Oxbridge and State Schools

[RiversideMum]

Feeling a bit cross about a presentation DD attended at a local school for all the secondaries in the area. It didn't seem hugely encouraging given that the DCs there had been invited to attend by their schools and therefore had the potential to be applicants. Now in my heart of hearts I'm not sure that DD is Oxbridge material, but for her to come away for the presentation saying "I don't think I would fit in" is somewhat disappointing.

Copthall

I was simply offering up antidotes to some posts that might result in some parents thinking it would be of benefit to put in place some fairly scary bootcamps for DCs, as well as putting off some candidates who are have all the qualities needed to get in because they don't have those sorts of parents, or the resources to build up stella CVs.

Exactly. I do always wonder what can possibly be the motivation behind people claiming that such brobdignagian efforts must be made to have any hope of getting in, when we have such a wealth of evidence that this simply isn't the case.

I do always wonder what can possibly be the motivation behind people claiming that such brobdignagian efforts must be made to have any hope of getting in, when we have such a wealth of evidence that this simply isn't the case.

Meanwhile, the independent schools are selecting & finessing their potential Oxbridge candidates:

www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/the-secrets-of-oxbridge-what-londons-public-school-powerhouses-are-doing-right-6421889.html

Also, 'hard-wiring' their Oxbridge networks: just a handful...

www.westminster.org.uk/about-us/the-governing-body.html

and,

www.etoncollege.com/GoverningBody.aspx

and,

www.winchestercollege.org/governing-body

and,

www.mcsoxford.org/supporting-mcs/governing-body

...there are many more examples. This symbiotic relationship in some cases has been going on for centuries.

So is the MN consensus that state school candidates should?:

....just rock up to interview 'as you are' because it's all a bit random and you might get lucky and get in, or not.

Don't bother networking because...well, that's trying a bit too hard and just not done...not very P.L.U.

Or could you learn something from the independent schools' pretty 'focussed' (to put it mildly) approach?

(Something to get your teeth into here Yellowtip and Russian......Comment?)

What is P.L.U?

Propitious - did your parents do loads of networking before you went to Oxford or Cambridge? Do you genuinely think you wouldn't have got in had they not done so? Do you genuinely think that telling people who have zero experience of networking, and therefore haven't had - and cannot now manufacture - the years of experience necessary to hone that black art, that unless they get networking pronto their kids are dooooomed is anything other than incredibly unhelpful and off-putting?

If you're an established successful networker then, sure, network your socks off. Why not. It won't actually help, but if it makes you feel better then go on. But if someone can't do it, hasn't had years of practice, or feels intimidated by the prospect then they shouldn't be made to feel like they have failed their child. They haven't.

Incidentally I am certain there is zero possibility of DD1 or DS wanting to apply to either place or even being in the ballpark for such an application to be a fair enough option. So while one might ask - and I am asking myself - why I'm bothered with this thread (there's always DD2 though), I certainly don't have any particular agenda to push for a good 9 years yet.

People Like Us

propitious DD went to one of the powerhouse London schools, though perhaps none of the girls' schools perhaps quite penetrate the golden circle but from a very selective intake many bright girls did not get in, in spite of being prepped and even having parents who went to Oxbridge themselves (and there is no parent thwarted by a DCs failure to get into Oxbridge like one who went to Oxbridge themselves). The reason? that they were, quite rightly, not cut any slack. Of course some of the thwarted parents moan that it was their DCs who were discriminated against. Please read the link I posted earlier to the article on the Cambridge admissions procedure, that gives some facts amidst all this ill informed parental speculation. My DDs peers went to all sorts of schools and I can honestly say that in the end the ones that got into Oxbridge were the bright well read ones from whatever their background, many from state schools who were not put through the scary bootcamp you advocate (not least because I know few independent bright DCs who would submit to such a regime, my DD would certainly have told me where to get off). However many bright well read ones, including from the schools you highlight, did not get in. All I can read into the process is that if you are bright and well read you have a chance of getting in but there are NO guarantees, and lots of other great unis.

