Lower offers based on ethnicity

[Bufftailed]

Was surprised to see Newcastle offer 3 grades lower for certain ethnic groups (state school, but no other socio economic criteria). Is anyone aware of any other unis doing this?

Crucially, they are not saying everyone who applies within those groups and gets at least 3 Cs will be offered a place

Anyone who applies for Partners and meets the criteria is guaranteed an offer, so yes if they meet the offer grades (and attend the Partners summer school) they will get a place.

I asked a simple question related to my own family. You made assumptions & didn’t answer my question 🙄

The programme is aimed at several groups which are underrepresented in higher education as a result of disadvantage

If disadvantage is the motive for including the ethnicities list then it's very poorly designed indeed.

The only candidates who benefit from including an ethnicities list are those who:

• don't live in a neighbourhood with low progression to higher education
• don't live in a neighbourhood of high deprivation
• don't attend a low performing school of college
• don't qualify for free school meals or equivalent
• aren't the first generation of the family to go to university
• don't have a disability, care experience, or a range of other things.

i.e. it squarely benefits only those who are more privileged than the average candidate. Anyone else already qualifies via the many other routes.

So, it could be about representation (it's just nice to have the Indians, etc. around). Perhaps fair enough, but different from the reasoning you gave.

Or it might be justified if you think being from one of those groups makes someone inherently disadvantaged, regardless of any other status.

Some people think that, but it's not a universally-shared perspective, not least amongst those who it's intended to benefit.

Looks racist to me. I wouldn't say a large number of eg Caribbean ethnicity live in the NE so why the urge to bring certainly ethicities - But also bums on seats.

It only counts military children who had a serving parent during the GCSE and or A level years.

The Newcastle website says:

Acceptance to PARTNERS does not guarantee an offer of study. This decision is made by the admissions department upon review of your UCAS application.

It recognises that even when all else is equal and other social disadvantage isn't present, race is still an aspect of inequality, ie racism exists against these groups and we recognise it as a barrier to studying at our university.

Sorry you're right! I think that's just for courses with "additional selection processes" though isn't it? (eg. Medicine)

No idea tbh

I don't think this is new or unreasonable. I was made lower offers than my male peers when applying for Engineering courses 40 years ago.

Plausibly, but I think that's something that needs to be demonstrated not simply asserted.

What we do know is that the inclusion of that route in the rules allocates places on a scheme designed (at least partly) to address disadvantage to candidates who are unusually advantaged by those same measures.

And when we look at educational attainment by ethnicity, without controlling for other things, all except the GRT groups do better than the England average (and better than England whites) on progression to HE (state schools only, 2020-21).

This isn't even a case of a scheme that benefits the privileged members of underprivileged groups. It looks more like a scheme that benefits the privileged members of groups that don't seem to need the leg up, and might not particularly appreciate the pity either.

That is my direct experience, what is your evidence this is totally untrue?

Stupid as Indian and some African’s do better than white british.

Oxford don't make contextual offers.

www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/applying/guide-for-applicants/decisions/contextual-information

But where do the white students who do worse, live?

When you look at white students alone, you'll see that class/socioeconomic background is a major indicator of educational attainment. In areas that are predominantly white, like the North generally, the postcode criteria may cover them.

Secondly, you'll see white immigrants students do better than their native peers.

The other problem with the statistics that you cite is that they didn't breakdown the category of "Black". You'll often see notable differences between Black African and Black Caribbean people.

The emergence of a Black British 3rd and 4th generation demographic of mixed Black heritage will change statistics in the future. We will likely be comparing the outcomes of Black immigrants to Black British people and seeing if and why there is a difference in outcomes.

If things stay as they are, what we will see is that our Black British students have worse outcomes than their Black immigrant and 2nd generation counterparts. Pretty much like white immigrants do better than their native counterparts.

That is a failing of our society.

I never said they do, i had not even heard of the term, I just related my own experience and that of several friends.
The colleges do interviews , what criteria they use depends on the people interviewing, the college, and the candidates they have already seen- the set out policy won't cover any of that variation, it will to a greater extent be up to the individuals involved.

I agree that if trends stay as they are, that's what we will see. I'm not sure it's in itself a failing of society though. As in, if we have lots of highly-selected immigration of people whose children do better than those of our existing stock (of any colour), that's not really anyone's fault, it's just statistics plus the fact that educational attainment is heritable. It's not really a fault of either the groups that are now-by-comparison-falling-behind, and it's certainly not a failing of those who brought their talents to the UK and passed them on to their children.

