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?

Further into the fringe ….
the most competitive courses are those with most applicants, and often the most overseas applicants. IMO areas of study most likely leading to employment outside of academia.

The fringe tend to be statistically “easier” to get into, which might draw some students who value Oxbridge more than area of study. Again, you can find these on What do they Know. Some Colleges have very small fringe areas of study that draw few applicants making admission that much easier based on absolute numbers.
The fringes don’t seem to attract overseas students.
Just an observation.

One of these fringes at a particular college have 4 students per year, with 6 applicants in a recent year. The subject would not necessarily exclude state pupils but a commitment to subject would need to be demonstrated.

One of my kids did quite a bit of research into how you could game the best odds for getting accepted. There are some quite stark differences between colleges. He was looking at history and worked out Homerton, Cambridge was statistically his best bet. This was a few years ago, so may not still be accurate and he decided not to go for Oxbridge in the end.

Is it land economy?

Homerton was the teacher training college when I was there. Not considered a 'proper' Cambridge college and quite a way out of the main town. This would explain it being easier to get into. Looks like they do offer all of the subjects now.

It's a perfectly "proper" college now.
But yes, it is quieter, outside of the main action, DS actually liked that and it wasn't that far out, we tested it. It was also the reason for fewer applications, hence statistically a better choice.

Who said 'always'?

I've met some pretty thick privately educated people in my time

I don’t follow. How do they select?

I'd be interested to compare the other grades too - maybe we'd find that yes there are more firsts because of exceptional students who have won scholarships but also more thirds because of students who have been over tutored for their grades.

You also need to consider that private school students are less likely to have to work to support themselves, more likely to have contacts when it comes to work experience and years in industry that make a difference for some degrees. They're more likely to have an 'old boys' network of support at the universities, more likely and I could go on and on.

this is rubbish- it perpetuates this very off stereotype of private schools that equates them all with Eton. 99.9% of private school pupils are middle class ordinary people. Their children will most definitely have to work to support themselves. The super rich are an exceedingly small amount of people in the UK and certainly much less than the % of children who go to private school.

work experience- what contacts? Most people who go private are just working professionals. There isn’t some secret networking society. I wish there had been and I might have had a more exciting career but my friend’s parents were teachers and accountants and that seems to be the case for my children’s friends. Demographically a lot of state school children are also ordinary middle class people too and so are as much likely to have those ‘contacts’ as the state school people.
I agree a school might have in the past have had a way into universities via connections but I reckon that has been heavily clamped down on now- hence the statistics being roughly in proportion to applicants

Except the statistics aren't in proportion to applicants

And I admit it's a long time ago that I was at Cambridge from a northern state comp - but all that I describe was the case then

I've spent a lot of time since then in education supporting students preparing for university and a lot of them would love to have their parents friends be teachers and accountants or lawyers who could give them work experience and job advice.

I suspect oxbridge has more students proportionately from the Eton type public school system, but I have no statistics on that. However any parent who had paid for private school can pay for their children up to the loan maximum and a lot of students don't have that.

99.9% of private school pupils are middle class ordinary people

London day school fees are approaching £30k per year. So a family with 2 kids needs to have over £100k “spare” pre tax to funs 2 kids in private school. Those are not “ordinary middle class” people scrimping and saving. Especially when you factor in London property prices on top.

London day school fees are approaching £30k per year. So a family with 2 kids needs to have over £100k “spare” pre tax to funs 2 kids in private school. Those are not “ordinary middle class” people scrimping and saving.

Do you realise that median salary in London is £45k, not £35k?
That 16% of London households have 100k+ annual income vs 8% of the rest of the country?
Depends on your definition of middle class and how committed people are (school fees vs property/life style) it is (it was before Labour) very doable in London?

UK full-time annual salary by region 2023 | Statista
Number and percentage of households with gross income greater than £100,000 in London and UK, financial year ending 2020 - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)

Yes and you need to have 100K SPARE income to afford these schools, not be earning £100k.

With a say £500k mortgage (which assuming you also had a hefty deposit would buy you a terraced house) you’d likely need to be earning £300k+ to pay this out of income.

By any definition anyone who can afford is extremely wealthy.

You need to visit colleges at Oxbridge and see for yourself who is there studying. Maybe even go to the popular Uni pub, a tea shop (non drinkers) and or the Tesco and see who is there and what sort of “posh” things they are doing & talking about.

They are not swanning about in robes, spending student loans on polo ponies …
You are wrong about so much.

Find out the posh jobs the students get …. Certainly some do get thru parent connections, but just as many middle class are working at pubs, garden centers, waiters.

The loan max … is for students without financial resources. It’s funny that you think students with wealth or high parents income get maximum loans.

@CherryBlo

I completely agree with you about the importance of classics, and its relevance to a broad swathe of humanities subjects. However, it doesn't explain the gap in attainment that I have pointed out at Cambridge.

I didn't say they got maximum loans I said their parents could make it up to the maximum.

I also know what jobs students with connections get - I was there, I saw lefty students who had pretended to be normal swan into big companies while those of us who had been to state school were left behind.

I see it in my daughter's cohort of students what advantage connections and money gives you. I've seen students getting jobs through work experience and interviews that have come from their parents and friends.

I haven't seen data on state vs private but I have on WP students with contextual offers who in the same way often don't catch up and it's down to the things that I mention above.

FTSE companies, major consulting firms, accountancies, banks, and law firms are all under scrutiny and have strict rules about work experience and internships. Asking work connections at other firms for work experience for one’s children is considered a bribe and not just against company policies, but against the law.

