is often disabiity or, parental mental health issues alongside, so they can be a young carer too.

We also know that our pp children dont do as well as their pp peers in some other areas where there is more deprivation overall and its in part as lots of schemes dont get set up in our area as there is less overall need, and there isnt volume of pp funding for individual schools to implement the most evidenced based strategies. Theres quite a bit of work going on to improve that now so hopefully thats changing.

Then finally, whilst teachers might like living here - they cant afford it, so we get a lot of churn.

So I dont think admissions tutors should see leafy surrey and dismiss that pp child as not equal to a pp child elsewhere.

As evidenced by the numerous old grammars that pre 70’s got lots of kids out of what is now called poverty.

I should be more specific. When I referred to "pupils at leafy comps" I was referring specifically to POLAR4 Q5 students from comprehensive schools.

Thanks @Marchesman. I responded to the OhDear comment as I felt it was ill-informed and potentially dangerous. You should not go into medicine without your eyes wide open. Unfortunately it set off from there.

In recent comments people are talking about grades. These are outputs. Education is the outcome. A broader base, a wider knowledge, perhaps some music or a foreign language, have to help. Sport for example teaches you about teamwork, and about picking yourself up when things go wrong. Private schools are good at this, and these sorts of skills help in both an academic and work context.

Not that long ago I heard a senior civil servant talk about new recruits with a concern that they saw the world in black and white. Palestine good, Israel bad. Tenants good, landlords bad. State schools good, private schools bad and so on. Even at this late stage they were having to teach nuance.

Completely observational, but it has been surprising how many of my kids contemporaries have drifted into the Civil Service, perhaps after trying a start up or similar. Perhaps the time spent debating, MUN, or just energetic class discussions have given them what is wanted in the work place. Oxbridge choosing not to take strong performers from private schools will be Oxbridge's loss. These young people will go to UCL, Bucconi, or Yale and do just fine. Perhaps better for having stepped away from the traditional pathway. It is for Oxbridge to decide whether they have done more good by giving a place to a candidate from a non traditional background and improving their diversity, or whether the University as a whole does better by recruiting tip top, university ready, students who then make a significant contributi9on to University life. Also observational but not many outside the middle class home counties have heard of the schools discussed on this thread. Eton yes. Perhaps Harrow. But not the rest. Life goes on and you are judged on your performance.

It can be argued that deprivation exists in all schools. Private schools will have pupils they need to keep an eye on. One friend of DDs came from a super rich family but neither parent was ever there. It was left to him too ensure his younger siblings came home, ate, did their homework and went to bed at a reasonable time. There were probably other things going on, but he was a super boy and just got on with it and almost certainly would have made a great University student. There is a lot to be said for the advantages of a stable supportive family, regardless of school type, and also for supporting those kids who have successfully overcome the odds.

Off topic but I am curious about Wes Steeting's emergency legislation. I had thought that it was only about training places and designed to help those stuck in staff grade jobs as much as new graduates. The much bigger problem is access to entry level jobs, and I haven't heard Streeting even acknowledge this. Unless you are super-organised in F2 you need to take an F3 to apply for training. If you can't get an F3 you have to look elsewhere. I know others don't see this as a problem, but the numbers involved are causing the NHS to change rapidly. Even if graduates from non-Oxbridge medical schools are not as good as they might once have been, I wonder if we really are getting a better calibre of staff by focussing on graduates of overseas universities.

They certainly did that, but state-educated students at Cambridge were performing as well as students from independent schools until 2012, after which the university stopped looking for the strongest applicants regardless of background.