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?

What are you accusing me of? I’d never heard of this, it’s true ignorance not faux. From the little research I’ve just done, it seems it was a little token red meat thrown to some left wing activists and is now being rowed back as standards slipped. Which was entirely obvious what would happen,

You’d have to know the course the OP is taking about and number of independent vs tax payer kids applying to answer the question. I suspect staying in private will be the best option.

GCSE?

Only some very selective universities and programmes use GCSEs beyond the usual checks for literacy and numeracy.

Eg Reputedly Oxford do to a high kevel, Cambridge much less so.

I imagine those using GCSEs rely on them as the only piece of hard data available. About 80% of predicted grades are inaccurate with the significant majority optimistic. To some extent that’s in keeping with UCAS guidance, but there should be common sense limits. The very high degree of inaccuracy suggest a problem.

We know from studies that PGs are skewed by class. Obviously this won’t be a perfect correlation, but the tendency is for middle class PGs to be high and, heartbreakingly, for applicants from lower socioeconomic classes to be underpredicted. Then these applicants fail to receive offers they may be able to make. One hidden advantage of contextual admissions is that lower offers help to address this problem. A bit.

My School doesn’t use GCSEs very much but I think this is actually an argument for doing so. The argument against is that we don’t really care about most of them, and in the subjects we do care about all of our students across the board have 8s and 9s anyway. So what information would GCSEs give us?

They might, however, help inform decisions at lower tariff degree programmes.

All of this is why I think the fairest thing is to move to a post qualification system of application.

Seems a leap - why do you think that would work?

The idea is that someone from a deprived background might have had more barriers to getting AAA than someone from a top independent school. No sob story needed.

No not GCSEs, I understand that. Makes perfect sense, measurable data on performance.

I’m asking why where you sat your GCSEs is a factor. Why if it was funded by parents or the LEA is a factor.

This has been explained quite clearly in the thread. So I can only conclude that you don’t want to hear the answer and would prefer to chunter about left wing activists instead.

Completely agree, It wouldn’t l/won’t work. You simply lower the overall standards of the institutions.

If the only reason for moving to state is to give him more chance of getting a top university place, then don't do it.

A profile of private school for GCSE followed by good state school sixth form will not give him any "priority" in university admissions.

My DC attended a "below average" state school for GCSEs and A Levels. That still wasn't "bad" enough to get them any university priority. Just to give you some anecdotal context.

On the other hand, private schools are often much better in terms of support to get students onto those competitive courses than state schools are. So if you are looking at discriminators, I would ask questions about this.

I was responding to a question regarding if I was asking why GCSEs are a factor, by clarifying that no i was asking why where you sat your GCSEs is a factor and how it was funded is a factor.

Nobody has answered my question clearly or otherwise, the nearest has been saying it’s harder to get good grades at poorer schools. Please don’t try and miss represent what I have written.

Oh, I think perhaps there has been some casual use of language. It’s all about where you were educated.

Sorry for the confusion!

Oxford (for example) don't base any decisions on whether you went private or state. They do however look at your GCSE results in the context of your school's overall GCSE results.

Do they really?

Actually they do a bit more than that... I think someone already posted this link up-thread.

Seems very sensible and reasonable to me.

www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/applying-to-oxford/decisions/contextual-data

@poetryandwine

Its all about where you were educated.

Nonsense. It’s been 10 years since I applied for uni, but I very much doubt they’ve done away with grade entry requirements since then.
I think there is a lot of wishful thinking on this thread, I’m afraid of you want your dc to go to a an elite institution then they are going to have to compete at that level. Anything less is a disservice to them, the other candidates and ultimately the institutions themselves.

I always recommend to stay in the current school for 6th form , if possible. The A-Level syllabus needs to be finished by about February of y13 so that leaves less than 18 months to cover everything. There is always a risk with changing schools because you can lose time with settling in and there really isn’t any time to waste.

Having said all that, my DCs went to a comprehensive with lowish A-Level results (due to the intake) and DC2 did get a contextual offer. DC1 didn’t. The A-Level classes were tiny - DC1 did physics and there was only one other person in the class, chemistry had 4. The teaching was excellent.

Both my DCs are or recently were at high flying universities and both are absolutely packed with private school and international kids. DC1 knows people from uni who were at Eton College and Cheltenham Ladies College!

That is unbelievable. I stand corrected.

I was responding to your post of 11.54.

There, you emphasised in boldface the importance of where applicants sit their GCSEs and whether who pays for them is a factor. It isn’t.

Because I was struggling with how your posts cohere, the context for my response - as indicated by highlighting your quote - was that perhaps you were making a distinction between where one is educated and where one sits GCSEs. Nothing more.

As a former admissions tutor for very competitive degree programmes, I don’t disagree with anything in your last paragraph except the opening phrase about wishful thinking and the closing phrase about a disservice to the institutions. I’m afraid all of them are primarily businesses these days. Ideals may not be gone but they are deeply buried.

If parents are lucky enough to be able to give their DC a supportive environment, why would they not do that? The chips will fall where they may. Properly used, contextual admissions are a small mitigating feature for some of those who are not so lucky. The system is far from perfect.

Admissions to top Economics programmes is brutally competitive. All applicants will find this out soon enough.

So what do you mean by Its all about where you were educated. ? Is that your personal opinion as an admissions tutor or the policy where you work? I’m just not buying this can be the case, why does each course have entry requirement grades if so?

From a learning at university point of view, also, student B may well have more capacity to learn (and the skills to do so, having had to be more proactive) whereas student A may have peaked with that top A level grade.

I’ve already explained - that was to clarify that contextual offers are about where you are educated rather than, as you highlighted in your post of 11.54, where you sit your exams. In case the two differ.

What is contextual admissions? | UCAS https://share.google/9d9s5Ai4QHtNCEhuv

Above is what UCAS have to say about contextual admissions.

And below, the Sutton Trust, with some further information on which universities have contextual pathways for students who've done their prep courses (which also have entry criteria).

Contextual admissions - Sutton Trust Pathways https://share.google/EjF7LnI9KxWFYS8tq

It’s actually quite sad that private school parents are not satisfied with their DCs already having the advantage of a better education plus benefiting from the “old boy” and “friend of a friend” networks. Now they have to try and take away the perceived single advantage open to bright state school kids.

Have a word with yourselves.

I think it’s quite sad parents want standards lowered to accommodate their dcs, rather than rising to the challenge.

And here is an example for the University of Leeds, which would apply, I think, to their very popular and very high tariff Economics and Finance course.

I had a student get an offer reduced by one grade on the final criterion, but it looks like two criteria are needed these days.

However, a refugee I taught would have qualified under more than two of the grounds even though she was applying from an independent school where she had a 100% Bursary.

Am I eligible? | University of Leeds https://share.google/biwYVRWdup9SVLwDk

I notice that all of these routes require a high level of organisation/filling in forms and providing evidence/completing a prep course/submitting an essay.

They're not exactly money for nothing - they require the candidate to show skills that would make them a successful student!