Addendum to: Cambridge University discriminates against children from private schools.

[Marchesman]

"From 2013 to 2023 the proportion of UK state-school admissions rose from 61 per cent to 73 per cent. This increase was made possible by undeniable discrimination against another group of students – those who, whether through a choice made by their parents or a scholarship won by their talents, attended fee-paying schools."

For an insider's perspective on Cambridge University's descent into mediocrity see: "Decline and fall: how university education became infantilised" D. Butterfield, Spectator 26th Oct..

I know, oh to be so invested

Geoff Parks (now Prof of Nuclear Egineering) was the outgoing admissions director in 2012, just before the system changed. He warned against moving away from admission based on merit. He said:

"It actually would be a really, really cruel experiment to take a bunch of students and hypothesise that they have what it takes to thrive at Cambridge and then see them fail because they don't."

Friend who is deeply involved w admissions at Cambridge would utterly disagree w you and has listed to me many many ways in which most (not all) colleges continue to discriminate AGAINST state school applicants.

Those state school students who go to excellent state schools and who regularly get children in, AND who have Cambridge educated parents may have a bit of a leg up but almost every part of the admissions process discriminates against those who don’t know the system inside out.

Close enough.

worth listening to the Alan Rusbridger programme on R4 on academic potential - he agrees (obviously rightly) that many of those who are fiercely clever and motivated haven’t had the education that will allow them to leap into the first year with the ease of a child who has been coddled since their earliest years.

BUT the point surely must be that rich rich Oxbridge really does have the wherewithal to right this obvious wrong w a free foundation year.

the current system is so unbelievably wasteful of talent…

Interesting. I just think we have loads of universities. Many offer better undergraduate teaching than Cambridge as they are less focussed on research. If Cambridge wants to remain near or at the top of international rankings then it needs very stringent merit-based assessment criteria.

It is up to the government to ensure all children have access to good education. Universities can’t be expected to mitigate for government failure by accepting candidates who might struggle and then have a mental health crisis because they have been forced into an unsuitable course to make other people feel good. it’s too late by then anyway.

I started off in academia, then moved into SEN education and teach in an SEN school. One of our jobs is helping teenagers identify suitable next steps for sixth form. There is so much choice out there. I find the range of apprenticeships, BTECs and T-levels really inspiring. Many of them lead to fulfilling careers, yet a lot of children in mainstream schools don’t even know about them because they are funnelled into A levels and university. I think the obsession with university degrees in general and Oxbridge in particular does young people a disservice. There is no hierarchy of outcomes when it comes to helping a young person find the right fit for them. Changing Cambridge to fit the child is never going to work. It will just end up damaging both.

Oh dear OP, I guess your education didn't go heavy on critical thinking or empathy.

PS
I’ve met a fair few independent school children who would have been served better in the state sector on a vocational course too.

I haven't read the article but on principle discrimination against private school graduates is wrong- most of those young people will have had little or no say in what school they attended, and some will be at a private school because they were being failed by the state. Positive discrimination for kids from poorly performing schools is fine (although potentially problematic - if their basic education has been poor they may need a lot more support at uni) - but pretending that private education is much different academically to a good comprehensive or grammar is just factually inaccurate.

That's interesting. You're clearly a private school fan and yet you think that they are so crap that even with sometimes tens of thousands of extra funding per year per pupil, they can't actually produce any better results out of them than a state school can.

Private school parents are just pissing their money away then.

It’s free to read. Honestly, the private school reference is not what makes it eye opening. It wasn’t a happy read, but the author is not a happy man. It sounds like a combination of the social atomisation caused by technology, the culture of everyone thinking they deserve special treatment and a reduction in standards so that no one fails. I don’t think it’s unique to Cambridge. The risk there though is that we, as a nation, all lose out if Cambridge’s reputation is damaged. Having globally important institutions that are at the top of their field is something worth looking after because it’s really hard to start them from scratch.

Your friend is either unaware of the data relating to school type, or they have deliberately misled you. The university has a preference for weaker applicants from state schools. This was explicit until this year.

www.cao.cam.ac.uk/admissions-research/app-research-papers-2020
Analysis of student characteristics and attainment outcomes at the University of Cambridge

What you seem to be referring to is a socioeconomic status effect, which is quite different.

I hardly think they are letting any old state school kid in. I do find it funny how people whine that it's unfair slightly fewer private school pupils are getting into Oxbridge. Don't get me wrong, I know private schooled kids who get in are high achievers and hard workers too (whatever school you go to, Oxbridge does not let in dimwits just because they were educated privately and you can't buy your way in), but it's not a free pass to Oxbridge either. It is a huge advantage because you'll be much more tutored to the entrance requirements and also you'll simply feel you belong there which is going to make interviews, for example, a whole lot easier than it is likely to be for state school kid.

Yes, quite.

Geoff Parks (now Prof of Nuclear Egineering) was the outgoing admissions director in 2012, just before the system changed. He warned against moving away from admission based on merit. He said:

It actually would be a really, really cruel experiment to take a bunch of students and hypothesise that they have what it takes to thrive at Cambridge and then see them fail because they don't." It actually would be a really, really cruel experiment to take a bunch of students and hypothesise that they have what it takes to thrive at Cambridge and then see them fail because they don't."

