Cambridge University discriminates against children from private schools.

[Marchesman]

MN threads persist in claiming that Oxford and Cambridge Universities do not discriminate against private schools. Now two "academics" have written a half-baked book that argues for further reductions in the number of Oxbridge students from private schools (to 10% of the intake).

In 2023 at Cambridge 19.9% of students from comprehensive schools obtained first class degrees (23.5% from grammar schools) compared with 28.6% from private schools - evidence of unequivocal discrimination against the latter at the point of entry.

Cambridge's own analysis shows that British state-educated students already significantly underperform relative to foreign and privately educated British students. If more of the latter are excluded, the inevitable outcome will be that at these universities the best students are foreign, while the best British pupils decamp to US universities.

Is this really what the Left wants? If so why?

Not sneery, I like them both. But I meant they were brought up in wealthy middle class households, they don't seem to have much of a clue about people who have very little.
Sunak thought that not having Sky TV as a child meant he was "going without". It was widely ridiculed in the media during the election campaign.

To counteract some of these stories, I went to a state school (single mum, working class background) and then Cambridge in the mid-2000s (with a very strong regional accent) and encountered no snobbery whatsoever at any point.

I don’t doubt there was some of it around (Pitt Club anyone?) but it had no impact on my life.

I had an amazing experience then and that’s before most of the recent efforts to improve diversity. I would hate anyone reading this thread to think that Cambridge is populated by people like OP who would make state school kids feel like they had no right to be there.

Exactly. But when they report number of students from “state”. …. It’s recording where you were educated for A level.

There are two private schools in my large town, lately the trend is large number of students at A level switch to state school. Parents are now favoring the “free” state college to improve chances for top Uni.

The private colleges retain the sports scholars and fill the rest of A level with overseas pupils.
The state college getting better and better results as there is now large cohort from private school.

Everyone wins.

Strongly suspect the same.

It's always the same: you're successful because of your privilege, I failed because of my deprived background. Nothing to do with own skills and abilities, always circumstances.

Agree about the “summer” … and cunty Uni staff are cunty to everyone.

Yes at least two of my relatives got in to med school (back in the day) because they had family friends who were able to pull strings for them.

The idea that there was some halcyon era when those admitted to med school (or Oxbridge for that matter) were the brightest and best is nothing short of a myth. I knew plenty of Tim nice but dim types at Oxford and Cambridge who were their because their public schools knew how to play the game.

Everyone wins?

Don't you see it's zero sum game?
College does not get better results because of its added value, teaching etc, but because of cohort.
There is no improvement for any child, only numbers massaging

“Everyone wins” was expressed with sarcasm.

I would have expected critical pushback in my stating the great results at state a-level college being due to the influx of private school students. You so easily agreed.

More likely, that state a level college is just a great school, preparing all students equally well.

Great schools attract ambitious and motivated students … who do well on exams ???

Zero sum? Dont think so.

Except switching to state for A level doesn’t improve chances for a place at a ‘top uni’ when those unis look at where GCSEs were taken.

Plus students generally need to satisfy other requirements to be eligible for a contextual offer. And even if the student is eligible for a contextual offer and meets course grade requirements, it’s not necessarily a done deal (especially for heavily oversubscribed courses).

Bristol is probably one of the few exceptions, as it only looks at where A levels were taken and makes contextual offer to students from a list of schools.

Contextual offers can be made to students on bursary at a private a level college. It’s not just based on your a level college name.

Sure, uni can look at your GCSE school .. but when they publish ”offers to students at state school”. That bursary student at Eton, is coming from a private school. That student might have predicted grades of A A A* and doesn’t require a “contextual” offer if grades for course are AAA.

They make the offer at AAA.

It’s not a simple state vs private and contextual offer scenario. A private school student with parents paying vat, child can get contextual offer … caring, MH etc

Pupils from private schools do not attain highly due to a sense of entitlement, coaching, small classes or any of the old canards that infest these comments. Academically successful pupils from private schools, grammar schools, and selective comprehensive schools achieve, on average, for the same reason - pupil selection. It is a simple as that, and the evidence is incontrovertible. If you can find anything to the contrary from the last few years I would be most interested to read it.

