More children got three As at A-level in the country’s fee-paying schools than in the entire population of children at comprehensives."

[AubergineKenobi]

Says Toby Young in today's Telegraph:

Article

Does anyone know what percent of A-levels are taken by children in fee-paying schools?

happy DH often jokes that there is no way he would get his job these days!!!

Lord knows what our DC are going to have to do to make themselves stand out. Certainly only a 2.1 or a 1st from a decent uni in a decent subject will do. And that will be the starting point.

Mature students (I was one fairly recently) are loved by universities they hard working conscientious and ambitious and generally will not settle for anything less than a 2 1. Universities biggest nightmare I suspect are intelligent boys who away from home frankly piss it up the wall; they start and finish assignments on the day they're due in, turn up for Thursday morning lectures (if they turn up) hung over having gone on the piss the night before with the rugby team having won/lost a match and are often much to the amusement of the rest of they're fellow students also the the class jokers (long may they live but hopefully not my DS's!)

Agree, mature students are often brilliant. There seem to be far fewer of them around at the moment though.

Football type boys can be annoying, but so too are girls who are forever feeling a bit too poorly to turn up but expect a précis of the seminar by email.

Sometimes posher kids get surprised and narky when their marks arent instantly brilliant in week one of their first term though.

@TalkinPeace2 Obviously you may have dodged a bullet with Andersen (although actually I know a huge number of ex Andersen alumni who are now running things in other firms (most notably Deloitte but not just there) and on the European and global stage and they all seem to be doing fine). And it's great that you are in a position where you feel that the only relevant qualification on your CV is your FCCA but there are plenty of things (Board appointments, representative committees, international stuff, for example) where your degree and indeed where you trained are still considered highly relevant, rightly or wrongly. It does still get asked about, even though it is unlikely to be the only or even the main thing that matters.

Annoying? I smile even now thinking about our class joker's fantastic impressions of a couple of our university lectures (at the time I laughed so much I cried) or the faces they used to pull/signs the held up when all the rest of us were doing some terribly serious presentation about the economic structure of Ireland or something similar!
I found that many of the "posher" students were unable to work as part of a group, they often wanted it their own way all the time and were sometimes very condescending to the less able something you could never say about the clever but lazy boys.

Annoying in that they don't show up! Generally the ones who show up each week are perfectly nice and pleasant - but you always get the odd one who sits and looks quizzical at everything you say but won't contribute.

I cringe to remember impressions I used to do of my lecturers - dread to think what any of them do of me.

Mature students may be more conscientious on the whole happygardening but the young need their education too.

word I think you may be being a bit too modest: I've probably got a couple of years on you and when I went through the interview cycle for graduate trainees at merchant banks it certainly was not enough merely to have a 2.1 and no facial tattoos. The sought after institutions were very discriminating about which universities they thought gave a good education and whose degrees were therefore worth the paper they were written on. Even though some (a few!) of those institutions were trying determinedly to broaden their base.

It's still the case that degrees from different universities are weighted differently, they're bound to be. It's much harder to get into some universities than others and once there it's much harder to get a 2.1 than it would be elsewhere.

I prefer the strategy of one step at a time. I just look at grades as opening possibilities up at the next rung ahead, and I see the job possibilities that they might have in terms of the people they'll be with rather than the number of cars or holidays that the salary might buy. It's important that they enjoy their education and don't constantly fret about what lies ahead.

TheOriginalSteamingNit your right to cringe but in a funny sort of way it endeared our lectures to us even more.
Do you have a phrase you keep repeating "it can be clearly seen" (sadly not always the case) was a favourite with one, we had a bet about how many times he would say it in a lecture and also a competition; how many times we could get it into one of our presentations he seemed oblivious!
University days should be the best days of a young persons lives do they need to be under pressure to get the 2 1? I had such fun with the despite being old enough to be their mothers.

@Yellowstone You definitely have the right attitude. I wish I could stick to that attitude with DD1 but it is very hard.