Well, DD1 wants to do music so in her case I suspect that being well read wouldn't necessarily have much impact. And I'm not entirely sure whether her list of books read (which must be well over 1000) would count at all as being 'well read' in Cambridge terms. Although her knowledge of contemporary and classic multi media sci fi is, of course, top notch. She is 'well listened' though. And she has certainly seen significantly more decent theatre than anyone living where we do has any reasonable expectation of seeing. But still.

propitious the corollary of your belief that a pupil has to be prepared in a "pretty focused" way is that a pupil who comes from a disadvantage background with parents and a peer group who may give working hard pariah status, let alone not be encouraging, or provide "pretty focused" preparation, should have no chance. Yet Oxbridge goes out of it's way to help the pupils that are helped by the mentoring charity I am involved with, which provides them with positive role models and the encouragement to work hard to achieve their potential. Not least because those pupils, as the evidence shows all pupils who have overcome real disadvantage (by which I mean succeeding in spite of poorly performing schools, difficult home backgrounds and SLDs), actually perform better than their peers. Do you believe your DC was given the same advantages over those pupils that you perceive private school pupils gain over your DC?

Russians For music substitute CDs /downloads for books, obviously. Whatever is accessible..........

Also, always evaluate your sources, the London Standard? Really?

Copthall
Re. The London Standard. Isn't the most important thing the veracity of what's said/reported by (whatever) the publication/source?

Propitious tbh with a strike rate like mine (assuming that I set out to strike, which actually I didn't) then the answer is that clearly that no, as a state school parent, I didn't need to learn anything from the independent schools' 'focussed' approach. Nor did I network. At all. That sort of stuff is absolute absolute rubbish in the modern Oxbridge world. You've admitted that you tick all the advantaged boxes and that yet, despite that, you still prostrated yourself to network on behalf of your accelerated child and that you now attribute his success to those efforts. I don't think you should kid yourself overly: give him the credit instead. Poor kid, that's surely the least he deserves after all those wasted hours of ashening in front of your friend and being marched humiliatingly to the interview room by an exceedingly ambitious mum.

Delete a that.

propitious You are clearly not a historian. A journalist from the Evening Standard is peddling an agenda and will hear, and print, selectively, what they want to print.. I can assure you they have no interest in the success stories of the mentoring charity I am involved in or my unis outreach programmes. It is not what they think their middle class readers want to hear, or indeed what their proprietor wants them to hear.....

Also, what Yellowtip said. Sad

Wondered when Yellowtip would wade in!

Yellowtip: You're presuming quite a lot about me, my motivations, actions, and my DC...based on a few bare snippets of info garnered here.

Did I march DC down the corridor to the interview? The bedroom DC had been allocated when we arrived could only be reached via the corridor where said interviewees were waiting (and was accessible to anyone else in the college that day, to boot). Why not escort 16yr old DC up to the room for a look at part of the college DC may one day inhabit? You no doubt have your own reasons for spinning my early comments about that into the stilted image all too clear in your most recent comment. Ditto 'high table' talk, ditto interview prep etc. etc.

Your comment seems a little hysterical..?

Ok. Back on subject...

Copthall
You're right, not a historian! (Are you?)

You have my genuine thanks for the outreach work you do. There's definitely not enough and the reach across the country needs to be greater..but you probably know that already. There are parts of the country where your work is unknown (mine, certainly!) and hope your funding body has further plans...if so, not before time.

(Your DD: NLC or St.P's? Both excellent schools.)

Propitious You didn't answer my question.....

I'm returning to the thread Propitious not 'wading in' and you appear to have asked me a question directly, and it's that to which I'm responding .

Goodness knows where you get hysterical from: I'm as unhysterical about this sort of stuff as it's possible to be I'd have thought. Indeed I'd go so far as to say that obsessive parental 'networking' of a statistically already advantaged child, physically draining mock interviews and chaperoning of the order you describe would count as significantly more hysterical than anything I've ever done. I mean, I'm quite enthusiastic when the offer letters come through but even then it falls massively short of hysteria.

