School and Scottish Universities

[Hectorsmother]

I am rather new to all of this and from a few snatches of conversation I have heard is it true that Scottish universities penalise private school children in some unknown matrix and to circumvent this parents move their kids out of Private school to public school in the last 3 years?

Sorry if I have gotten the whole thing jumbled, I am just curious about this and wonder about the reasoning.

There is a widening access thing, I think some of the universities reserve a certain % of offers for people in MD40 postcodes/schools?

My DD works in a private school and has never ever mentioned that happening. If it was a thing she would have said.

Oh I see. I mean that is very understandable. Not quite the private school kid will be actively impeded angle I was hearing.

It sounded like universities use some sort of non-transparent matrix where postcode, private/ state school and other demographics were being used to make it harder for certain groups perceived to be affluent etc. Like I say I only heard snatches and could have gotten it all wrong.

I haven’t heard of children being moved from private to state because of this - it may factor into a decision not to educate privately or only to do so at primary level alongside other factors such as increased fees due to NI increases etc.

It’s true that some uni filtering goes on eg a couple of years back no non qualifying ( ie non deprived postcode) kids got into Edinburgh university to do law for example - suspect that’s still the case.

However, the bigger issue is the restricted numbers overall of Scottish students admitted to Scottish universities. You’ll know an unfortunate downside of the paid fees system is that universities can only afford to admit limited numbers of Scottish students compared to the more lucrative fees paid by foreign and English students.

I’m not sure this is a good thing for the country. Those kids who can’t access the Scottish unis they want and who have parents able to afford it attend English unis instead -often for degrees in medicine, law and STEM subjects. They graduate, become higher rate taxpayers and then they stay in England or elsewhere and their parents move to be nearer them - Scotland only has 6-8 per cent higher rate tax payers. Scotland needs these revenues!

I completely agree with you, however I hadn't realised that there are restricted places for Scottish pupils! Surely they'd be the pride of Scotland- home grown and all that, best placed to serve their communities.

Do you know what percentage of seats are reserved for Scottish Students?

I live in Scotland. my dentist told me that only 10% of dental places in Scottish universities go to Scottish students as they don't pay fees. They want overseas students primarily, then the English and Scottish last.

It's understandable of course, but awful as Scotland is now seeing a massive shortage of dentists. I assume the same with other courses too

Only 10% That is utterly awful! I am surprised the Scottish government is letting them get away with this.

I’ve not heard private schools being a factor but definitely postcodes.
The universities all have widening access criteria and deprived postcodes is one of the main ones.
So if a course has 200 places, 100 of those may be for Scottish students and of those 30 may be reserved for students from deprived postcodes or from schools in deprived areas which send very few students onto university.
I don’t think the universities are too bothered whether the other 70 were in private or state schools

It is odd OP to repeatedly claim this is ‘untransparent’ without googling the universities in question to see what their contextual admissions policy is. Here, for example, is Glasgow: https://www.gla.ac.uk/study/wp/

Am also amused by the idea of the Scottish Government ‘letting them get away with it’ when government funding decision have entirely created the problem. And SG are well aware of that.

I agree that Scottish HE policy is in a mess, and have a kid applying soon myself, but you don’t seem to have grasped the basics of the situation.

I live next to a private school and know lots of people who sent their kids there. The only time I heard of this happening was when the boy got “asked to leave” the private school and had to move to my kids state school. What the kids I know did is apply to Russell group English unis like Exeter and Durham as well as the usual Scottish “ old” unis and went down south if they didn’t get a place at Edinburgh for example. Many of those who didn’t do that seemed to end up at Aberdeen and had a good ( and much less expensive) time.
My DS2 got into St Andrews and my interpretation of their criteria was that being at a state school on its own did not really confer advantage but being what they regarded as a “ local” state school may have been a small advantage. He did have straight As all the way through including Advanced Highers though!
All the unis have slightly different criteria though and being a state school pupil on it’s own without ticking other widening participation boxes like being first in family to apply to uni does not seem to offer advantage.

I think it’s the SG rather than the unis that restrict the number of places to a set allocation per uni of Scottish students as it’s the SG that provides the funds for their fees. I don’t think the unis are allowed to increase the numbers independently by eg. Recruiting extra international students ( or spending income on Scottish places rather than executive salaries and new buildings).
There may be a hidden agenda to spread quality applicants out around all the institutions and encourage more into vocational courses at FE colleges and new unis. Judging by my St Andrews History graduate’s job hunting struggles, we have more humanities graduates than we need atm. That’s me speculating though.

