Is it worth switching from independent to state for A level if applying for a highly competitive subject?

[rougheredges]

DS is in yr 10 in an independent school. He’s really happy there- we’re pleased with the academics and he’s got a lovely group of friends. He’s currently predicted grade 8/9 in 9 of his GCSEs (and a 7 in DT which he’s doing because he loves if!) He’s managing this pretty effortlessly.

Currently he’s thinking he’d like to study Economics at one of the tougher universities to get an offer from. He knows he’ll need lots of extra/ super curriculars as well, but his friend’s dad told him today that he might find it harder applying from an independent school. Apparently there’s less wiggle room and the bar is higher.

I’ve looked online and there’s a lot of conflicting information. Most of what’s out there seems to refer to contextual offers which isn’t relevant. I’ve read that it does matter/ it doesn’t matter/ they take where you did GCSEs into account so it’s too late/ they prioritise state schools/ it’s all about grades and PS.

I fear the answer may lie somewhere in the middle of all that but is there anyone who could give more guidance? His current school are keen to keep him (he’s currently an academic scholar with a princely 5% bursary!) so I’m not convinced they’d give unbiased advice.

(Local state school is great. He’d have gone there but it’s C of E and we didn’t qualify being disorganised atheists who figured it out too late. They remove the church attendance requirement at A level.)

Does anyone have any info?

I agree with you in terms of the immediate goal for this family.

But for the larger discussion: we see at university that many students struggle when the scaffolding provided by an intensively nurturing school falls away. Whereas we have data that those on contextual offers overperform when they are living in equal circumstances to everyone else.

This doesn’t apply to OP’s DC as the state school in question does not, apparently, have contextual flags.

But for the larger discussion: we see at university that many students struggle when the scaffolding provided by an intensively nurturing school falls away. Whereas we have data that those on contextual offers overperform when they are living in equal circumstances to everyone else. @poetryandwine

Exactly. To put it in an extreme way, if someone has never been to school but still achieves the same A level grades as a student who has had full-time schooling and support, that self-taught student clearly has far more potential and is far more likely to succeed at university.
But that doesn’t mean we should encourage everyone to skip school and morally condemn schools! I can imagine that anyone trying to play the system by just quitting school is taking an enormous risk and is probably just foolish.

“But for the larger discussion: we see at university that many students struggle when the scaffolding provided by an intensively nurturing school falls away.”

@poetryandwine - I think highly selective schools (whether state or independent) and highly selective universities or highly selective work environments that are intensely competitive (and therefore atypical) are never “nurturing” in the way I understand nurture. Most are nurturing only with the aim of supporting highest levels of performance. Every minute is accounted for. Public boarding schools. in particular boys schools, have high levels of performance and competition and pressure. Children and then teens and adults are pre-programmed to perform for society from an early age. I suspect when that pressure cooker is removed at uni and young adults have more free time and less competition the wheels may come off temporarily. Which is probably a good thing in the long run for the individuals involved. Children who are under immense pressure to perform from an early age often have had less time to develop socially and emotionally and with that, to develop self awareness and their role in society. I think a lot of youngsters are questioning what privilege actually means across all spectrums of society and plenty are choosing a more relaxed lifestyle as opposed to money/high pressure jobs. Which I understand to be perfectly rationale against the uncertainties in society. I think we see it particularly with the high performers that are medics, hence all the strikes.

Interesting.

I think it is always good to reflect, question, and be aware of your privilege. Wanting to step back from a high pressure life is absolutely fine (as long as you aren’t looking to the taxpayer to support you, if you are healthy).

But certain degree programmes and jobs probably aren’t right for those who feel this way. Do you disagree?

“I think it is always good to reflect, question, and be aware of your privilege. Wanting to step back from a high pressure life is absolutely fine (as long as you aren’t looking to the taxpayer to support you, if you are healthy).
But certain degree programmes and jobs probably aren’t right for those who feel this way. Do you disagree?”

