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..

Anecdotal - interesting that on the Tomkins table whose existence the author is so positive about, Corpus Christi is so high up - the college that first set up a ‘bridging course’ for students from ‘not traditionally Cambridge’ backgrounds (including those who have come from schools with no history of Cambridge entrance). It aims to introduce those students to some of the key aspects of Cambridge that may be unfamiliar - supervisions, specific ways of writing essays etc - immediately prior to their course starting.

It is a statistically very small sample, but it dies seem to indicate that by taking students from less privileged backgrounds (I would strongly suspect heavily state-schooled) and providing a short ‘demystifying/ confidence building’ intervention, a college can actually do BETTER in final exams. Suggests that those students are not ‘less academically able’ than their conventional private school educated peers, just perhaps daunted / alienated by the very specific nature of the historic Cambridge system.

Open-book exams were very much a Covid-era adaptation, with many courses returning to fully closed-book traditional exams more recently.

On disability - I cannot speak for all disabled students. However, for those who genuinely have a disability, the disability services in Cambridge are so hard to navigate as to add a very significant extra burden, over and above degree studies, to anyone who needs to access them. This may, of course, be that the barriers have to be high to dissuade ‘over use / abuse’ of the services, but from the community of disabled students I am aware of, being disabled and being registered with the University as disabled is a significant burden, not in any way an advantage.

(It is also anecdotally interesting that the Covid intake - interviewed remotely via Zoom from their schools or homes - for both Oxford and Cambridge admitted a higher proportion of state school
pupils. Perhaps not being in that peculiarly intimidating Cambridge physical environment meant that candidates more familiar with 70s modular state school buildings than historical dining halls and chapels - and not having to socialise with perhaps more confident / arrogant candidates before their interviews - could show their true ability better?)

ETA: many of that cohort has just graduated. I have not heard tell of the collapse in standards in degree results that happened because of the disastrously low quality of students admitted 3 years previously.

Further point - almost 2/5 of exam candidates (over 39%) in independent schools got extra time in exams in the last cycle we have data for. Less than 1/4 (24%) got extra time in comprehensive schools - and there are obvious questions about whether this means that there is a level playing field or whether independent schools and parents using them are ‘playing the system’ somewhat.

As such extra time requires proof of disability, it is entirely possible that Cambridge might in fact have fewer students registered as disabled if fewer students came from private schools.

It would be really interesting to see disability figures for Cambridge broken down by school type, both for students arriving with a disability and those developing a disability or having it diagnosed while at university.

I would hazard a guess that those arriving with a disability that qualified them for extra time at A-levels might (proportionally to total numbers) be somewhat skewed to ex private school pupils, while those diagnosed / developing disabilities at university would be more balanced (or possibly even state-school biased, as some disabilities may go undetected in a state school which also has very high needs less academic pupils that receive the bulk of attention, but needs may become more obvious in the Cambridge environment)

For purely ideological reasons, Cambridge set about increasing their intake of students from state schools, despite knowing that students from private schools were achieving better degree examination results.

Students from private schools are now 1.43 times more likely to be awarded first class examination results than students from comprehensive schools.

How does this square with Cambridge remaining intellectually elite?

Can you provide a) historical data for that ratio; b) data for students with matched A-level results studying the same subject (for true comparability) and c) data for state grammar schools?

It is possible - from the single piece of raw data given - that this is an improvement from previous ratios; that it is influenced by specific subjects (eg a high proportion of high attainers in Classics might be from private schools, and that subject might disproportionately offer higher final results); or that students from private schools with very high grades do well but when A level grades are matched, students from non-selective state schools actually outperform their private school peers. You have also specifically excluded grammar schools in the data given, who again might contain those students best matched to high prior attainment private school pupils - what is the data for them?

Parks had carried out an analysis of performance by school type in 2012 in which he showed that the balance of state and private admissions was meritocratic. (This old research is still misleadingly used by the university.)

https://www.cao.cam.ac.uk/admissions-research/school-background

He was objecting to an ideologically motivated wholesale increase in the proportion of state school admissions, which would, by definition, not be meritocratic.

For ‘purely ideological reasons’, when I was at school, Cambridge abolished 7th term exams (as not being accessible to those in non-private, non-selective schools). A little earlier, they had started working on reducing the ability of certain schools to send ‘old boys’ to known staff in colleges to be admitted on the nod (though I know that the practice still existed to an extent).

Similarly, for ‘purely ideological reasons’, many single sex colleges diluted their traditions by admitting women.

Each change was met with howls of protest, about reducing quality and unfairness to traditional candidates and loss of the university’s prestige and reputation. Long term, over the decades, this has not transpired. I anticipate very similar into the future.