As for the desirability of Oxford and Cambridge representing society, it sounds OK, for one millisecond. But is that what universities currently placed at the top of world rankings should be trying to do, or should they be academically selective? You certainly can't have both, and it transpires that you can't even have the former. The only movement is towards students from state schools performing less well at the best universities, when in the past if we (I went to a comp) got in, we knew it was on merit and we could compete.

In the time that it took for students from private schools to go from being 1.17 x more likely to achieve firsts to 1.43 x, do you know how many more POLAR4 quintile 1 pupils were admitted per year from comprehensive schools? You don't, so I will tell you - 19.

What do you mean by “selective comprehensive schools”? That’s an oxymoron.

thank you, I misunderstood. My mum used to say sky news was working class vs bbc middle class news. Obviously she was a raging twat. I’d forgotten about poor Rishi not having sky tv as a kid 😁. Thought it was a comment on his background which didn’t make sense as he went to Winchester

Excellent. We may as well do away with private schools then, as they clearly don't influence attainment at all. Surely lots of parents breathing a sigh of relief at the money spared (alongside a sadness over the money wasted so far)

There’s a comprehensive near me which offers 10% of places to the highest scorers in an internal admission test taken in year 6. They ask the local primaries to put forward their brightest kids for master classes and then they take the test. Dd wasn’t invited as sadly she was in the same year as 2 TA kids at primary and there were only 2 spaces for her school.

So essentially the motivation for this post is that you are pissed that you went to Oxbridge and your kid won't despite all the money spent on private education. Cry me a river. I doubt your child gives half as much of a shit as you evidently do.

Yes children at selective schools do better because they are academically selected for (and dropped like a hot potato if they fail). I am glad you admit that it is this factor and not the teaching or anything else that is the main cause.

But they also have to pay to be there and that is where it is unfair for those schools to corner more than their fair share of top university places. There are children who are just as bright and deserving whose parents can't afford to pay and they deserve a chance too.

If you accept that the reason why top fee paying schools send more children to Oxbridge is that they select to have only the brightest then why not just send those kids to state schools. If they are so bright then they will do well wherever they are. What is the point of all the hot housing and hand wringing

@HotCrossBunplease

There is a huge gap in outcomes between comprehensive schools, greater than the average difference between state and private. The top performing comprehensive schools are socially selective and therefore indirectly academically selective at 11, and directly academically selective for sixth form.

The most socially selective state schools are comprehensive schools not grammar schools, contrary to left wing lore.

Oxbridge is rarely the first choice for South Asian and black African students, private or state educated, for reasons other than academics. This absolutely needs to be shouted at from the rooftops. So if you remove much of that huge segment of the high achieving UK student population it all makes sense - both UK cohorts will be less able and so it makes sense to opt for the one where personal factors can explain why. It would be far better to review the stats across all red brick universities to get a real understanding of whether there is an actual bias

I don't know what you have been reading, but it certainly wasn't anything that I wrote.

Black African students, from Africa, including those who are privately educated international students with affluent parents paying overseas fees?.

Or do you mean a different cohort?

How about we think about why privately educated students get more firsts? It's not as simple as "because they're more intelligent", whether due to selection at age 11 or 14 or due to parental gene pool or whatever other "intrinsic" reason you might think of.
In my experience of Oxford, it's partly to do with systems that are set up to be easier to navigate for those who went to private school.

For example, to study the literature or music of most European languages, and some of the history, it really helps to have a solid foundation of the classics and the Bible. Private schools are much more likely to be able to offer Greek/ Latin GCSEs. There is no provision at Oxford for getting up to speed on the essential background information quickly - it would be easy enough for various humanities faculties to collaborate with the Classics faculty to put on a "Classics 101" type lecture in the first term.
Tutors tend to have a come-to-me style of support, at other universities staff might have office hours or a lecture hour at the end of the lecture course for questions, whereas Oxford tutors expect you to email them - fine, but that isn't explained at any point. Obviously tutorials/ supervisions provide small group teaching where it is easier to get attention, but in my experience my privately educated peers were much more likely to ask for individual help or, conversely, show off their knowledge. In the state system you keep your head down, don't make yourself stand out by "showing off", and the teachers are mostly too overworked for you to ask for individual support. At Oxford support is available, but only if you feel entitled to ask for it.