@poetryandwine - I think children are pre-programmed into high aspiration/pressure by home environment as much as they are pre-programmed into a life of low aspiration/on benefits if born into certain circumstances.
And I honestly think every child and young person needs to be given the space to understand this and reflect. And I do not believe the current education system allows for much self exploration or reflection. It is constant next steps all the way through.
I think the whole of the public school strata has false “privilege” guilt a bit like Catholic guilt and has been pre-programmed that way. I only mention this as I think you mentioned your DH. I do not think being sent away to boarding school at a young age and made to stand on your own two feet and cope with all sorts of pressures is a privilege, far from it (regardless of educational resources thrown at you). Nor do I believe that going to Oxford and having to perform highly is necessarily a privilege either. It can be, but it can also be a massive burden. Just like being a banker and working 16 hour days in M&A can be a massive burden and a lot of them do drop dead early/have heart attacks. I think being a medical professional in this day and age on the NHS with all the pressures after a high performance academic life all the way through would also be a burden for most.

I think certain jobs which are immense pressure can only be done for a certain amount of time, realistically speaking. Hence the high early retirement rates for many. I

Not read the whole thread, but probably not worth changing school (regardless of sector) if you are happy and settled and the A level subjects are well taught. Schools that know you can write more complete reports, you don't have to go through an adjustment, and existing friendships become deeper in sixth form.

My DD switched, but it was a 10 minute walk vs 40 minutes on bus and tube, and she did not particularly like her previous school. Socially she did well, and was given a major leadership role despite decisions being made two terms after she arrived, but academically I am not so sure. Despite her switching to a supposedly more academic school, Her friendship group from her previous school did outstandingly well. DDs grades were good enough, and moving to an all boys school that took girls in the sixth form, has since proved useful when working in an a male dominated environment. Education is not just grades, nor getting into the top University. It is worth taking a broader view.

I tried to make it clear that DH did not enjoy his school: that’s why he did not want to stay the extra term to prepare for the Cambridge entrance exam. But he thought the teaching enabled him to make that very high offer.

Once he got to Cambridge everything worked out well. His studies got easier and more interesting every year, including the dreaded Part III.

Some careers are inevitably high pressure and it’s no surprise that people are ready to retire at pension age, or sooner. If these careers are freely chosen - and that is a major caveat - do you see a problem? I don’t.

I think the source of your motivation matters a lot. Feeling stuck on a treadmill, whether at school or university to meet your parents’ expectations, or in a career or job you feel you cannot afford to leave, is bad for anyone.

I have an incomplete and mixed view of the resident doctors’ dilemma. Clearly the national plan for the medical profession needs to be more joined up, and I think some priority should be shown to doctors educated in the UK, particularly Home medical students. (I would like to see substantial supports provided short of further specialised salary concessions, but that’s a topic for another thread.)

@Needmoresleep is one of the most thoughtful voices supporting the resident doctors on the threads dedicated to this topic. There are some good points, and also some rather silly ones, made in support by various MNetters. OTOH a couple of knowledgeable, thoughtful consultants consistently point out that some of the problems appear related to changes in the selection and education of medical students, and that some may be burning out because they are in fact less able to cope. They’ve posted good data. It seems a very tricky question.

Saying young people who have grown up being young carers/overcrowding etc, often in poverty, don't know how to handle pressure shows just how out of touch many middle class (often private school) people can be. Many of these young people handle pressures that most of us will never encounter - try being made homeless the night before your GCSEs start. Going to those elite expensive schools does mean you start life with so many advantages. But so does having a warm home with food and parents who are there.

But contextual offers will mostly not be made to all students just because they attend a state school.

You can't see privilege until somewhere tries to take it away.

This has largely been the consensus on the thread!

I know ! Your point ? Except you don't like me 😂

“may be burning out because they are in fact less able to cope”

I think this appears to be a relevant point, because it is also made by the Chancellor more generally with respect to NEETs and young people in general. Rather than blaming young people, I think we need to ask why? Why are so many young people now less able to cope? When I think back to my youth I think we possibly relished uncertainty more as adventurous etc. and I find my YPs are more anxious and less go getter than we were. As health and safety went mad years ago, it is hardly a surprise. They aren’t even allowed to do lunch time football or gymnastics in the primary my DC went to, too risky/too many fights.
I think both DH and I just had complete faith that things would work out one way or another somehow and if not, we would find a way. At the end of the day, if we do not teach our children to enjoy the “journey” but always be outcome focussed for 14 years of their education, what exactly does anyone expect? And if we burden them with uni debt and tell them they will never be able to afford a house and the world may end soon anyway because of climate and there won’t be a state pension, then the fact that many have no get up and go and procrastinate/have no plan/cannot leave their room/take the risks young people should always feel the confidence to take, is hardly going to be a surprise.

