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.

This is the last time i'll engage because this feels like its going no where...

but you are wrong on 2 counts here

1. Yr1 and 2 is considered "late to the party" by many. It's fairly common for tutoring to start younger in most elite educational environments now.

As an example... I saw a very ohh la la specialist being recommended on one the niace "MC mum" what's app groups i am on.
She specialises in nursery and reception entry and work with children from 18months.
The competiton is fierce so the schools are splitting hairs when allocating places.

Is it right? I'm not convinced... is it the reality? Yes.

1. No one... but no one i know or have ever met in london has ever said "that their kid passed at 100% without ever opening a book" or made that claim about themselves.

Not least because its a grammatically problematic...

I went to one of the most competitive nd academic schools in the country.
We socialise with people who went to St Paul, Habs, westminster, Harrow, stowe, Malborough, MGS, LCGS etc etc.
Not one of them would make this claim.

And again having been to one of these schools which had a feeder prep I can tell you first hand without raw talent no amount of money on super tutors can buy you in
To top privates or to ultra selective courses at top unis...at our school if you werent making the cut you were "invited to explore other, more suitable, options" ie fuck off someplace else because we only want students who shit A*.

To the point in hand... its not a bad scheme by trinity if the objective is to maintain quality in arts and humanities. The reality is top privates are giving superior education in these areas and are producing higher calibre students.

Hmm, I think this is terribly sad. I can see why it's happening (i.e. my understanding is that state funding in these areas has dwindled so much that unis aren't getting enough applicants who meet the admissions standards and the kids from 'elite' private schools are opting for subjects associated with higher salaries further down the line). But, it does feel that things are moving backwards and the privilege gap is ever widening.

FWIW, I have one DC at one such 'elite' private school and another at a state school. Our experience is that claims of reverse discrimination are wildly exaggerated - there's no doubt that students at the elite private school have a big advantage over those at the state school (and it's a very good state school). They are better prepared for exams, they are better prepared for university applications, they have better pastoral support, they are far, far more likely to be flagged for any kind of learning disability that might affect exam performance and have the relevant accomodations put in place, and their coursework, EPQs etc are much more closely monitored. The private school is also more 'generous' in its grade predictions.

I have to say the way state educated students are characterised on this thread is rather depressing. Also I wonder about a selection process that can weed out over-tutored private school students, but is admiting state school students who struggle to write fluently and construct arguments. My DD is in Year 9 at a very average state school and is in all honesty is not going to be 'oxbridge material' (she isnt a top attainer). However, she can certainly write clearly and coherently. If out of the very many state school students who have As and A stars in arts and humanties subjects, Oxford and Cambridge cant pick out the ones that have excellent written communication skills then they need to look again at how they select. I get that a broad appreciation of arts and culture can be constrained by aspects of state education. However, high level written communication and the ability go form arguments is definetely developed. High attaining state school students have these skills.
If we want state educated students to have a broader understanding of the arts, languages, humanties and culture we need to pay for it and value it. Like everything it requires money and resources. The bottom line isnt some 'anti-intellectualism' it is money. The population at large have to value these aspects of state education enough to fund them through taxation. When I look at the threads on mumsnet i think this will be an uphill battle.

Yes, exactly this. And, if it wasn't clear from my previous post, the high-achieving students at my DC's state school are obviously every bit as smart as those at the elite school that the other DC attends. But they have a lot less support to get their high grades.

This reflects the trend at my son's grammar. The most popular optional subject taken for both GCSE and A-level is now economics.

This isnt a dig or a criticism, but the bit I find most perplexing @cantabsupervisor is "I mean, seriously seriously worrying. I now have students turning up who don't really know how to write essays. Some don't write in proper sentences. And this is Cambridge! "
I am not an Oxbridge academic, but I do know that there are plenty of high attaining comprehensively educated students who can write coherently and accurately and structure essays. Honestly, the selection process needs looking at if this is the case.

yes, I don't see how these students are getting the required A-level grades in humanities subjects if they can't write in proper sentences. Also, for Oxford at least, for many subjects (including some of those included in the list) the submissions required just in order to get an interview include essays that have to be verified by teachers as having been written under specific conditions and with no help etc, they apparently also run AI checks as part of the admissions process.

Aren’t Eton going on a needs blind approach? Ie if you pass the exam they will find you. A big old name private school near us does similar - if you are clever and pass but without funds they have some places available.

Even the middle tier schools near us offer some pretty full on bursaries

Can I ask what you actually mean when you "dumbed down" as you keep saying it? It actually sounds quite offensive, like the kids who are on the boundary or have a reason for a lower offer to be made to them shouldn't be there. University's are allowed to use other criteria a part from exam results and which school they went to to decide who they want to take. It is quite clear in most of their admission policies.

If you are against discrimination, then it works both ways. You can’t discriminate against kids from state schools, but it’s also unfair to discriminate against kids from private schools. It isn’t their fault that their parents sent them there (I went to a crappy state school btw). Same goes for race and gender and sexuality. It would be unfair to discriminate against a student for being gay, female and Asian, but it would also be unfair to deny a brilliantly clever student a place just because he is white and straight and male.

Ironically Trinity Hall is the college that runs an outreach programme for state schools in our area. Dd and a few others went to a stay there. Not sure why they are bothering with that then!

Funnily enough Dd came back saying no way would she want to go there!

Hearing about all this hothousing and pressure on young children makes me feel quite sad. I hope they get a childhood amongst all this manoervering.