(edited to add: I think we should still do what we can to improve attainment of all students. I just don't think disparities in themselves are enough to find a fault, nor that we should be surprised or sad that new arrivals are doing better than our existing stock. In a way, that's one of the great benefits of migration).

(edited to add: I'm also not saying that all immigration is highly selected. But there's certainly a big dose of that in many types of immigration)

I don’t agree with it personally. This is one of the reasons that service is so crap. We lower the standards to accommodate diversity, and then get people in roles that are totally inadequate, as they’re not educated to a decent standard, but we’re expected to accept it. I don’t think you’ll get any sensible answer if you challenge the UNI beyond the usual nonsensical excuses given.

I don't understand. There's 14 criteria and ethnicity is only one of them.

I think we should be educating our young ones in all sorts of ways not to be totally outperformed at a global level. Especially by people who often don't even speak English as a first language but are being educated in it, often from later in their childhoods.

What has happened is that we both have more poor people than we did in the more recent previous generations and those poor people don't have as many opportunities to achieve any social mobility, partly because they aren't as well educated academically and have fewer vocational opportunities than they had before.

So more people trapped in poverty.

From my own people around me, there is no way the majority of the children of people I know my age will outearn them or even match what they earn. I'm talking about the native High earners here. People I work for. Their kids have no chance of having the career they have and I'm talking about eh young adults and older teens. Maybe one of the boys might match his parents. The rest barely get out of bed if they don't have to.

How can that not be a failing of our society?

I think we should try to be competitive with the best educational outcomes in the world (and we aren't too far off, per PISA).

I agree that opportunity has stagnated, but I'd put that down largely to a stagnation in economic growth. That is very definitely a bad thing.

Social mobility though (in the sense of people actually moving socioeconomically from their origins) is bound to decline after a time, because talents are heritable. The first time you build schools free for all, you discover hundreds of thousands of smart-but-excluded children who excel once given the chance. But you can't play that card forever because the smart grandchildren of those smart poor kids are now smart rich kids. They can either stay near the top or fall downwards. You can still find smart-but-excluded people, but they are more and more likely to be those immigrants from places that haven't had their great socioeconomic sorting-out yet. And on top of that we can attract overseas elites too. It's a good aspiration, but not necessarily a realistic one, to think that the average child of 'existing stock' is going to beat the average performance of the educational elite of (say) Ghana or Nigeria or HK or wherever else who have moved here.

I'm not saying any of this because I think it's good or bad, I think it just is a big dynamic that is under-recognised because we've come to think of meritocracy as self-evidently good, which is great if you and your children are always going up. But mathematically we can't all be going up.

I was fascinated when looking at the scholarships for a major London uni's postgraduate business schemes to see many of them were exclusively for different ethnic groups (non white) only to apply - despite photographs of their co-horts being 70% non white. So whites massively under-represented but not allowed to apply for many of the scholarships. How does that work?

I think if you are going to have criteria/scholarships for certain ethnicities you should at least have a burden of proof that the group is actually under-represented.

"But you can't play that card forever because the smart grandchildren of those smart poor kids are now smart rich kids."

I don't think that is necessarily true. It depends on how you measure success. Not everyone who goes onto get a degree for example also goes on to a well paying job, even if they have a long career with many achievements in their field.

I can give you a prime example. One of my teachers came from an East London estate, did well, went to Oxbridge, studied I think Maths and Theology and then came back and taught Humanities at my secondary school. He lived nearby. He used to rent with mates when he taught us and said he couldn't afford his own place. When I was in my 20s, I'd see him taking his daughter to a local state school and then secondary school. Obviously he had partnered up, who knows if they've bought or still rent?

My point is that not every good, stable career that requires an education or significant training compensates you enough to completely leave all social barriers behind. That might be mostly choice or just that not everyone can be in the top jobs in the private sectors.

His daughter is still growing up in inner city East London in the same type of state school he was in. Just 30/40 years later. The only difference is that maybe unlike her GPs, her dad went to Oxbridge and got a degree. That's why she will probably do very well academically despite her school and its area.

I don’t think it’s guaranteed.

PARTNERS info says you MAY receive an offer up to three grades lower.

And:

Please note: acceptance to PARTNERS does not guarantee an offer of study. This decision is made by the admissions department upon review of your UCAS application.