I think it is relevant for the OP’s posts because in the long run the social and emotional health of her DS is far more relevant than Oxbridge (whether or not it makes a difference what school he goes to or does not go to). If he has good friendships that then lead to further positive romantic relationships and a good career choice in the future, that is all just far more relevant than the prestige or lack thereof of a university place.

As for the resident doctors strike, I think training places need to be made and accomdated locally. I think it is unreasonable to expect them to keep shifting. Perhaps once upon a time when rents were cheap and youngsters were more adventurous that worked, it no longer works for the younger generation. Most work places have had to adapt to the new “fussiness” of the younger generation. None of my trainees will do all nighters like we did, it is out of fashion and they know their rights and can mobilise each other via social media.

@Araminta1003 I don’t think anyone is adopting a blaming stance; it is more a statement of fact. We are seeing it, and coping with it, throughout HE also. I also wish we knew why. Social anthropologists point to Germany and Scandinavia as cultures with more freedom for DC and less of this, so perhaps you are right. These cultures also have more social equality.

Some improvements to doctors’ need to move whilst training would certainly be part of a reasonable plan. I am not at all sure that they could realistically stay in one place for 9 years, especially in certain specialisms, but any attention to the matter would be welcomed. An early career academic scientist will typically do a PhD, then move once or twice for postdocs before settling between ages 30-35+, if lucky. (Competition is now very fierce) Something like that would seem reasonable.

I think the jobs that were previously mainly occupied by inherited wealth types (including politics, army, upper judiciary, medicine and even academia) that inherited wealth actually subsidised the State and the State/those institutions got away with underpaying those persons who were born wealthy and did the jobs for prestige. Now that many of those jobs are more “equal” they have to be paid a more current living wage relative to the pressure demanded for those jobs and the academic qualifications/effort required to get there. Nothing is free and high performance/expectations always costs the individual. Whilst the NHS may temporarily be able to still recruit overseas doctors because it is still temporarily prestigious to work in the UK, that can change very quickly.

Fascinating, @Araminta1003. I am not British; this is totally alien to my culture and I had not thought of it.

Do you think that when these jobs were underpaid and done at least to some extent from a sense of noblesse oblige the formal standards were lower? Perhaps there were more gentlemens’ agreements in play?

Obviously I’m aware - and proud, as someone settled here, in one of the sectors you mention - that the UK has had major successes in all of the areas you list. The relationship between formal standards and successes isn’t necessarily straightforward. (However it is clear that many qualified people were being excluded from these and other professions for lack of the right background, skin colour or gender.)

Now, encouraged by @poetryandwine 's post I have read back a couple of pages.

There is a great variety within sectors, and a great variety within schools. DC's sixth form (one of the big names) really encouraged pupils to show curiosity and acquire independent-learning skills. At the same time, and something we only discovered later as it was not as common within DS' particular friendship group, was that there was a lot of tutoring going on, both to get into the school and to keep up once there. Admissions officers might then have wanted to split out the naturally curious against the heavily tutored, which would not have been easy. Small sample, but DS' friends as a whole did very well, with most staying on for Masters if not PhDs, even though most studied in London rather than Oxbridge.

The school were keen to discourage complaints about unfairness when it came to University entry. They had had an advantaged education. But parents were not convinced, and with an increasingly international parent body, more went overseas. The broader education and expectation of taking part in a range of activities appealed to US University recruiters, whilst Canada, Italy (Bucconi), Ireland, Netherlands, and Australia started coming into the mix.

My DC are now a decade beyond school, but like many of their peers, are dealing with the challenges of the current job market. Getting good grades through school and University are important but not enough. Resilience and resourcefulness, communication, problem-solving, interest in acquiring new skills, being a team player and a lot more.