And that's before you get to the generally archaic social conventions, old buildings, formal meals and so on. I personally loved them, and I think everyone at Oxford should get to enjoy the fancy meals and wearing the gowns and all the traditions (as opposed to the argument that gowns/ formals should be abolished as not inclusive - why shouldn't those of us from state schools get to enjoy this stuff?). But they do take a bit of adjustment if you're not used to it, all of which makes life harder to deal with than it is for those coming from a similar environment.

honestly if state schools could provide the 10-12 hours of sport that my children’s school does per week I’d be with you. There is a weird belief that perpetuates these forums that people think school is purely academics only. I know that the type of school I chose would have zero influence on my children’s exam results. I just wanted them to do before, during and after school sport plus weekends. I don’t think any (or very few) state schools do that. I personally think sport is way more important than many academic subjects but it would be the first thing to be done away with .

There are two ways to deal with that: Make Oxbridge more accessible or improve state education. You may feel that these are not mutually exclusive but Oxbridge entry is a metric by which state education is judged and improving the former is a disincentive to improve the latter.

The article refers to something that was proposed four years ago. I'm not aware of any developments, it didn't go down particularly well, but the fact that it was even considered illustrates the problem caused by going down the accessibilty route and not dealing with state education.

I don't think I referred to anyone being "more intelligent" simply because it is only one of many factors that influence attainment.

As to why privately educated students get more firsts, that is explained by selection, for several reasons. Firstly it is intuitive, if you raise the bar for entry you will get higher achieving entrants. Second the bar has been raised year by year, and year by year the gap between types of students has increased. Thirdly school type is statistically significant independent of subject choice not just for those subjects that might be fringe in the state sector such as classics.

Your explanation probably explains the 2010 baseline quite well, it does not explain what has occurred subsequently.

https://www.theoldie.co.uk/blog/oxford-blues-the-universitys-classics-department-is-threatening-to-cut-back-on-homer-and-virgil-amelia-butler-gallie-is-horrified

edit: i before e except after c

That’s just not true at all, is it. I have anecdotal evidence, my dad and step mum spent their careers teaching in private schools, including a very prestigious one. Their view was many pupils were getting the highest grades from small group teaching and a lot of support. However, if you want more robust evidence try this. https://cls.ucl.ac.uk/rich-resources-of-private-schools-give-pupils-advantage-at-a-level-new-research-shows

If private schools didn’t result in better grades they’d be less popular. That is why people get cross when their money doesn’t open the doors they thought it would.

It's not fringe subjects, it's that the whole of the humanities department studying European literature, history, music and more is underpinned by an assumed understanding of Classics.
Do I think pupils should be given the opportunity to study Classics at state school if they're interested? Yes.
Do I think that in the meantime, Oxbridge humanities departments could improve their provision by offering a cross-humanities lecture course on Classics? Also yes.
Improving state sector education is vital, but whether or not subjects such as Classics are studied depends on all sorts of things including political leanings that variously consider them to be outdated, uninteresting to the modern teenager, or not useful to the production line of workers. Indeed, Classics may be totally irrelevant to a lot of people's lives - the point is that it is still assumed knowledge in the Oxbridge systems. This could fairly easily be mitigated, not by removing the works that need a knowledge of classics (the corpus of Early Modern French tragedy, for example, is both fascinating and an integral part of a literature-focused course), or by "dumbing down" the curriculum, but by simply providing the resources to catch up on the background without making students without the Classics background constantly one step behind. Of course, attending a lecture course is still more work for students who need it compared to those who don't, but a well-delivered lecture course should be more efficient and reliable than trying to teach yourself via unfocused reading and the internet with no guidance as to what might be relevant.