My dc are privately educated and from the leavers destinations stuff this year, plenty of them did get into top Scottish universities so I’m not saying there is nothing to it but…it’s hard to get in almost anywhere on hot courses really.

Not sure about private educated children but postcode definitely. My cousin just finished high school and is awaiting her exam results. She applied for uni and got 3 unconditional and 1 conditional despite her grades last year being poor, she got in because her parents are ex military and she’s been awarded full student financing and bursary etc because of her postcode even though my aunty and uncle have a decent income. She’s accepted the conditional and needs to pull her results out the bag in August 🤞🏼🤞🏼 if not she will accept an unconditional at Napier.

My elder DC has just finished s6 in a private school. I think everyone who wanted one got an offer from a Scottish Uni. That said, some of them did seem to have to wait for a long time before getting offers. Not so for my DC that's probably due to a number of factors including her course and her application.

There is definitely a limit on Scottish students for reasons already noted - all the universities have information on their websites. There are widening participation programmes as well based on postcodes, but this has really minimal impact.

Universities are on their knees - for many reasons but also due to this funding structure. Am guessing it will look a bit different by the time my children are at uni as it’s not sustainable (my children are 12 and 9). The chronic underfunding can’t continue so something is going to break.

It is due to Scottish government policy

Yeah, Scottish Government don’t pay enough for Scottish students, so the unis can’t afford to take them. They have to take students from elsewhere paying full fees so they can subsidise the Scottish students (it’s exactly the same approach they take to funded nursery hours - those that don’t get funding pay more to subsidise the dire rates the local authorities pay).

When universities offer fewer funded places, those places become more competitive, and a student from a state school has the edge over a student from a private school (all else being the same). So it’s not that private school kids are disadvantaged, but there are fewer places overall

It is not that only a certain percentage go to Scottish students; only a fixed number of places are available for Scottish students. The Scottish government funds a fixed number of Scottish students, universities don’t want more as they have to subsidise these students from fees paid by overseas students (of whom they want as many as possible) so don’t push the Scottish Government to fund more. English students break even so they are happy to have more of those too

Medicine and Dentistry are controlled subjects so most places reserved for Scottish students. In terms of dentistry 2024 entry
Dundee: Scottish = 36, other = 22
Glasgow: Scottish = 53, other = 29
Aberdeen: couldn’t find 2024 stats but they have 20 places of which 3 to 5 go to rUK (Aberdeen is graduate only)

In terms of Scottish students studying in England, the shorter 3-year degrees offset the fees. In the 4th year of Scottish degree, students in England will (hopefully) start earning a graduate salary which offsets most/all of the cost of the fees, and in subsequent years will be a salary incremental point ahead.

There is some useful info on contextual admissions (at Strathclyde) at https://www.strath.ac.uk/professionalservices/accessequalityinclusionservice/wideningaccess/gettingin/contextualadmissions/.

There is a list of target schools where they will consider applications from students who may only meet the minimum entry requirements. So there isn't really a specific disadvantage to being at a private school - you are in the same boat as someone who has been at e.g. an East Dunbartonshire or East Renfrewshire secondary school (none of which feature on the list of target schools).

Contextual admissions also consider home postcode and again applicants from some postcodes will be considered if they only meet the minimum entry requirements.

Because of the cap on Scottish students (and the fact that even if they could afford it Scottish students cannot choose to pay fees in Scotland) it is possible that on some sought after courses some Scottish students will not get a place and may be disadvantaged by living in a non deprived postcode and having gone to a school where lots of pupils generally go on to university. As happened with Law at Edinburgh a few years ago.

Edinburgh had to respond to the Law/Economics/seven other courses situation of a few years ago and I think there must now be some spaces competitively available to non-flag (widening access) participants. The biggest unfairness of that situation was that many students wasted an application for Edinburgh that they had no chance to be considered for - I would say Edinburgh was guilty of false advertisement by advertising the course to students who would never be considered.

Home postcode is itself a very unfair means to identify deprived students - most deprived students do not live in the most ‘deprived’ postcodes. Most deprived students live in postcodes that cover a range of housing types bringing up the average, eg in the highlands a post code might include several multimillion pound shooting estates as well as neglected crofts.

Oooh, this is an interesting perspective! Thank you

CapeGooseberry beside being and awesome first name, thank you for being such a fount of wisdom!