I dont know what the matter with me today. Keep commenting on education threads. The other thing that i think needs to be recognised is that some state schools are trying to offer a broad and balanced curriculum even with limited resources. My DD's school offer year-round timetabled drama, music, languages and visual arts to all students during a three year Key Stage 3. DD has learnt about Shakespeare, Greek theatre, reggae, classical music and studied aspects of art history as well as practical art skills. In no way think it is equivalent to what is provided in top private schools, but they are trying. These lessons are offered to all students includung high achievers and those unlikely to hit the magic 4s. If they reduced this offer maybe it would boost the core subjects? Who knows. However, education is about more than passing exams. It is about showing you the world beyond your immediate experience. Im really glad they keep trying.

Mine is doing classics A level at a state school. Small class she really likes it.

Honestly what is all this for?! Reading this thread makes me feel exhausted and abit sad. Don’t most people find their way in life? I would have hated being micro managed and pushed by my parents.

But I don't think there's any real evidence that students from private schools, or white, straight boys, are being discriminated against. I just hear lots of anecdotal reports from people in this world (which, as I've said upthread, I have one foot in) telling me that Cambridge outrageously didn't offer a place to the best student their school had had in decades and it was all because he was a white boy from a private school. And yet, those boys still seem to be doing pretty well in the big scheme of things. As the saying goes, 'When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression'.

We do do that, but I can tell you that the standard of writing at A-level is quite low. The marking schemes often seem to bear no relationship to the quality of writing - they are more about ticking the “AO” mark scheme boxes. So, poorly written essays can get awarded top grades.

Poor writing that is nevertheless getting awarded high marks is not the preserve of state schools either - in fact we often use it to weed out the talented from the merely well taught private school students.

Remember though that the quality of writing has to not just be competent, but really good. Students ought to be better than any AI can do at the time of admission. What a lot of people - including, from the evidence of the marked work we get, the students’ teachers - think of as good writing is not actually that good.

But we will make an offer to a state school candidate who can’t write that well where we would never make an offer to a private school candidate who can’t write that well. In reality, private school candidates are expected to reach much higher standards for an offer than state candidates are (and most especially those who have been at the really elite private schools).

Like I said above I genuinely believe there are state school students who write well. There really is no need to offer places to state school students that cant use sentences appropriately or structure an essay. If grades alone cant identify good writers then additional selection procedures are needed. If you arent getting state applicant applying with these skills then you need to look at how to attract them. They exist.

@januarybikethief Right, that makes sense re the marking system (albeit frustrating that A-levels work that way), and it's helpful to have your behind-the-scenes input on expectations from each sector. My view is that students from elite private schools really should be able to write much better because they have had far superior preparation (added to which lots of them seem to get tutoring on top of that, which I think is mad!). So I guess I'm saying I feel your current way of doing things is as it should be if you really want to get the best 'talent' rather than the students who have had the best training so far. Whereas there seems to be a growing view that that approach is discriminatory towards private school kids.

In her post at 12:17 @januarybikethiefsaid

“we have been under pressure to actively reject very good independent students for years now, and now we aren’t even getting any applicants from independent schools at all as a result. “

There is a big jump from sound communication skills to written excellence. However, i would have thought those with poor sentence structure and essay coherence wouldnt be made offers.

The problem is broader than just music, modern languages, and classics. Specifically putting obstacles in the way of applicants from academically selective schools who had the misfortune to be well-educated was never going to end well. Cambridge's own research has pretty much demolished the educational shibboleths underpinning the university's "widening participation" efforts:

Analysis of student characteristics and attainment outcomes at the University of Cambridge 2020 https://www.cao.cam.ac.uk/files/attainment_outcomes.pdf

The evidence concerning justification of differential offers at the University of Cambridge 2022 https://www.cao.cam.ac.uk/admissions-research/differential-offers

In 2023, 19.9% of students from comprehensive schools obtained first class results (23.5% from grammar schools) compared with 28.6% from private schools. It took long enough, but credit to Trinity Hall for being the first(?) to lift their heads slightly above the parapet.

I agree with this. They definitely exist, I meet them regularly!

But I also think it is fair that admissions procedures (as @januarybikethief has indicated) expect students from elite private schools to have very good writing skills i.e. that the bar is set higher for them to address the fact that they have often been exceptionally well prepped. However, obviously the admissions bar needs to be high enough across the board to make sure that the quality of students is adequate to maintain academic standards.

I haven't had read the entire thread - trying to do too many things at once and shouldn't really be posting now but got sucked in! So I missed the post you flagged @ScaredOfFlying but I'd be interested to understand more about where the pressure is coming from. All I know is that I come into contact with a lot of people who send their DC to highly selective private schools and that I can only think of a small handful in those very elite schools whose DC don't apply to Oxbridge. A high percentage of them get places. Maybe that is very London-centric and elsewhere in the UK, lots of private school students have been put off applying. I'm just going from personal experience.

Lowering the entry grades as a contextual offer is a form of discrimination. A person who made the requirements missing out on an opportunity to someone who didn’t but had free school meals or has a protected characteristic deemed worthy by the guardian has been discriminated against. As the saying goes, everyone is tired of this left wing nonsense.

The statistics presented are open to multiple interpretations. It is a lot more complex than the raw percentages. The idea that comprehensively educated students are less likely to achieve a 1st because the are inherently less capable is not necessarily the correct or only interpretation. There are other groups that are less likely to achieve a first (look at the percentages and regressions). Again, this is not necessarily because they are inherently less capable. Maybe some groups find it easier to thrive at Cambridge. There are lots if reasons why this might be.

Yes, completely agree. Reading the mental gymnastic arguments to try and justify discrimination against children based on which school they went to or the colour of their skin is quite alarming. I’m glad these abhorrent views are no longer getting the attention they once did.

Discrimination, give over. Universities have never given identical offers to all candidates. They give unconditional offers to some and not others, they waive subject/formal study requirements for some, they accept lower actual grades for some, they factor in life experience for some.

Universities make varied (including contextual) offers because they understand that grades are influenced by many factors and are not the only way to measure ability.