Arrrrgh! How to support DC in uni choice

[SinuousTendrils]

So DD has finally decided on PPE for her course having pivoted between literature and maths all year.
At last year's open days she loved Warwick's philosophy and maths courses but was not keen on the campus or the idea of living near Coventry.
She loved Durham, loved the PPE course but is concerned about the number of public school types (after ruling out oxbridge for this reason) It is also far away from home.
She felt right at home in Sheffield but isn't sure if the course is as good....
She has no idea what to do but wishes she could take the Warwick course in Sheffield.
Dors anyone have knowledge about the PPE course at Sheff? Warwick was a particular draw as they teach continental.
Thank you.

Maybe children are using their own lived experience rather than their parents comment?

How do people know without asking them?

My sons experience of an outstanding primary was people mocking the music he was into, sounded too street hair looks etc.

I suspect most other children with concerns will have their own experiences of school whatsoever their background is.

I do find the idea of dismissing these issues without any experience interesting.

I can't comment on universities but these are real issues at ordinary state secondary schools in my area.

I'd be pretty surprised if the problem just disappears at 18.

Not all children want to change who they are simply to fit in. Plus some can't

I have repeatedly acknowledged inverted snobbery and stated it is inappropriate on this and other threads.
It isnt 'obvious' why DC dont escape their backgrounds. It is simplistic and incorrect to suggest that the sole cause of poor social mobility is negative parental attitudes to institutions where there are a high proportion of students from higher income backgrounds and a lack of aspirations. The influences on social mobility are complex and multifaceted.

Since when was Oxbridge "dull"? Maybe your DD simply wasn't Oxbridge material.

Many people "rule out Oxbridge" when they simply wouldn't even get in.

@Owlbookend So what are they then? Do spill the beans. If it’s not aspiration and parental influence, what else is it? Given all the outreach, information and effort, why are outdated views still appearing on MN with undiluted monotony? I am aware of poor careers advice, schools having limited ambition and lack of confidence to get out of your bubble, but that’s down to upbringing too.

Sorry I meant Oxford not Oxbridge!
When we visited she was most unimpressed by what the town had to offer, and as I mentioned didn't want to be in a small college. She knew plenty of people there and also didn't think the 8 week term would suit her.

She may well not have got in, not everyone with all 9s and A*s does, but the fact remained she didn't want to apply in case she did get in and then might feel she had to go when she didn't feel it was the right fit for her (I agree with this). The subject she would have been applying for has a pretty high success rate compared to many and they didn't do the course she really wanted, so she didn't want to study something else. Her school put her under pressure to apply for their stats 🙄

I am sure it suits lots of people but she wasn't one of them!

I'm not going to write an essay but factors that influence social mobility are wide ranging and include:
*Differences in early childhood environments and resources
*Unequal access to high quaity education accross Key Stages
*Unequal access to in home educational support from highly educated parents or paid tutors
*Different access to work experience from family or wider contacts
*Stressors that emerge from poverty and impact on schooling, further and higher education
*Unequal ability to take advantage of unpaid internships
*Geographical disparities in economic opportunities including jobs, apprenticeships and internships
*Unequal knowledge of value and implications of different educational opportunities
*Perceived (or actual) issues with accessing or thriving at highly selective unis.
These are just some of the many influences.
Put 'factors influencing social mobility in the UK' into google scholar or similar for some high quality reviews.

Sheffield in an excellent university in an excellent student city. I know many who have studied there and have been successful in diverse areas of work.

Warwick is in an off location in many respects. I find the extent to which it’s discussed on Mumsnet somewhat odd. Would going to Warwick over Sheffield make any difference whatsoever for the vast majority of DC? I suspect not, except the Warwick students have had to endure Coventry or spend a large chunk of their time on a bus from Leamington, a mid-sized Midlands town.

As for avoiding the richer/posher/privately schooled, this is perfectly fine as a selection criteria. Posters point out state schooled kids are in a minority in ‘top’ universities. But when you factor in privately schooled international students and grammar school kids from very affluent areas, you can end up with an institution where the tone of the place is set by those from privileged backgrounds whose lifestyle and tastes aren’t hugely congruent with those belonging to kids from other backgrounds.

I say just go to a northern or midlands red brick if you’re state schooled and wary of poshos for whatever reason. Great unis. Not too many privately educated, few super-posh, and the vibe of the cities keeps things real, unlike in, say, St Andrews.

And to the parents of the privately educated who bemoan these type of comments,you chose to separate your DC from the unwashed masses, so don’t get upset now the masses want to return the favour.

”in a majority” that should read.