This, as poetryandwine suggests, seems to apply to medicine where poor NHS management seem to have decided to do away with merit as a selection criteria, or use it in an odd way. (So more points for published research or for competitions won, but no scrutiny of the quality of those publications or competitions, one reason why more international applicants were getting onto training than UK educated applicants despite many or the latter never having visited the UK let alone worked for the NHS.) 50% of DDs year group were unemployed at the end of Foundation 2 last August joining a large existing bottleneck of underemployed or unemployed doctors. Bizarrely after six weeks of nothing, she got to replace a consultant equivalent (Specialist Associate) in quite a niche area responsible for a couple of dozen very sick patients and supervising half a dozen first year doctors (F1s). Four locums had left quickly but she somehow survived six months (on a zero hours basis at half the pay of the post holder) and would still be there if she had not moved to Australia.

Her experience probably reflects the complaints of the consultants poetryandwine refers to. Looking back DD's survival was as much about skills gained outside education, as within it. Obviously good medical knowledge is important, but resilience, assertiveness, empathy, teamwork (she had a strong team of nurses), an ability to think independently and not to sweat the small stuff, were crucial. Sport, a season as a chalet girl, and her school leadership role all came into play. The same was true of her F1s. (Very NHS to get a locum with no assessment training to write appraisals - in the end she told us what she wanted to say and we suggested language.) The majority were fine, some very good, but amongst the group there were issues with anxiety, over-confidence or lack of attention to detail, all unrelated to prior academic performance. (The same will be is true of doctors recruited from overseas.)

Medicine is a bit extreme, as it can be life and death. DD ended up sounding middle aged. "Think, don't just ask me." "Get away from the computer and observe the patient." and so on. But in an AI driven world, wider non academic skills are bound to play a larger role. So my answer to OP would be to think about where the DC will get the better and wider education.

@mumsneedwine - traumatic child and teen and even adult experiences do not always build resilience, sometimes they just create trauma which can only be papered over in the short term, superficially. To build long term resilience requires proper processing and acceptance - it can take years. To just say oh they can cope etc with pressure ignores the underlying issues and also means some YPs can be open to exploitation in a corporate, financially driven environment (and then suddenly burn out, in a real long term manner).

Equally, the middle class helicoptering/bulldozing is also meant to lead to lack of resilience.
The discussion simply veered towards resilience.

In my opinion, a child or teen or young adult taking a calculated risk, of their own choice, seizing an opportunity which leads to a reward (short or long term) is going to build resilience. But adverse life circumstances beyond their control and not of their making can actually do the opposite and cause fragility, if not addressed/supported.

I also simply do not agree that all independent schools with high expectations academically, socially, extracurricularly are going to be good or a privilege for all children. And I completely disagree that high pressured boarding schools are the right environment for many kids. It does not matter how much money the parents have spent. It is about the effect on an individual child. In the past, society expected men of certain rank to bury their emotions to lead and perform at all cost, and some forms of education are a remnant of that. For some children it can work very well, for others it is hugely detrimental. Societal expectations can trap everyone in the hierarchy, it is not always as simple as those at the top are to blame. There are equally plenty of on paper poorer children in very loving families with loads of friends and a strong community leading perfectly happy lives.

I also simply do not agree that all independent schools with high expectations academically, socially, extracurricularly are going to be good or a privilege for all children. And I completely disagree that high pressured boarding schools are the right environment for many kids. It does not matter how much money the parents have spent. @Araminta1003

Framing the argument around “all” independent schools is just a straw man. You’re using absolutes to make your claim non-refutable, but of course there are exceptions. So it makes more sense to talk in general terms.

On a general basis, I really think private school kids are privileged. Privilege is about having access to more rights and greater resources, regardless of whether a child takes advantage of them or there are any side effects. It is like you saying a child born into wealth isn’t privileged just because you think they might lose the meaning of earning a living and end up living an unhappy life. That’s a completely separate issue.

