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?

so privilege is defined as working hard and achieving something?

that should be the norm and not privilege. Why is there such a problem with success in this country?

Some children receive a far better education than others because their parents are able to allocate far more resources for the first 18 years than others. This will absolutely never change. Universities need to recruit students according to their ability to take advantage of the resources on offer and this is a very demanding and, by definition, somewhat inaccurate task. Oxbridge have for a while been working extremely hard on outreach to recruit from non-selective state schools ie children whose parents did not necessarily have many resources to devote to their children's first 18 years. Perhaps those efforts, which deserve to be recognised, are now being evaluated with several years' hindsight (statistics) and need to be adjusted a little?

You haven’t addressed my second point.

The research you shared suggests private schooling confers a mild advantage in terms of attending university, and no advantage in attending any RG university. However, it says nothing about whether private schooling confers any advantage in specifically getting to Oxbridge and, once there, in getting a first.

Previous posters have suggested a multitude of plausible ways in which private schooling might well confer advantages in achieving these two outcomes.

For these reasons the research is not the ‘killer argument’ you seem to think it is. It’s not related specifically enough to your claims.

No, privilege is a right or advantage available only to one group of people.

Being able to afford private education is a privilege because not everyone can.

And, I might add to my previous post, the fact that private education is available
only to the privileged is one of the main reasons why parents choose it.

I know what the word means but the context is important. You are using it in a way to imply that people who send their children to private school consider themselves better than others.

using your definition people on Free school meals are privileged. Are you seriously suggesting you would go around saying what a privileged bunch they are?

Personally I only ever hear the word used with regards to wealth and education and it always used as a loaded, negative word.

The word means what it means.

A poster said she wasn’t privileged because she grew up in poverty but now sends her children to private school. I said that she was privileged. She is.

There was no implication of anyone “considering themselves better”
at all, but feel free to highlight the parts of my posts that do this if you disagree.

If you interpret it as loaded or negative that’s probably your own issue.

Perhaps that is true for some parents but IME most parents are interested in their children getting a much broader and deeper range of educational opportunities than those available at their local state school.

People often feel uncomfortable when their privilege is pointed out, whether that be by dint of their gender, ‘race’, wealth or educational background and so on. This is because they have built a narrative for themselves that overstates their own abilities in accomplishing whatever it is they have achieved in life.

Luckily over the past decade or so greater awareness of privilege seems to have emerged in some quarters.

People often feel uncomfortable when their hard-earned skills are dismissed or denigrated as privilege.

Using superior wealth to purchase a ‘a much broader and deeper range of educational opportunities’ not available to most is the very definition of priviledge.

Being rich enough to afford private school, whether you earned every penny, won it in the lottery, or were given it by your parents, makes you privileged.

The source is absolutely irrelevant. No one is denigrating anything but to pretend otherwise is ridiculous.

Oh and @Drfosters @Ceramiq for what it’s worth, as a white western person who could afford to send my children to private school if I wanted, (despite growing up in poverty), I recognise that I am extremely privileged in this context, and wouldn’t try to deny it.

Going to a free state school when your parents don't earn enough to educate you privately makes you privileged. In many countries a decent education is not available for free.

No it's not. The default position for all humans on the planet is no education at all unless parents provide it (by whatever means).

Privilege is relative.

Yes, all children in the U.K. are privileged
compared those who have no access to an education.

But those whose parents can afford to pay for their education are privileged compared to those who cannot.

This is really basic and obvious stuff - I’m not sure if you’re being deliberately obtuse?

People in Western welfare state democracies take free public services for granted. They are going away. We are all old enough to remember a time when many more things (healthcare, old age care, childcare, university) were far more accessible on the public purse than they are now. Parents should not be chastised for paying for educational opportunities for their children any more than they should be chastised for paying for their braces.

No one is chastising parents for paying for their educational opportunties.

But to take your braces analogy, if university places were only available to those with perfect teeth, it might be worth considering whether to put a limit on places for those whose perfect teeth were acquired thanks to their parents’ cash.

That is not a correct analogy. University places are available to those who have the academic potential to thrive on the course and universities in the UK are particularly aware that not all applicants have had previous access to equivalent opportunities. Indeed, applicants who have had access to an extraordinarily high range of opportunities regularly fail to gain entrance top universities because their academic potential is not good enough.

Doing without, working extra hours, making do & mending, saving and pushing for scholarships … is the very definition of privilege.
Or some might say, sacrificing to give your children a better opportunity.

This ^^

I actually had been to priavet school until l Year 11 but went to a regular state 6th form. Adapted well to mixing with normal people. Passed the Oxbridge exam and went down to Oxford for the interview. Passed that. However literally couldn't imagine myself there at all. I simply wasn't posh enough. I would have been completely out of my depth. Not academically, socially. Ended up at Durham , full of all the private school people who'd failed the Oxbridge!

It’s your analogy, not mine.

And universities being aware that not all
applicants have had access to the same opportunities is precisely what this policy, and this thread, is all about.

Jeez…being in a position to do this is privileged.

Because many many people could do all of the above and never be able to afford it in a million years.

If people feel that these extreme sacrifices
are worth making there must be a reason for that - what is it?

If they think that it will get their kids a leg up into Oxbridge then maybe a policy like this will make them think again about whether that kind of sacrifice is worth making. And if it’s for some other reason then the policy won’t really impact their choice.

No, your analogy: you suggested braces as an admissions criterion.

This thread is about universities over-compensating for applicants not having had similar opportunities. It's not easy to get these things right but no-one can argue than universities are not trying extremely hard (perhaps too hard) to recruit from underprivileged groups.

@Ceramiq you said:

Parents should not be chastised for paying for educational opportunities for their children any more than they should be chastised for paying for their braces.

Youre absolutely right - it’s a silly analogy and a pointless comparison.

You believe universities are overcompensating for unfair advantage. I believe they are under compensating. Let’s just agree to disagree.