I am sure there is done “helping out” at the margins in smaller boutique firms, but I don’t think it is playing a significant role.

Instead of imagining inequities and getting psyched out, or making preemptive excuses , young people will flourish if they get out there and start trying. A lit of rejections is normal, not a sign that there is a cabal against you.

Our household gross income is just loose change over 100k. DC in private. We didn't get a penny help from anyone with mortgage or anything else.

You are so very wrong. You just imagine that parents go for lifestyle first and then fund PS with spare. It's completely opposite in majority of cases.
Your view says a lot about your attitude, not PS parents attitude.

My example was 2 children at London day schools (which costs c.£60k/year). You’re obviously not paying that so none of what I said applies to you.

Thank you for pointing out this important and hugely interesting paper. I strongly recommend that anyone who has an interest in the topic reads it. It has been cited 40 times in 3 - 4 years, including by the IFS, and achieved headlines in the Times, Telegraph and Daily Mail. If one is pressed for time (I am not - as you might surmise) and skims it, they will probably come away with the same impression as you. It is a perfect example of what passes for educational research and how it is received. There are countless red flags.

For a start, and to be clear, even the authors state that they do not view their results as "truly causal"; and "there is no private school advantage" for attending a Russell Group University. (My bold print, their words, although you need to read beyond the abstract for this.) My guess is that journal reviewers insisted on the first caveat.

To take your point about class size: The paper provides no evidence robust or otherwise that "small group teaching and a lot of support" are the explanation for the "highest results". The authors do however cite a reference that was certainly intended to give this impression when they say "The recent evidence from quasi-experimental studies find significant effects of resources on academic outcomes... including, specifically, modest but significant effects of lower class sizes (e.g. Fredriksson, Öckert, & Oosterbeek, 2013)" I can only assume that the expectation was that no one would read that paper because it concerned primary school children. As I think I said earlier in the thread, there is no evidence for a class-size effect at secondary.

Likewise, the authors cite Ndaji Little and Coe, and Smith-Woolley to emphasise the importance of a private schooling effect on attainment, when the former showed that "students’ prior ability was the single highest contributing factor to predicting the GCSE outcome of the models" and the latter that "genetic and exam differences between school types are primarily due to the heritable characteristics involved in pupil admission".

Arguably the single greatest deficiency of the paper is that the "value added" aspect of school type was based on the finding that a gap that existed at GCSE between private and state schools increased at A level. There all sorts of possible explanations for this, including the confounding effect of IGCSEs and the different characters of pre and post sixteen education.

It would be useful to know when the research was carried out, was it soon before 2020 using 10 year old data (ie from when Cambridge admission was meritocratic) or was it carried out around 2010 and it took 10 years to get it published?

The bottom line, if one accepts the paper at face value, is that no justification was found for RG universities discriminating against private school children. But that is not how the publication has been used.

@EmpressoftheMundane

There is research that shows that the careers of people from private schools are explained by academic attainment, not networks. It was from UCL I think. I can't remember the authors but it will probably come back to me.

I can only speak for my own experience working at a top international law firm.

The trainees were and are overwhelmingly either Oxbridge graduates (from state/private) or RG graduates from private schools. If you’ve got a 2.1 from Bristol it’s the private school that gives you the edge. Whether that’s superior performance at interview due to the genetic advantage of having attended private school or bias on the part of the privately educated interviewers who can tell…

I got asked outright at interview by one magic circle firm whether the school I went to was private or state. If they didn't care I can only imagine they wouldn't have asked. (This was about 15 years ago admittedly)

A headteacher at a state primary, with small urban catchment area. School always outstanding, great scores on exams & many students to best selective secondaries.
He had 3 reasons that had nothing to do with him.

1. To buy or rent in this catchment area requires a very high salary, one or two incomes. He said it’s likely those parents earning like this likely have higher than average IQ. Likely children inherit IQ. (People buy.rent in this area to be in catchment for this school)
2. Parental engagement and success behaviors. Parents get involved in school, fundraising, reading & homework with children. Parents demonstrate success behaviors daily, children model after parents.
3. Tutoring by parents or paid for to prepare for entry exams for secondary.

was just his opinion

Whether that’s superior performance at interview due to the genetic advantage of having attended private school

Having attended private school is nothing to do with genetic advantage though.
Genetic advantage is to be born by intelligent parents. And this advantage can't be taken away by any government / organisation. Unless they go for forced reproduction of course.

OP, this entire debate can't be reconciled.
Public generally believe that PS kids succeed due to unfair advantage and thus this advantage has to be taken away.
You believe that these kids succeed due to their innate abilities and so no intervention needed.

Let's look at it this way:

• it is scientifically proven fact that intelligence is largely hereditary. In modern society people tend to form couples to have kids with their intellectual peers.
• higher intelligence and drive correlate with higher income (not necessarily wealth).

Combined together these facts prompt thinking that statistically higher income parents tend have more intelligent children. Of course there are multiple outliers both ways, of course there is a lot of anecdata, but en masse, it's prudent to believe there will be a link (we'd need to take 1st and 2nd generation of immigrants from less developed countries out of equation for obvious reasons).

These parents may or may not chose PS for their kids. If we compare outcomes of top quintile state kids with PS ones they will be very similar given similar social set up of families. If we then compare averages of the entire state cohort which includes kids from low socio-economic groups, then the differences will be stark.

I guess it's very uncomfortable view so it won't ever be accepted.

I also wonder about longer term implications - socially low IQ parents are very unlikely to interact and get kids with high IQ ones, so hereditary intelligence gap will only widen and then there is a gap in upbringing and cultural capital. No idea about societal implications