Why would anyone consider going to Rugby school better than the mixed local comp?

[Charis2]

I read this article in the standard earleir, and just thought what is this headmaster on? Why is this scholarship presented as such a huge honour for the boy, when in fact it is a way of the school paying to improve its results by taking in some of the best sixth form students without fees.

What "lifechanging" opportunities does he expect he can offer, which Hassenbrook acadamy can't?

www.standard.co.uk/news/london/needs-pic-teenage-footballer-wins-70000-scholarship-to-boarding-school-that-invented-rugby-a2953791.html

Headmaster Peter Green said he hoped Michael and other Arnold Foundation scholars would have a “ripple effect” on their communities when they return home.

He said: “We might be able to be transformative and transform their lives. Then when they go to university, and after, they can start to transform their own local communities. It’s not about parachuting someone out of that. We want to keep their association with where they are from.”

What a snob. Does he think the staff at Hassenbrook only teach poor peoples maths and physics, and the maths at Rugby is somehow a better class of maths? perhaps he thinks the laws of physics perform better there too?

I hope this lad has fun, but I don't think for a moment his life is going to be in any way better because he spent two years mixing with rich snobs rather than normal people.

Oh, I was under the assumption that the unconditional was made to someone that was still waiting to sit their final exams

I totally get unconditional offers to those who have already got their results.

I did wonder why some of our utterly fab students have never had one ( and I mean utterly fab by anyone's standards).

Unconditional offers were made when some of the Alevels were taken. What would normally happen is that the student would take maths and physics in L6 and apply with those grades. They would have also sat the STEP papers (I was one of the last years to sit these) too and had an interview. I know one girl in my year at 16 sat a'level latin and Ancient Greek getting As in both. She was due to sit French, Spanish, English Literature and history the following year. She also got an unconditional offer. She went on to get As in all four Alevels.

Just because it's incredibly rare doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

Agreed that it can happen, was not thinking that exams would have been taken already.

Universities all give the occasional unconditional.

My dn has, conversely, an AA A offer from Cambridge- and had a nail biting week when she got AA* B..........

Sorry- when she got A A B.....

I have never heard of Oxford/Cambridge offering an unconditional without results being had. But that's just my experience..

Less common these days but still they happen.

As I say, I offered one myself during the last cycle.

Prior to exam results? Wow..

I have very high hopes for some of my applicants this year, got a whole group with 5 As at AS and loads of extra curricular, fingers crossed!

Good luck to them all.
Unconditional offers pre A levels have made a slight come back as said above but they are quite rare. They are part of the new market where the good universities can offer as many people with AAB or whatever it is with a place and the more people who take up the places the more money they get which is slightly different from before the £9k a year fees came in although no use if you'd get under AAB.

Entrance exams were scrapped by Oxford in 1995

Are you sure? Because my brother did exams when he went and he is only 31. I am sure he did them because we (family) were all pretty sure he would not get in because of the interview (he doesn't do talking as such, or at least he didn't at that age) and when he got there, his tutor said to my parents 'he would have had to bite me in the interview not to be offered a place after I'd seen his exam paper'.

Yes, prior to exam results.

I can't speak for other departments/colleges.

The offer was based on spectacular ability in my subject as evidenced by a note of commendation from his AS exam board (in my subject), work provided by school and an extra curricular competition win of such stellar quality that I suspect we have a future star on our hands...

And I want to teach him!

Maybe it wasn't an official entrance exam but something set by the college or something. I can't remember.

It was around 1981 when my sister got to Oxford and they had just stopped having the 7 term entrance with exam. I don't think she had an entrance exam - just offer based on very high A levels. The big issue around 1980 was how unfair it was if your school did not offer that 7th term of sixth form when schools prepared you for the separate Oxbridge exams There was all the talk then about unfairness of "7th term entry". Oxbridge then changed the system around then and the 7th term entry went or may be it ran in parallel then for a few years and you either used it or not depending on your school or preference.

These kids that are exceptional are in the top 0.1% of global students. They are normally already known to the college. I know my school reached out and got help guiding these kids.

It is rare to get unconditional offers and oh I wish I had half their brains.

Am really puzzled as to why Charis has such a very bitter and almost personal response to this boy gaining a scholarship? We get it- you don't approve of private schools ok. But to assert that Rugby and other public schools offer no advantage over a state comp is rubbish. Better teachers, less anti social behaviour from other pupils, a large and varied co/extra curricular activities, opportunities for travel and the dreaded 'contacts'. Coupled with good exam results and an immersive educational experience.

Charis 2.....go to The Arnold Foundation website and read it ....

Yes it was a surprising first post.
Perhaps more material is how many working class boys from Sunderland get these kinds of chances at leading publc schools. It does so often seem to be children from London wihch already has a large range of even selective sixth form colleges, some with lnks with private schools, some just devoted to maths and all sorts neve rmind all the role models in London, closeness to the City of London etc.

(I am from the NE and live in London now).