But are all A levels the same? even if they are in the same subjects and the same grade is achieved. Academic Independent schools tend towards certain examining bodies which most state schools wouldn't even consider because their courses are deemed hard and they wouldn't beable get as many passes for league table purposes. I think elite universities know this and would favour students who have taken exams under examining bodies which they know are more rigorous such as Cambridge rather than Wales even if both candidates had straight A* grades in exactly the same subjects. Another reason why pupils from good independent schools get places at elite universities over their seemingly equally qualified state school counterparts.

Which exam board do the private schools use then when prole schools are stuck with AQA, Edexcel and OCR ?

DS school I believe uses Cambridge IGCSE's and of course what appears to be the slightly contreversial Cambridge Pre U. He is not of an age to know whether or not the GCSE/IGCSE examine board makes any difference. I read different views about the Pre U although the schools Oxbridge entry results at nearly 40% imply it's certainly not a barrier.

happy
do they use the Cambridge stuff for everything?
and for A levels?

I think for everything. The good thing or some people may say the problem with boarding is that you are completely clueless about the micro detail; being a rubbish parent I rather like it this way! The few text books I've seen have got Cambridge IGCSE written on them

The Cambridge examining board tends to be the choice of most academic independent schools. The Welsh and Edexcel boards were exposed by The Telegraph recently where their examiners admitted the content of their courses left a lot to be desired.

Sorry accidently posted before finishing what i was writting what bloody button enables that to happen? A levels are only done in biology and DT all the other subjects are taken at Pre U of which they boys now only do three.

Telegraph link here: www.telegraph.co.uk/education/secondaryeducation/8943954/Exam-chief-you-dont-have-to-teach-a-lot-for-our-tests.html

so what do other private schools do?

the Latin OCR that DD is doing is presumably not dissimilar to the one at fee paying schools?
The vast bulk of the subjects that DD is doing seem to be AQA or OCR
they were not involved in the cramming scoop I believe

We were told by a fantastic now retired Latin teacher that the Cambridge IGCSE Latin paper is significantly harder that than any GCSE Latin paper with much less room for just rote learning large chunks of text and more requirment for "demonstrating true knowledge and understanding of grammar and translation." Obviously being passionate about his subject he felt it was a better exam particularly for the more able at the subject and a " true test of ability."

but what were they learning a dead language FOR?
DD is doing it because it links all of the romance languages
and is the basis for scientific nomeclature

Don't ask me it's just part if the whole package. I understand from DS that it's helped him with German and he seems to enjoy it so that's good enough for me! Rather Latin than media studies (whatever that is) I suppose.

Forgive me for being a non fee-paying cynic - but of course all the exam boards the independent schools use are more rigorous, of course IB/ Pre-U are more rigorous too, of course RG and the 1994 group should therefore prefer them to those that the pleb schools use and of course the latter all cheat their way into Cambridge, Oxford, Durham and UCL (etc.) by using modular exams spread over Years 9, 10 and 11 with massive amounts of cheating on controlled assessments, just as coursework all used to be falsified too. And - hugely unfairly - on top of all that, private schoolers are subject to the backhand of positive discrimination policies too. And it's set to get worse, just look at the news.

Really, it sucks. Makes one question the £33K pa.

he's kidding you if he says Latin helped with German as they are unrelated linguistically.
THe Germanic languages have a different structure

and yes, ANYTHING but media studies - not that I suspect that's an option at prestigious schools - far too prole

Cynical or some might say a little paranoid. Although I acknowledge that more go to RG/Oxbridge from the independent sector grammars and non selective state schools still send a send a sizable % least my excellent local comp does. I don't have children of 6 th form age but I suspect that that retakes etc of AS levels occurs in many independent schools particularly the less selective ones and remember the bottom line is that the majority are parents are paying for results.
Although it does have to be pointed out the Pre U grades carry more UCAS points than the equivilant A level grades.

Some might I suppose, though with not much cause

I do find it absurd that on these boards people are quibbling about which exam board is more rigorous and which format is more demanding. There really is no need to justify hefty fees: judge by the result.