Has the failure rate at Cambs increased since 2012 then? <checks data> Nope didn't seem to have. Phew!

This.

I think that you missed the point of what Geoff was saying.

Cambridge haven’t done what Geoff Parks warned against. He was warning against making significantly lower A level grade offers to those from state schools.

What has actually happened is when faced with two students that are both predicted 3 top grades then Cambridge is thinking that the ones who got those grades in an underfunded classroom with 29 others may actually be slightly more intrinsically able than someone who got those grades in a class of 7.

With morale low, and time at a premium, many senior academics steer clear of teaching as much as possible, especially in science and tech, where the lures of the lab and of business ventures are far stronger. The outcome, across all subjects, is a proliferation of graduate-level supervisors.
Despite their genuine skill, this development is steadily severing the pipeline of world-leading scholars fostering the brightest students.

1. There have always been many graduate-level supervisors, if by that you mean people studying for PhDs. There certainly were in the 1970s/80s, and there are now.
2. When you look at the pay rates for supervisors, they are lucky to get any with PhDs at all.

Cambridge did exactly what Parks warned against, with the consequences that he predicted.

I think you are confusing contextual admissions with the issue in hand.

I was a privately educated classicist who went to Oxford. I didn’t have Greek before I went up so I had to learn it there from scratch. I would say the brighter students caught up and overtook many of those who had been taught it for years. My Greek tutor, in fact, only learnt her Greek as an undergraduate and she easily out performed every other don in the university. I think it’s dangerous to assume private school students have an innate advantage of talent although plainly they do have an advantage against those who were similarly intelligent and who didn’t have years of learning to fall back on. I think what I don’t accept is that state school undergrads were similarly intelligent becuase I think those who got through were typically (although not always) more intelligent than the ususal humdrum private school children.

There were only 7 state school students in my college in my year of 70 in the late 90s. The year above me was worse. However, I would say that quality of intelligence from state school undergraduates was much more striking, with the sole exception of Eton scholars whom I found to be very very bright without exception.

I have to say I was very stuck by how UNintellegent most undergraduates were. So many didn’t deserve to be there (arguably myself included). The state school students were often much much brighter than those who were privately educated and I think it’s really good that oxbridge has woken up to this.

Obviously people who went to private schools and those who send their children to private schools want to suggest that there is a bias against them because it’s much more palatable than recognising that the mediocrity of one’s intelligence has been obscured by overconfidence, entitlement and an educational establishment which has hitherto played the system very successfully; but unfortunately this is what the evidence overwhelmingly suggests. I’m not sure that a rather bitter little article from the spectator successfully attacks that.

Anyone who is being honest about their memories from oxbridge will agree that what was striking was how mediocre so many undergrads used to be - and without fail the mediocre ones were privately educated. it can only be good for everyone that they’re now being binned off in favour of people with actual talent. The old system was not a good one.

Not sure what the point of this thread is. I’m all for private schools. Really I am.

But you are being incredibly naive to think those students will be the brightest in the country. Why on earth would you think that at all?! Totally bizarre and ironically clearly unintelligent idea 🤣

The risk there though is that we, as a nation, all lose out if Cambridge’s reputation is damaged. Having globally important institutions that are at the top of their field is something worth looking after because it’s really hard to start them from scratch.

Again, the global reputation of a University is not based on the intelligence or otherwise of the undergraduates but on the research work of the academics.

Here is the article. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/easier-entries-would-be-cruel-warns-cambridge-8120826.html

Here is the first two paragraphs:-

Cambridge University has put itself on a collision course with the Government over access to higher education for the poor, by dismissing the practice of lowering entry offers to students from disadvantaged backgrounds as a "cruel experiment".
Dr Geoff Parks, Cambridge's admissions tutor, warned in a newspaper interview that the university's standards were so high that giving places to students with less than top A-level results would risk "ruining people's lives".

Geoff Parks was warning against contextual offers.

@Mumofteenandtween ,

Same as you, went to Cambridge mid 80s.

My friendship group was mixed private and state school, we couldn’t have cared less (except for Etonians who, bizarrely, kept to themselves, braying in ‘their’ corner of the buttery.

I also don’t recognise the intellectual environment. Most evenings we met in upper hall, ate a (dreadful) meal, then retired to the buttery for a pint before going out to a pub, party, event etc. Unless it was exam season, when everything went horribly quiet and everyone went back to their rooms.

Yes, of course, sometimes we discussed earnest matters in one another’s rooms, but mostly it was events coming up, boat club dinners, who was seen with who, notes noticed in others’ pigeon holes and what was going on in a Dallas (which was popular at the time).

Intergenerational mixing hardly happened at all, the odd Vicar’s or master’s gathering once a term being the only exceptions I remember.

I loved my time at Cambridge but more for the friendships I made than the intellectual aspect.

I am very much in favour of Cambridge remaining intellectually elite but that means selecting on potential rather than attainment.

The interview is still the most frightening aspect of the application process for most students. If it is done well, it is also the best way of judging potential.