Hilarious 😆 I live in ‘the north’. 2 of my friends have sons who were sent to extremely expensive elitist boarding schools. They are both actually lovely young men who I have been very fond of from their babyhoods.
what set them apart from other uni students wasn’t snobbery or elitism, it was their cosseted backgrounds. No money worries, assurance that they will be bailed out, no concept of reality. Both partied hard at Newcastle, developed serious ketamine habits, had to retake first year
my albeit nice middle class state school educated boys were so shocked at the concept of the cost of retaking a year.
my DS3 is at Newcastle, he loves it but does say it is full of privileged party boys, no idea why

@bittertwisted Newcastle has long been the party uni of choice. It’s targeted by party types from elite schools and state schools who cannot get into higher tarrif unis. It’s one of the lowest ranking RG unis. Drugs are everywhere and not confined to private schools. If dc want them, they get them. Ask yourself why deprived areas have the biggest drug problems, it’s not because everyone living there went to boarding school.

As for a cosseted home life! I look at state educated dc in my village. They all have a plain sailing life with car provided to drive to school 6th form , holidays, no need to work etc. That doesn’t mean they are not able to flourish at uni. It just means parents saved their money!

Newcastle has a curiously higher percentage of privately schooled students compared to the other northern red brick RG unis.

My pet theory is that this is due to its proximity to Durham and, to an extent, Edinburgh. Chums can visit each other easily.

That line about separating your kids off from unwashed mass is genius! So true….

I honestly think this is overblown. All elite universities will have some degree of snobbery in them. Before he went to Durham, my son considered this and just decided that if there was any snobbery or bullying, he would be in the right place to challenge it. Letting the bullies run people out of an excellent universities mean they win. As I said before, he is now in his final year and has never experienced anything like this.

@MeshMesh You are incorrect. State educated dc are in a MAJORITY at every single university. Including Durham. If you think Durham is the same as Sheffield, fine. In some areas like law, it’s not. In engineering it’s better to be at Sheffield in my view. Sheffield isn’t full
of dc who could have gone to Oxbridge. Durham patently is. If it’s ok for the less affluent to stay together, richer students who are privately educated will do the same and they get into the better unis in larger numbers. Therefore what’s the point of outreach and wanting state dc to aim high - not much. They won’t do it according to you. And do they get the same job outcomes? Evidence says the outcomes are not the same.

My dc went to LSE. There were British people who went to private school and international students who went to private schools. All lovely people. 2 of DS's best friends went to private schools.

I think the sweeping generalisations made from all sides of the public/grammar/private school debate are problematic. I hope our young people go forward in life judging people on their actions and behaviour rather than their background.

Speaking as a privately educated comprehensive school teacher who had children in the grammar system goodness knows where I fit. Life is complex and nuanced.

You clearly missed my comment immediately under the the first one on this thread where I correct myself and acknowledge they are indeed the majority. Indeed the point I was making rests on the fact that the state schooled are the majority. Read the thread before commenting :)

I think you’re confusing the perception of prestige driven by presence of more private schooled kids, architecture, industrial city vs old town, an Oxbridge like college system etc, with actual meaningful difference. Sure the Durham students might have a grade or so higher in one of their A levels or wotnot but so what? As for it being a hot bed of people who “could have” gone to Oxbridge, well, I think it’s more accurate to say it has loads of people who applied and failed to do so.

The private schoolers at Oxbridge are people too

@MeshMesh The difference between attending Oxbridge, and not, are very very fine differences. There are plenty at Durham who would be very marginal rejections. Oxbridge entry is not a precise science.

Im not confusing anything. It’s pretty clear that in better paid jobs or elite careers, Oxbridge, Durham and LSE are pretty well represented. Unis in gritty industrial cities less so but they have fewer private school dc - except Newcastle!

“Gritty industrial cities” lolz - have you been to the centre of Manchester recently? I’ll wager not.

What are “elite” careers exactly? I suspect they’re just jobs that pay well to me, yet “elite” to you in your deeply hierarchical view of the world where your sense of status is tied up with your kids having succeeded through a particular path.

Regarding Durham, I think you’re confusing causation and correlation. To what extent is the fact that a disproportionate number of Durham grads vs, say, those from Sheffield, who get into, say Private Equity, Investment Banking or Management Consultancy, due some meaningfully different ‘value add’ provided by Durham (compared to Sheffield) vs other factors?

These, I suspect more important factors, could include having attended private school and having that superficial “polish” that sadly employers still too readily fall for, simply having grown up in a household or community where such aspirations are ‘normal’, or, living in the South East where there is easier access to internships at such businesses and DC can live at home while doing them.

I think university choice within broad uni types does make a difference to an extent. But I don’t think for, say, a lower middle class kid from the Midlands, whether they attend Leeds, Sheffield or Manchester unis vs Durham, Warwick or Bristol, makes much meaningful difference as to what they end up doing for a living and how much they end up earning.

In fact, the whole notion of their being a ‘tier 2’ between Oxbridge and the red bricks supposedly consisting of Warwick, UCL, Bristol, Bath, or whatever unis seem to be favoured by the affluent parents of privately educated Home Counties types, seems a bit dubious to me. These differences are small and not based on any real meaningful differences beyond a perception of prestige based on superficial characteristics. Now blind recruiting is increasing this factor is diminishing. Yes I know some areas of law who should be ashamed of themselves still rely on traditional stereotypes and prejudices to recruit.

