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?

The evidence points to over-compensation.

‘Adapted well to mixing with normal people’

what does that mean?

Children who come from hard working families and go private are ‘abnormal Wow

What’s got you so riled about parents making choices to give children better opportunity for economic independence?

Which evidence is that?

The OP

It is part of parental responsibility to bring children up to the best of their abilities, which of course includes giving them every opportunity for economic independence. Families are different in their ability and indeed desire to create opportunities for their children. It was ever and always will be thus.

I’m not riled about it at all.

It’s a completely legitimate choice to make. I do, however, think that it should be taken account of by universities when they make admissions decisions.

I kind of know of a PM who is a child of toolmaker. And Deputy PM who was born on council estate to a single mother and left school with no GCSE.

You're perfect example of what I'm trying to say. Until most of public share your view that people are where they are because of external factors only and not their abilities and choices, the entire life in the UK will be about redistribution, dragging down those successful ones and not about letting people flourish. Good luck with this

You have identified two essential problems, possibly the only ones that matter.

Firstly it is a debate. Most, and I suspect all, of the books listed earlier present only one side of a debate but they are for a variety of reasons received as factual.

Secondly that side of the argument is predicated on the belief that all men are born equal. If you believe that, then you have to believe that private schools are responsible for later differences (and it is covenient to marginalise intra-state differences as marginal and works under construction).

The flaw in that side of the argument is that practically all the literature written since about 1980 on attainment corrects for the association between intelligence and SES. For a review see for example Tarmo Strenze "Intelligence and socioeconomic success: A meta-analytic review of longitudinal research." 2007.

Or his PhD thesis can readily be found online: Tarmo Strenze, Intelligence and Socioeconomic Success

More recent research has shown how the interaction changes over time, and puts intelligence into context with numerous other heritable factors that influence attainment. That is not to say that schools make no difference to attainment, but it is very small - except probably for lowest SES quintile pupils in the lowest performing quintile schools.

For all your pseudo-academic speak (so ridden with flaws I can’t be bothered even to begin), your bottom line OP is that you think Cambridge is sacrificing elite intellectualism at the alter of inclusivity (DEI I suspect you call it; you can’t hide the fat Toryism, it’s loud and clear in all your posts).

The irony of not understanding the value of DEI is depressing.

Nobody in the wider world cares whether out of 200 firsts, the university accorded this % to private students of that % to state students. People care about what happens when bills need to be paid, when children come along, when wars happen, when financial crises occur, when grandchildren appear etc. At that point, an inclusive and varied group of leaders is what you need. Not an exclusive bunch of Eton-educated wankers who may get excellent academic results but can’t even ballpark the price of a pint of milk.

I wasn’t educated in the U.K., and I don’t live there now. This obsession in the U.K. with Oxbridge and a specific type of education is ridiculous. But of all the ridiculousness, suggesting it should be even MORE ridiculously obscure is laughable. You actually WANT a U.K. with an empire and Tory governments and a powerful
monarchy and whatnot, don’t you? Notwithstanding the last 14 years (and many past Tory governments), you still think this is a good thing. THAT is the problem. Not the illogical link you made between state v private percentages of first class degrees one year at Cambridge university and proof that this means they’re discriminating against private schools.

full of all the private school people who'd failed the Oxbridge

Maybe, just maybe, these kids "failed" Oxbridge exactly because of the issue OP raised.

@nosmartphone purely out of curiosity, any chance you could give any idea about your career now?

Right. It’s fantastic that Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner are where they are today, but they are the exceptions that prove the rule. If Angela Rayner’s background was in any way representative of those in politics it wouldn’t be discussed so much.

Look at the social makeup of people
at the top of every single profession in this country. There are loads of very easily available stats on this - politics, banking, law, journalism and the media, sports (apart from football) and even acting.

Social mobility is about redistribution. People are happy to support the idea that people can and should ge able to rise to the top through their own hard work. But the necessary corollary of that is that others will have to move down the social/economic hierarchy. And people, especially rich people, are much less comfortable with that.

That is a perfectly reasonable justification for contextual admissions, the defining characteristic of which is a personalised approach. Setting a target for admissions from a particular type of school is the opposite; and because of it Cambridge has conspicuously failed to "recruit students according to their ability to take advantage of the resources on offer".

@Vabenejulio

No doubt the rest is just as funny, but you lost me at "alter".