Thanks for your considered response(s).

See "Analysis of student characteristics and attainment outcomes at the University of Cambridge" table 3.

Note that socioeconomic status does not appear because it was not a significant factor in the univariate analysis.

www.cao.cam.ac.uk/admissions-research/app-research-papers-2020

Interesting in that paper that they themselves note that state school vs private school data might well be influenced by the fact that state school pupils tend to apply to courses (such as STEM subjects) that specifically have lower percentages of high final grades. As those courses are also numerically large, it isn’t clear how much of the perceived ‘issue’ can be explained purely by this difference in course selection. It has, of course, long been the case that schools which specifically offer expertise on Oxbridge admissions have a good idea which courses are relatively under-subscribed and thus somewhat less competitive, while still having ‘normal for Cambridge’ distributions of final results.

Absolutely shocked that an article in The Spectator would conclude that the most privileged are in fact the victims. Really surprising commission from them.

To be fair there aren’t any decent private schools in Gloucestershire apart from CLC…
(misses point)

Any btw I agree that the pendulum has swung the correct way and seems now fairly settled in a neutral position ie unbiased

https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/sites/www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/files/publications/ug_admissions_statistics_2023_cycle.pdf is interesting in terms of which subjects have what percentage of private school applicants, and which subjects are highly competitive in terms of entry.

Not very competitive and high private school entry are quite strongly linked - see Music, Classics, History of Art, History + MFL - If those subjects give ‘average’ numbers of Firsts despite being less competitive on entry and being private school heavy, then that will artificially boost ‘private school pupils in Cambridge’ results without there being any implications at all for ‘overall student quality’ in the university as a whole.

Yawn....

It's called positive discrimination. It's a strategy to limit discrimination.

https://www.information-hub.admin.cam.ac.uk/files/examination_results_statistics_2016.pdf

And here is the same study from 2016, showing state school pupils doing better. Yes, it is four years older, but the study cited in the thread is already 4 years out of date.

It would be interesting to see more up to date data than either of the two studies.

TBH, as a Cambridge graduate in a mathematical discipline, I am sceptical of one piece of data in one year’s study as compelling evidence of very much at all. I suspect both private and state school mathematically educated people would draw the same conclusion.

It might be random variance, it could be to do with the admission procedure in one year, or it could be to do with subject choices.

Thank you. I think analysis of 2024 results would be especially interesting, because the Covid-era admissions process resulted - I believe - in a rather different profile of admissions.

But equally, it had students arriving after a very disrupted 6th form experience (particularly in the maintained sector) that may have impacted both the foundation on which they were building their degree and their mental health.

The base-line advantage for firsts, private over comprehensive, is around 1.2, for the Covid cohort it went up to 1.43 (2023 data).

Do you mind pointing me to the data you're looking at in that link for And here is the same study from 2016, showing state school pupils doing better.

The only data I can see broken down by school type is table 'BIO_03', whcih days slightly more indepdent candidats get 1sts (26.4%) than state grammar (24%), state otehr (21.7% ) and comp (21.5%). Also independent with fewer 2:2 and 3rds than those categories. Is there a different table or do you mean state school students were doing better than they were previously?

I think the data presented is inconclusive and subject to both omitted variable and confirmation biases.

It's very difficult to use data objectively when you hold very strong opinions.

School type remains significant in the multivariate analysis. Subject choice doesn't explain the difference in attainment.

First set of final results for Covid-era admissions process will be 2024 (pupils interviewed Autumn / Winter 2020-1, admitted October 2021).

Interesting that there was an impact in 2023, though, as those will be pupils who essentially left school in March 2020 and didn’t go back. In my experience of lower years, private schools had an assurance of in-home ICT equipment that state schools did not, and in order to keep fee income provided remote education almost immediately. If tjis applied to their Y13 cohort, it is perhaps not surprising that state school pupils arriving with a gap in their education from March 2020 were at a disadvantage to those who had more continuity of education during the Summer term.

The university’s own analysis says, in the table of results, that there is likely to be an interaction with the course of study variable..

What us needed is a time sequence, for matched cohorts (in terms of prior attainment and subjects studied) - a single year’s data is at best inconclusive and we are both guilty of cherry-picking data or elements of reports that match our hypotheses.

Overall, I suggest that predictions of the catastrophic loss of prestige for Cambridge on the basis of a slight change in its home admission is overblown - and the Golden Age harked back to by the article’s author to an extent never existed, and to the extent it did, had its own issues of ‘hearty sportsmen from public schools with thirds’ etc. Drops in its attraction for well-qualified foreign students (and the money they bring) due to visa changes, divorce from Europe etc are, I would suggest, much more likely to erode its international standing.