What does everyone think about the new 'declare your parents education' UCAS rule?

[NotanOtter]

Seems a heap of proverbial to me....

Oh God - does anyone honestly think that children with well-educated parents and good A levels are honestly going to be turned away from university? Ridiculous. Read Ellbell's post. It all seems pretty reasonable to me.

If the child of two geniuses was placed in 'the worst home in England' its essential potential intelligence might well be high; but it would surely be more likely to manifest as acute frustration and probably mental illness unless there was very, very early intervention from outside sources of support (which don't seem to be available in our lovely land of plenty).
Wealth and security certainly help create the conditions for good performance in structured educational environments. That's about all you can claim for it.

Ellbell makes vg points especially as there are numerically so few university applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds in the first place. Anyone who has taught in universities other than (some of) the less well funded 'new' ones knows that they have become middle class finishing schools.

Well, if we are saying that if there are two 18 year olds with similar qualifications at A level but one has two parents with degrees and the other does not then the one without will get preference, then OF COURSE that means that the child who has the misfortune to have parents with degrees (as opposed to say, Jamie Olivers kids, or Richard Branson's kids) WILL be disadvantaged. Places at universities are not limitless. If you give preferential treatment to one child, then another will be disadvantaged. It cannot work any other way.

Interesting letter in the times today on this...

ie you have 5 places and 6 candidates all with three A grade A levels. One has to be rejected...so it will be a child whose parents have degrees.

It really does make me wish I'd not gone. Would be nice to think that I could have earned more, got on the property ladder earlier AND given my kids a leg up at the same time.
Of course, now you have to have a degree to wash dishes, so they won't have the same freedom if they choose not to go to university.
I always say that at the huge magazine company I used to work for, only work experience people with degrees were allowed, despite the fact that they'd be mostly getting coffee, packing clothes and answering the phones, and the mag I worked for had - until I left - NEVER had an editor with a degree.

I just frankly doubt that in 10 years time we will see universities transformed into hotbeds of social engineering, or indeed any different than they are now (i.e. Oxbridge and redbricks dominated by wealthy middle class, 'new' universities taking the less well off students) but I stand to be corrected of course.

But if there are more applicants than places, then children will be turned down. That's how it works. What criteria would you use to decide between applicants with the same grades? And do you know, I don't think this is new. I was asked in a university interview whether my O level grades were achieved in the state comprehensive in which I was doing my A levels. It does make it more overt perhaps.

but if the system was anyone can go to the uni they want but have to pass the exams to stay beyond the first year it would cut out all the deciding on school grades, economics and background. Those who make the grade stay & those who don't leave.

I agree Beckybrastraps, when I went to Oxford in the 80's they were certainly noting the applicants' backgrounds and schools. One of my friends came from a really grotty background and was offered entry if she got 2 Es at A level without taking an entrance exam. She got a 1st in the end, so clearly the college got that right.

I don't want my children to get into university just because I've got a degree and so has DH! Seems fair enough to me.

Aloha, check your emails .

Have to say that if I ever do admissions (haven't done so yet, only uni teaching) I would be swayed by the presence of obvious economic disadvantage in the candidate's background, but without interviewing the candidate (which I don't think you now get to do in a lot of universities)this would be hard to assess. I would be very wary of the parental education rule just because of my own background (both parents have degrees, but struggled to get them from horrible, poor backgrounds- they were grammar school kids). So if I were in the dreadful position of having to eliminate one candidate over another purely because of parental degree status, I would really really want to interview and assess the candidate on multiple factors, not just that one.

pmsl at the idea that the offspring of doctors and lawyers will be forced to sweep the streets while chavs swill port at High Table. I don't see there's anything new to this. I was certainly asked about my very non-traditional background at my interview for Oxford in the late 1980s, when there was a "father's occupation" box on the UCCA form. Given that education is the main engine of social mobility in this country, and that social mobility is declining, it means only that the child of a smelter or a miner (to use Gracelo's example) will be marginally less disadvantaged. And Homemama, I think your DH might have reached that mid-life point at which Trots become Tories...

I know that the heads of the private schools my daughters attended which get a lot of girls into Oxbridge have not noticed any discrimination because they're very academic private schools which is good. My daughter says she has anedotal evidence of friends from elsewhere though rejected by Bristol in favour of state school pupils but I don't tend to go on the gossip of teenagers.

This will just be one factor. Private school parents have been dealing with this for a few years now anyway and some have wondered if they should pull the child out of private school for sixth form to improve the chances of a university place. I hope we don't get to the position of some US colleges where if you can dredge up that you are one sixteenth black your chances improve etc.

I don't really see how it is going to be put into practise unless there is some financial pressure/incentive for Universities to make it happen.

I agree, whywhywhy. And as I think aloha was pointing out, your parents not having degrees does not always equate to you coming from a disadvantaged background.

I agree with your sentiment, mrspg, but I wouldn't want to think that that put them at a disadvantage either.

Becky, if 2 applicants had the same grades I'd like to think that the university looked at a) future potential and b) real interest in their chosen subject (DH actually put on his UCCA form that he wanted to do law or business/economics to earn lots of money!). I'd hate to see an assumption that it was easier for one child to get those grades just because their parents are degreed. In such circumstances universities really should interview, many don't do this enough. Some faculties in some universities don't do it at all!

Xenia, when I met him he was true blue but he's now quite left wing so I don't think he means it really.

Lol, schnitzel! see previous post. Full circle perhaps!

Xenia, isn't bristol notorious for this anyway? My understanding is that many public schools now discourage their pupils from applying there.

I think that may be true although one of mine went there from a private school.

My experience of getting 3 chidren into university in the last 4 years is that virtually no one interviews anywhere now except Oxbridge. So the grades and the form and your personal statement on the form and what the school says count much more than how you might be at an interview that will never happen.

For Oxford I think it was they found 200 applicants using the same internet site draft personal statement on their appliation forms (but they were found out).

soapb, I saw those letters too.

if your a mature student they do. would this rule apply to those of us who went later - say the grand old age of 23 or sommat

I thought you might have seen the letters Xenia

I bet you did xenia!
But isn't the point not that UCAS will have to check parents degrees with the awarding institutions, but that UCAS can't check EVERY institution to ensure that parents with supposedly NO further education haven't got a sneaky PhD from Edinburgh up their sleeves?

snap, oh sudsy one

agree with the data protection point though