My reasons for 'spinning' are fairly straightforward. Suggesting a need to network, especially furiously, or alternatively a need for 'high table' debates over supper is very off-putting to those who have access to neither. Simple.

Propitious A historian now involved in cross disciplinary studies of another culture which makes me all the more aware that the perspectives that journalists take on issues can result in them writing about things in a way that is not just one sided but downright ignorant and misleading. I can count on the fingers of one hand the journalists that write about the culture I study with any real insight and knowledge, the rest write equipped only with easy stereotypes and prejudice that have you shouting and throwing things at the wall.................the same applies when it comes to fair admissions, Telegraph "Private school pupils discriminated against" Mail "4A* star student from state school rejected". Obviously they are not going to balance their stories with the finer details of the use of contextual data in admissions processes.

Outreach is just what it says, Oxbridge especially target their outreach activities everywhere, to all state school pupils. The mentoring charity is by dint of it's mission London centric but my uni offer study weeks etc. to all state school students and will fund travel if necessary. I agree that the unis have not yet reached the point where the playing field is entirely level, we know that because of how much better the disadvantaged do when enabled. However unis want the best students and are constantly fine tuning their processes to ensure they get them. That is why the Fair Admission Tzar (another bit of soundbite politics) abandoned his plans for State / Private quotas when he came to appreciate that unis had long moved beyond such crude measures of disadvantage.

As far as Yellowtips comments go, perhaps you are unaware of just how off the wall your original post sounded, and even your watered down version. They would most certainly deter applicants if taken seriously (hopefully they too evaluate sources). My DD and her peers were determined, quite rightly, that the whole UCAS process was their business and parental advice was only to be given when asked for. A few parents who tried to be controlling got short shift, and even were counter productive. Good, that is as it should be as they take the first step to adult life. By far the most common reason for students dropping out is that they were influenced by parents into choosing courses and unis that were not right for them.

Chauffeuring was allowed of course

Although I suspect now that they were more invested than I realised at the time, had I even dreamed that my parents were as invested in me going to Cambridge as some MN posters appear to be about their kids doing the same, it would have had a very negative impact on me.

I constantly worry that I'm over invested in my kids' education. But compared to some MN posters I'm positively delinquent. I don't know whether to take heart from this, or worry about that too!

Propitious still hasn't answered my question, I see.

Just another anecdote but it supports that Cambridge entry doesn't depend on massive (or even very much) preparation. My niece was offered a place. She was from a middle ranking comp, mostly Bs (some As) at GCSE and only applied right on the Oxbridge deadline because it was one of very few places to offer her course (History with/and something). Her dad drove her to interview and sat chatting with other parents outside the interview hall (in some sort of waiting room.) She didn't make her offer though.

Russians Don't worry. I am delinquent too, they have clearly achieved in spite of me...........

I'm firmly in the same category though I did chauffeur to interview and would do so again: I'm given a fairly safe exclusion zone and work around that to do my own stuff. If called, I respond and we meet for tea or coffee or in the Parks and I'm usually expected to commiserate and tell them how stupid they are and how could they possibly have said that. Apart from DD1 (who I'd food poisoned on the eve of her interview) there's always been another sibling around, helping at interviews themselves (and observing extremes of parental behaviour....) which is nice. And then of course it was quite reassuring for DD2 to have DD1 and myself around to accompany her to the police station for the evening the night before her last interview, since we had to be there quite a while.

Yellowtip Police station? Is that then something that prospective parents should arrange to ensure success

I'd strongly counsel against it Copthall. Oxford Police Station is definitely not my nick of choice (dreadful overhead lighting and incredibly busy).

I'm wondering about something you said earlier about your DD being given a good deal for her MSc? Is that in the sense of easily attainable offer or funding or something else or a combination of two or more?

"yellowtip" started off as unconditional offer with fee waiver but just heard she has landed an internship which assuming she doesn't mess it up will access her funding as well. Completely different environment to the humanities.