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?

I’m quite amazed you are an academic given your abysmal writing style.

If it was up to me I would return to the status quo of fifteen years ago. If you have an objection to the situation then, I would be interested in your reasoning. Failing that, some honesty would be refreshing. There was a small, probably not (statistically) significant school effect when data was first collected in favour of private schools, but that melted away years ago. And now, how can you possibly seriously ask where the complaints are coming from?

In every public forum you will find that the majority of people complain that there are still too many privately educated students at Oxford and Cambridge and they include "academics" at these universities. The best that can be expected is a transparently dishonest attempt to justify a worsening situation. For example in an article in the FT from 2021, "How Britain’s private schools lost their grip on Oxbridge," this (best read aloud in a pathetic high pitched whiny voice):

"State schools are doing so much better, particularly in London. We are getting much stronger candidates than we used to. It is getting more competitive for everyone." (Oxford Director of Admissions).

A year earlier Cambridge had research that showed beyond any doubt that they were preferentially admitting weaker applicants from state schools.

www.ft.com/content/bbb7fe58-0908-4f8e-bb1a-081a42a045b7

When I have used direct quotations, and when others have provided you with explanations, you haven't understood the simplest points,

Are you familiar with the Dunning-Kruger effect? Sorry silly question, of course you aren't.

I find the OP's writing style very clear. She puts her points across precisely and thoroughly, and backs up her ideas with relevant external references.

You can't really have it both ways: when she uses precise language, you say you don't understand her (despite the acronyms being easy to Google) yet you also accuse her of using too many words.

Do you want her to join the dots for you, or do you want short answers?

You and a couple of other posters have also been outrageously rude to her. You've ganged up to try to minimise her, and deliberately tried to twist the knife when she had opened up about her writing being a past sore point. I'm sure she knows better than to care about your opinion, but it's still really poor behaviour from you.

OP: thanks for the very interesting, well-informed and clearly-articulated thread. I appreciate the insights. (And the occasional sardonic humour)

I haven't read the whole thread but I have read the article you cited:

Ekaterina Samoylova and Laura Hall Analysis of student characteristics and attainment outcomes at the University of Cambridge, Academic and Financial Planning and Analysis, April 2020

and I would disagree that it shows strong evidence of differences due to school type. Some maybe but the authors acknowledge that their selected variables explain less than 10% of the variation in outcome in degree class altogether and that school type seems to be less important than other variables they looked at which are themselves extremely limited. There doesn't seem to be any consideration of the socioeconomic status of students, (for example) which is likely to be highly correlated with school type. And the course taken seems from this report to be significant.

I also don't understand this statistic:

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.

I don't think you can interpret it in that way. If 70% of entrants are state school students, this is a much larger group - and likely - to be much more varied in other terms as you have alluded to - so you are not comparing like with like. Which group do you think are more likely to have part time or holiday jobs, leaving less time for study? You may also be demonstrating a failure of the Cambridge system to support these students appropriately. You also seem to be assuming that there is a group of private schoolchildren that are not being admitted that would do better. But particularly given, how competitive private school entry is in some places, I would assume that the applicants from say Radley or a small local independent school are not going to be the same level as those from Westminster or St Paul's (who are getting places in large numbers!).

I am not saying you are necessarily wrong - just that the evidence you have presented is statistically weak. There is quite a large body of (peer-reviewed) research that points to better outcomes at university for state-educated than private-educated pupils in general based on similar A level results (which is the argument for contextualising offers). Cambridge firsts may be an exception but I am not convinced.

Completely agree

Let’s play the ball not the man. Ad hominem attacks just kill an interesting conversation.

To add to the interesting discussion, my DH went to Oxford on a EE offer. He did better than that obviously and this was back in the day, not sure they make such offers nowadays.
He had been removed from the care of his parents and placed in a state run boarding school. Most of his peers ended up in prison.
He now has a well paid job, supports the family and pays taxes.
Would you rather live in a world where his background did not result in a contextual offer and he ended up like his peers?

I have no idea what your DH's academic ability is, whether his admission was even contextual (EE offers were common at that time), whether he's now a top academic researcher, whether he made better use of his Oxford education than someone else would have, whether another university would have resulted in an equally good life outcome for him, whether his personal strengths and capabilities would have led to success even without tertiary education. Who knows. I'm certainly glad that he has made a success of his life! But the outcome for one person doesn't really tell us anything useful.