And when you use boarding schools as an example, I quite agree with you. I don’t think boarding schools are necessarily good. This may also show that many parents do not truly love their children and do not want to keep them around to care for them, but send them away to school instead. So from this perspective, they are not privileged in terms of love.

So if we make it specific: if you have very caring, wealthy parents who carefully choose the right independent school for their child, when otherwise that child would have ended up in a really terrible local school, then I would say one hundred percent of the time, this child is privileged.

@swdd - my children personally know quite a few children who have switched from high pressure London day private schools to state schools and are much happier in the state system and achieved better there. The same will apply to universities. What is “privilege” to an adult is not always privilege to a child/teen - whether now or looking back. It’s the same when it comes to living in a big house vs sharing a bedroom with a favourite sibling in a previous smaller house, having a fancy boring holiday vs having a very happy camping holiday with best friends. What children perceive as “privilege” isn’t always equal to what adults see or pay for.

@swdd - my children personally know quite a few children who have switched from high pressure London day private schools to state schools and are much happier in the state system and achieved better there. The same will apply to universities- you can see it in the student satisfaction ratings. What is “privilege” to an adult is not always privilege to a child/teen/student - whether now or looking back. It’s the same when it comes to living in a big house vs sharing a bedroom with a favourite sibling in a previous smaller house, having a fancy more boring holiday vs having a very happy cheap camping holiday with best friends. What children perceive as “privilege” isn’t always equal to what adults see or pay for.

I completely understand what you mean: more resources don’t equal more happiness. That’s true. And children's experience can be quite different from adults'. For example, most people assume that long commuting to secondary schools is a disaster for children, but in some cases it might actually be good for them as a way of exploring the real world.

But in terms of privilege, I still find it odd. Let's use Prince Harry as an example. Of course Eton wasn’t a positive experience for Prince Harry personally, yet for any ordinary person, going to Eton is undoubtedly a privilege. Especially for someone like Prince Harry without decent academic ability, it almost feels like he took someone else’s place. And that is what privilege means.

@swdd - privilege to me broadly means “advantage” over others and thereby excluding others to gain that advantage (and then having to carry over debt/obligation to repay that privilege to society somehow).

However, increasingly I think one has to think of it like a Top Trumps card:

Let’s say someone has class privilege, financial and educational privilege, they can still have recognised disadvantage, in your example being a black boy at Eton. Those with race disadvantages in this country coming here or female or not part of the establishment are going to feel more peeved off by narrow definitions of privilege perpetuated by the Oxbridge admissions system. I think another poster gave the example of foreign parents at Westminster school being peeved off. I can totally see why to be honest. Middle class white British (often) male privilege that can no longer access private education is now trying to perpetuate their class and race privilege via the elite university system in this country. Whether this is a fact or not is debatable. However, there are endless threads on MN about it, so potentially there is going to be some truth in it.

Like I said, I personally believe an elite higher tier education system in itself will always perpetuate class privilege by its very definition so broadening the quality of higher education across many universities is what I think is most important.

Oxbridge admissions aren't about social engineering or some grand version of fairness. If we are being honest, if things were truly fair, then even being born with a high IQ would be seen as an unfair advantage, yet it would be ridiculous to lower the entrance criteria for those with a lower IQ. The actual goal is simply to find the students who are the best fit for the course.
In this context, privilege just means being better prepared by external advantages rather than individual merit. The whole point of contextual admissions is to look past all that expensive coaching and private school polish to find the raw talent underneath. It really should be about merit and potential, identifying the brightest kids regardless of how much money was spent on their prep.

@swdd - as you know, time invested by an educated parent over many years is far more relevant than money spent on education. I would love to know how many students at Oxford and Cambridge/Imperial/LSE etc have at least one parent educated to Russell Group (or international equivalent) university level.

Middle class white British (often) male privilege that can no longer access private education is now trying to perpetuate their class and race privilege via the elite university system in this country.

Contextual offers are more likely to be given to kids on FSM or at low-performing state schools, rather than middle-class kids in good state schools with good postcodes.

True. In fact, I often view my DD’s education as being semi-homeschooled by us, which I always tell her is her true privilege. But in a liberal society, parents putting more time and energy into their own children's education should not be discouraged.