Why do I believe all this? Because I’ve studied from BSc to PhD across these supposed tiers and worked for decades in what you would probably describe as an “elite” career with many people who went all these institutions.

There are threads like this every year.

What surprises me is that those concerned about high percentages of privately educated kids are often those from pretty advantaged families themselves. Like most uni applicants, they might not be privately educated,but often their families value education and have given their kids lots of advantages such as access to hobbies, which gives them far more in common with the privately educated than they seem to imagined. It’s rarely those from genuinely disadvantaged backgrounds who seek worried about somewhere having 40% privately educated rather than 25% educated private’s that write these threads. It’s the genuinely disadvantaged who face the very real risk of feeling like being ‘fish out of water’ at uni, because they are exposed to a vast majority with a very different background and cultural experience. It’s not those who grew up in decent if not posh areas and whose parents thought about their education and read to them and helped them access extra curriculars and see going to work as the norm who will find it odd, I Ben if they do meet some people who had considerably more than the norm.

I conclude that adults as well as teens are full of self doubt and concern about feeling ‘lesser’ and somehow it gets manifested in the concerns about private school numbers. Parents don’t like the idea of their kid being with too many people who have had something different to themselves , and it makes themselves feel more comfortable to know their child will be with people ‘like them’ or what they perceive will be ‘like them’. Sometimes it’s a self-defence mechanism and indirect way of discouraging children from taking a risk in applying to top institutions, because they might not really meet the standards to get in. Rather than say this, it can be easier to say not applying is to avoid the ‘snobs’. Because what are the differences between privately educated kids and the usual middle class majority at uni? The differences are not as big as imagined. Most have gone to little-known private schools and live in nice middle class places and have had holidays and extra curriculars - maybe a bit grander than the non-privately educated, but often not v different. And yes, some have had wildly different lives of luxury which are hard to imagine, but they’re pretty few, in the same way those from wildly disadvantaged backgrounds are also sadly few…but people don’t seem to fear having to mix with them.

Teens are naturally quite black and white in how they view things and people. They have limited life experience and must have lived in a very limited range of places and mostly or exclusively known people like them. When they go the scary week that is Freshers, they need to meet people and chat and find things in common. It is entirely normal for people who’ve spent most of their lives in school to chat about where people are from, what course they do etc. If you meet people from a place you know a bit or know people there, they might ask which school to try and find some connections or people in common. Usually just in that first week. The fact some students might not feel they know anyone anywhere else, or overhear such a conversation, doesn’t mean those people don’t want to meet anyone else. If someone overhears someone speak about having a pony, doesn’t mean they are an impossible person to be friends either because they don’t have a pony, in the same way that hearing someone does another hobby you’ve never heard of, doesn’t mean they can’t find things in common. Deciding in advance that certain hobbies or ‘markers’ mean people should be avoided, or whole unis avoided is just daft. And it’s sadder still when parents feed that perception.

As parents I feel we need to help our kids have self-worth - to know they get a place at uni because they earn their right to be there - that they are capable, but also to know they are interesting and funny and worth knowing….and at uni there will be lots of other people with those characteristics too - and what an opportunity to spend time with people ehuu oh be lived in different places and had different experiences, but are all there are able young people studying and living together.

Not everyone can access the most selective unis and there are all kinds of reasons why people might choose one uni over another. But not considering somewhere which is a real top place for your course, because of stats which the press live to publish to stir division and a sense of difference, seems such a shame and something as parents we need to be keen to challenge rather than support.

When I was looking round unis at open days I was looking for people obviously into cool music, as I knew that would be a great way to make friends. Went to Bristol on the open day and saw vitrtually none and heard loads of braying poshos so didn’t put it down despite getting an offer. Went to a slightly lower ranked red brick, met loads of great people, had a cracking time, never looked back, no regrets, and then managed to get a job in an area riddled with poshos, outperformed most of them, got paid, and did fine in life.

@MeshMesh Do you always speak about people in such a derogatory way? It’s pretty nasty to read to be honest. Full of prejudice and even thinly veiled hate. I hope your dc aren’t like you. Bristol, like many unis, had a decent music scene in your day but you were prejudiced against it for very shallow reasons.

@WombatChocolate Great post. Hits the nail on the head. Parents do discourage dc from taking that step
up to the best universities because they don’t do their homework on private school stats and it’s definitely a confidence issue. If private school dc were as rude as the poster I’ve responded to, what would we all think? It’s somehow ok to have a go at perceived wealthier people. Who is ever going to notice the difference between Bristol and Newcastle % of private school students? It’s 2% difference!!

How do you know by looking at someone that they’re ‘obviously into cool music’? What a gift!