In the round, it comes down to asking what is the purpose of elite universities? Are they for social engineering or are they for developing the best individual intellects, to build the UK's capability?

Is there an optimum balance?

How does that optimum balance change over different timeframes? Ie how does it affect an elite university in the long term to choose a high level of social engineering over academic ability.

Do you optimise the balance for benefit to the UK today, or do you optimise for benefit to the UK in 20 years time?

Are you even optimising for the UK's benefit (seems reasonable when universities are partly funded by the UK taxpayer)? Or are you optimising for the benefit of current academics (who decide the policy, and are concerned for their careers)? Or for the current government (who can influence the policy, and want to be re-elected)? Or for the benefit of the whole world, (with an altruistic focus on the advancement of knowledge)?

The statistics seem to show that Cambridge has recently favoured social engineering over academic ability in choosing who to admit. Cambridge should be open and honest about that, because without intellectual honesty you can't make clear choices.

I disagree @strawberrybubblegum . PS parents seem to say that paying for education results in higher a level results . Then in the next breath that the potential undergraduate with the highest a level results is brighter.

This isn't about contextual offers, which are commendable and important. Cambridge has a target for individuals who were disadvantaged and an entirely separate one to reduce the number of admissions from private schools - despite the fun fact that private schools are more socially diverse than Cambridge's student body.

What do you disagree with?

That there's a choice to be made by Cambridge on the balance between social engineering and selecting the strongest candidates?

Or that the stats are showing that Cambridge is favouring social engineering?

As for what PS parents say: they aren't a hive mind, but I don't think many PS parents routinely say either of those things. It's a bit more subtle, and if you ignore that complexity then you misunderstand the position.

If you clarify what you think PS parents say that's inconsistent, I'll try to clarify my own position - recognising that it may not be shared even by all PS parents and that you may certainly still disagree with it.

@CutFlowers

You have raised something that is for me a fascinating and curious aspect of a longstanding (one-sided) debate, so brace yourself for a long-winded answer.

I am not a psychologist, but a lot of what is known about judgement stems from early medical research into diagnostic error, which was one of my research interests. I may be preaching to the choir if so I apologise, but most judgements that people make are necessarily heuristic, rather than analytical. The more people think that they know about a subject the more likely that is - experts are more likely to make heuristic judgements than novices.

I haven't reviewed this systematically (and of course my own bias comes into this) but I am reasonably certain that the people who agree with me on this thread have approached it analytically. They have read the research, and made additional points. Almost without exception, people who disagree with me have approached it heuristically - if the absence of any evidence of analysis allows that conclusion to be drawn. This is exactly what one should expect, for reasons that are obvious once you think about it.

People have a right to feel well informed about this. There is a great deal written about private schools and Oxbridge, all pretty much saying the same thing, and who hasn't heard of Sebastian Flyte? Everyone is an expert. So when I say students from private schools get more firsts, it doesn't require analysis, the explanation springs to mind immediately. But I also said this is evidence of discrimination against them. At that point one of two things happens, the reader doubles down on the heuristic, or the analytical process is triggered.Your post is almost unique because you have (quite obviously) not responded heuristically and you disagree.

The purpose of the paper that you read was to explore the reasons for the poorer performance of ethnic minority and disabled students. This was confirmed and the last paragraph states that the university should target activities to addess it. What is not discussed is that far from having an insignificant effect, school type is equally important.

The percentages are provided as percentages in the university's archives.

There is nothing in the peer reviewed literature that refutes the findings of the study that we are talking about.

Within sector school differences (in terms of Oxbridge entry) are only significant for the state sector.

As I have said before, contextualisation is a different matter.

In 2019 the Cambridge researchers "demonstrated the absence of any persistent trends in gaps in attainment due to participation (POLAR4) or deprivation (IMD) markers and identified sustained gaps in attainment between ethnic and disability groups as the main focus of work to ensure successful outcomes for all students" The 2020 paper confirmed it. The issue of poverty, holiday jobs etc is intuitive, and it is very often cited by people who present themselves as well-informed as being a reason for differing degree outcomes, but like many things that they say it is, according to (appropriate) research, wrong.

