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?

@Howdidtheydothat

Successful applicants at Cambridge are more highly socially segregated than pupils in private schools. This is not a place that caters for the disadvantaged. The notion that state schooled students at Cambridge are typically disadvantaged is wrong.

Secondly, exam differences between school types are primarily due to the characteristics of the children in them, which are in turn determined by schools' admission processes. Their advantages are intrinsic. They did not, at least in terms of academic attainment, receive "a leg up".

No, not pissed just very rude. I don’t know if I’d describe it as strange but it was very distressing and hurtful for me as an 18 year old in a world that was totally unfamiliar to me.

@EarthlyNightshade

Subject choice is a variable that survives multivariate analysis, as does school type.

The number of firsts is not the problem here. The issue is the preferential admission of those least able to achieve them.

Secondly, exam differences between school types are primarily due to the characteristics of the children in them, which are in turn determined by schools' admission processes. Their advantages are intrinsic. They did not, at least in terms of academic attainment, receive "a leg up".

Nonsense. Smaller class sizes, better facilities, excellent support ...

@Hazeby "But that’s their choice. It’s their university and their reputation and if they want to admit students that will do less well academically, that’s up to them isn’t it?"

It is publicly funded, I guess if our democratically elected representatives want it to be run along those lines, the answer would have to be yes.

But they should correct the part of their promotional literature that claims that an applicant's type of school does not affect degree outcome. So that everyone knows what to expect.

Why does this bother you so much, @Marchesman ? There are other excellent universities around, and those privately educated applicants who don't get in at Oxbridge, have universities like Durham, Bristol and Edinburgh where they'll find their old classmates and get an excellent education.

Your posts seem to reek of resentment that state school pupils are getting places at Oxbridge at all.

I'm just interested to know whether you're posting as a don, as a private school teacher, as a parent, or as something else. This really seems to have got under your skin.

@SoupDragon

And your evidence for this childish assertion?

Nothing childish about it.

Just look at any private school and compare it to a state school. 🤷🏻‍♀️

It really isn't rocket science is it?

Of course they get a leg up. Smaller class size means more attention, better facilities means better study, more support means better results. Are you really unable to understand this?

Sorry - maybe it’s because I went to a state school, but I’m struggling to understand this.

Are you saying that privately educated children are more intelligent than state educated children?

Because, to be clear, if you’re not saying that, then that means that the extent to which they outpeform equally highly qualified but non-privately educated peers must be a direct result of (a) the advantage purchased for them by their parents and/or (b) inherent bias in the assessment process.

And if (a) and/or (b) is correct, please explain to me why top universities shouldn’t try to correct for this?

I’d also be interested in the “personal factors” that you think are relevant here, and how they differ as between private and non-private students.

If it is all down to selection, why do grammar schools perform worse than private in your "achieved a first" percentages?

@saraclara

It hasn't got under my skin per se. What irritates me is that people believe what suits them with no regard for evidence to the contrary, but that always has. I have posted what I know and directed people to appropriate sources but I fully expect the majority to choose blissful ignorance.

For what it's worth since you ask, my children went to Oxford, very successfully. I was responsible for admissions to medicine at another RG university and I observed the sidelining of academic attainment in our admission processes in the pursuit of DEI. Which I have no doubt has contributed significantly to the problems of the NHS and the disgruntlement of junior drs. I don't need to point out the similarities.

Happy?

I was responsible for admissions to medicine at another RG university and I observed the sidelining of academic attainment in our admission processes in the pursuit of DEI. Which I have no doubt has contributed significantly to the problems of the NHS and the disgruntlement of junior drs

So the junior doctors are disgruntled because they only got to become junior doctors thanks to DEI initiatives? Or is it just the privately educated ones who are disgruntled that they are surrounded by substandard state educated colleagues?

And I’m sure the problems of the NHS are nothing to do with chronic underfunding and worsening public health due to a whole host of other policies, and everything to do with the fact that they let a few extra (no doubt straight A) state school students onto the medical course at 1 university.

Thank goodness your own kids weren’t affected by this terrible injustice.

Are you referring to contextual offers?