@Marchesman the vast majority of Cambridge applicants will have top grades, whether from state or private.

It’s just a fact that there are more qualified and deserving applicants than there are places. All of those applicants will have the potential to take advantage of the academic resources on offer.

It may suit you to suggest otherwise but this is not a situation where someone mediocre from a comp is going to be prioritised over a genius from a private school. It’s going to come down to Cambridge taking more straight A* state educated students than they currently do, in proportions more representative of the numbers of those students.

A close reading of the actual research the OP was citing shows it doesn’t support the claim they were making adequately.

As I posted earlier to the OP:

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.

So roughly between 60% to 70% of IQ is heritable. Presumably those with higher IQ will on average have a higher education and are therefore on average in better paid jobs.

Also those with higher education and higher paid jobs tend to marry those who are also of a higher education and higher paid jobs. They then go on to have children with higher than average IQs who in turn on average have higher education and earn higher than average income. And so on.

So how much of social inequality is down to private schooling and how much is down to genetics and how do you even go about addressing this??

Anecdote. DS was interviewed at New College Oxford. He returned home rattled, certain he wasn't going to get the offer of a place. And he didn't. He told us later that mid interview he was asked "What makes you think someone with your educational background could make it here?" Completely derailed him. I know you're supposed to think on your feet at those interviews, but surely that question is discriminatory?

His background happens to be solidly MC, but he was educated at his local very ordinary comp. He obviously did OK in the entrance test (despite having no coaching) or he wouldn't have got the interview. And had no interview practice because the school didn't offer it. We naively thought 'bright lad, he'll be ok'.

Happy ending - DS took a great gap year, earning money and learning a language, and reapplied, this time to Cambridge and got in. Three A stars and a great interview by someone who didn't apply their prejudices against a state school candidate.

DS knew he had the right stuff. Shame the bigot at New College didn't.

I would also say that it is entirely possible that private students do marginally better than state at Oxbridge. They've literally been schooled in the ways of tutorials/supervisions. Many state students arrive like wide eyed innocents.

@nervouslandlord "I would also say that it is entirely possible that private students do marginally better than state at Oxbridge. They've literally been schooled in the ways of tutorials/supervisions. Many state students arrive like wide eyed innocents."

It's not just schooling that prepares students from more affluent homes for tutorials. Families that regularly debate difficult issues around the dinner table and have friends that do similar expose their children to opportunities to take positions and defend arguments using reliable data sources from the earliest age. They are likely to take more complex decisions as a family and to expose their children to the complex processes of decision making. It's not fair but there's not a lot that can be done about it.

I don't know what your "close reading" covered, but if you mean Henderson et al that is anything but compelling research - it should never have been published, as I said. I didn't produce it, I was responding to someone who cited it to support the notion that private schools give pupils an advantage due to small classes.

The "killer argument" is Cambridge's internal finding that having been to a state school has a statistically comparable effect on outcomes as having cognitive or learning disabilities. Which is quite specifically related to my claims, wouldn't you say?

@nervouslandlord That's similar to my experience in the 1990s. Sorry to hear it's still going on!

60-70% of IQ being heritable means that 30-40% is not. That’s a high percentage.

And it’s not “and so on” regression to the mean means that children’s IQs are not always higher than their parents’.

And IQ is not the only factor that contributes to a child’s success academically, or in an interview context,
or indeed in the workplace.

I think you would like it to be straightforward but it most certainly is not.

@nervouslandlord well that guy was an idiot and clearly needs some retraining. It was a stupid question designed to elicit a certain reaction.

the question is why are private school children schooled on these interviews and state schools not. That is a failing of the state schools not a problem of the private schools.

if this is a non rectifiable problem (ie no budget in state schools for it) then surely Oxford needs to change the way it admits people rather than everyone complaining private schools have an unfair advantage.

as it happens I was privately educated and I pulled out of my Oxbridge interview as I was shy and introverted and didn’t have the confidence to do it. Ended up somewhere I was better suited. Just because you go private doesn’t mean everyone just walks about feeling superior and confident.

That is a question that has exercised a lot of people much smarter than me. One important paper is "Differences in exam performance between pupils attending selective and non-selective schools mirror the genetic differences between them" Smith-Woolley 2018

www.nature.com/articles/s41539-018-0019-8