There are six essentials to understanding this (as far as I can judge) in temporal order: Naylor and Smith 2005 "Schooling effects on subsequent university performance"; Parks "Academic Performance of Undergraduate Students at Cambridge by School/College Background"; Cambridge archives for exam results until 2017 after which I have FOI figures; the university's participation and access plan; the paper above; and figures for changes in POLAR4 quintile admissions from an FOI to which I have briefly alluded elsewhere.

@strawberrybubblegum just replying to your post where you suggested my husband might not have had a contextual offer. I refer you to my post where I explain that he was removed from the care of his family and placed in a state run boarding school. At this time Oxford had certain entry requirements such as a gcse in a language. I don’t know how much you know about the sort of school I am talking about but they don’t offer GCSEs.

I think the point is EE at A Level wasn't at that time a contextual offer. It was what everyone was offered if they did well enough at Oxford's own exams and interview.

They may well have waived the requirement for a language or similar but EE at A Level was the standard offer in times gone by.

Shame they don’t make those offers now. Then there would be none of this arguing about whether the child with 4A*s should’ve got a place. They would be able to simply say they picked based on interview and entrance exam and people wouldn’t be arguing here.

Unfortunately, everyone would still be arguing because the entrance exams weren't aptitude tests like they are now. They were possible to prepare for, and realistically you were only going to get that preparation if you went to a school used to preparing students for Oxford.

@LoveLolly @TheRainItRaineth

The admission tests are subject specific, not aptitude tests in the generally accepted sense.

Applicants with 4Astars being turned away is not the issue per se. The systematic admission of weaker candidates according to a criterion selected by the university because it is "of high interest to the public, politicians and the media," is.

The use of admission tests (of any sort) is demonstrably no safeguard against that.

edit: criterion, not metric

That's so interesting @Marchesman I hadn't come across heuristic vs analytic judgement, but introspecting, I notice that I use a combination of the two: heuristics to make an initial judgement and identify areas which need more careful, analytical thought, then analysis of those areas identified as unclear, and then the process repeats on the results of the analysis: initial heuristics to interpret the results and more analytical digging in.

The heuristics are vulnerable to personal bias (as well as carelessness!) at each stage: not only the initial overview but the interpretation of any analysis.

@CutFlowers does shine the light on something which was niggling me. That we interpret the unexpected Cambridge attainment differently for different variables. For any of the variables, difference in attainment could be due to barriers at entry for the higher attaining group or could be due to barriers during the course for the lowering attaining group. We judge each heuristically, based on our knowledge of how university works. And also social conditioning, which prevents us from questioning too much if it could be perceived as 'punching down'.

I do think it's likely that most of the difference for school type is due to higher barrier at entry for private school rather than higher barrier during the course for state comprehensives:

1.SES has a much smaller affect than school type. So as you say the 'need to work' and 'good holiday accommodation' barriers are discounted. But also SES correlates with social capital, so the probability of social capital being an important barrier goes down

2.The difference in attainment based on school type has gone up from 1.2x to 1.4x at a time that Cambridge are actively trying to widen access. It's unlikely that they've made the course less accessible to state students at exactly the time they're trying to encourage them

But these are heuristics judgements.

I don’t believe that because someone is awarded a higher level of degree they are necessarily brighter, more deserving of a place at that university or have made better use of their time at that institution.
I would also like to to repeat what others have said earlier in the thread, that there are lots of good universities in the uk. The obsession with Oxbridge is not logical. In many subject areas you will get a better education elsewhere.

I don’t believe that because someone is awarded a higher level of degree they are necessarily brighter, more deserving of a place at that university or have made better use of their time at that institution

Then why does anyone ever get a higher class of degree than anyone else?

I don’t believe that because someone is awarded a higher level of degree they are necessarily brighter, more deserving of a place at that university or have made better use of their time at that institution.

How do you differentiate who is brighter, more deserving and have made better use of their time?

@strawberrybubblegum

all very good points, agree completely. It's almost like they set the bar so high for PS candidates that the gap between state and PS gets too big.

What this means for employers is that they should aim to grab those PS graduates asap - Cambridge pre-selected creme de la creme for them

Why do you have to?

Because in some contexts having a grade is important, eg identifying those best suited to further research. Or to have an indicator of who made no effort at all and did not meet the minimum criteria.

But in the middle ground there isn’t necessarily much value in trying to correlate degree class with something like suitability for a graduate scheme. That’s why schemes are happy to take 2:1s.