Oh come off it, back in the day you just had to be averagely bright and well off to get into med school (pretty much my entire family went, going back generations, even the less bright ones). Its never been the case that you have to be searingly intelligent to go. And i can't see how it helps the NHS to have a cohort of doctors who have absolutely no idea what their patient's lives are like. I've heard enough of my own relatives talking to know that some of them are highly judgemental about their patients with no understanding of the context in which they live their lives.

Oxford considers the performance of your school at both GCSE and A level for all UK student applications.

Cambridge looks at the GCSE performance, A Level performance, and recent history of offers to Cambridge or Oxford, of the applicant’s school/college.

I’m also pretty sure you’ve always had to list schools attended on the UCAS form - certainly you have to list the exam centre details for wherever your qualifications have been taken.

So the university can see if you’ve been private up to GCSE and state for A levels and will take that into consideration, even if that student is listed as ‘state’ for admission stats purposes.

I drink with two retired doctors, one a surgeon and one a GP. The surgeon was well regarded. Both are from well to do families and their tales of how they got into med school are a bit eye brow raising. They are nice blokes, but there is a bit of Rishi Sunak and Sky TV about them. More diversity can only be a good thing.

I think you might find Cambridge is different 😁.

They are nice blokes, but there is a bit of Rishi Sunak and Sky TV about them.

What do you mean by this? It reads like some some sort of sneery put down but I’m obviously too thick to get the precise meaning.

I suspect there is a lot more to her story than you have been told. Cambridge would bend over backwards to support someone in that position.

Cambridge had a woke Canadian VC who went all social mobility on speed. Now the chickens are coming home to roost- because a lot of students will have applied to and gone to Imperial instead (in Science/Maths/Engineering). Oxford was always the place for Social Sciences etc typically and Cambridge for the former.
No coincidence that Imperial now trumps Cambridge in the league tables.

Eventually the “market” adapts anyway. The middle class pushy parent, whatever school their kid goes to, can navigate all of this anyway. It just moves from schools, to uni, to employment. They will never be able to control employers fully in a free market economy. And then there are international job opportunities anyway.
There is tutoring etc en masse now.
Whatever the unis do is rather pointless.
Durham etc has won out in the handwringing in the top elite unis.

What the fuck? That is shocking. That tutor should have been disciplined. Shame you didn’t report it. I never encountered anything like that at Cambridge.

I went to Cambridge in the 90s, my sister went to Oxford. Both from a comp. My single parent mother was met with cries of ‘my children have been discriminated against’ from rich people in our village who had paid for private education. It’s sad we haven’t moved on.

A few thoughts on your post:

Is the purpose of admissions to get more students with firsts? I don’t think that is the sole purpose. Getting a first is one part of the picture of success. You could have people who are extremely good at research but come down a little in exams. Many of my friends with 2.1s are very successful academics etc

Oxbridge favours the confident. We know children who have been privately educated and have that sense of entitlement have more self belief

The benefits of heavy coaching and small classes etc are likely to have pushed the privately educated ahead and this can sustain.

Oxbridge needs to represent all of our society as far as possible and I am delighted that it is moving in that direction. Bright people come from all walks of life not just the wealthier

😂

It still shocks me all this time later. I did tell another tutor (after bursting into tears in a tutorial a few days later) and he was really lovely and supportive. He said the guy had a reputation for being horrible (probably used a more diplomatic phrase) and that he would speak to the head of department but I never got any kind of apology for him or the department. I often think about bringing it up again or writing him a letter to say how it affected me but it’s probably not worth it. Hopefully he’s retired now!

I love the idea that Cambridge's World Ranking is coming down because they are working on widening diversity at the undergraduate level. As if little Tarquin's third year dissertation has any impact on the research standing of a University.

I can completely believe a tutor said what @CheekyAquaBeaker said. There was and is so much snobbery still at Oxford. My niece (who went to a well known North London state school) was told by some privately educated fellow students at Oxford that they didn't think there were girls like her at state schools. And I (as a post grad student representative) sat on a University committee in Oxford 30 years ago where it was stated very matter of factly that the post graduate students were not of the same calibre as the undergraduates (i.e. more likely to be state educated, we all had firsts from good universities) and that was why the drop out rate was so high. Nothing to do with the rampant bullying culture and sink or swim attitude to D.Phil. students.