State/private school university admissions

[PatienceVirtue]

Hello I was wondering if any university admissions experts can help answer a question for me.

My oldest is about to go into 6th form, currently at a selective private school. There's a lot of talk from others about leaving to go to a local, v highly regarded school (Camden Girls for those interested) which has a vast 6th form and a pretty affluent intake.

Some of this talk is around 'gaming' the system for entry into Oxbridge etc as they'll then count as state school applicants and be more likely to be offered a place.

Am I misunderstanding contextual admissions? I thought universities looked at how well the school performs at GSCE and A level when deciding on applicants rather than just whether it's state or private. Do admissions really favour someone from, say, QEB (top grammar in country), over someone from private St Craps in an under represented area of the country?

Is it just that they need a top line figure of 60%+ state school admissions and don't care where they come from?

BTW I'm really in favour of contextual admissions but not so some privileged child at a top London faith school or grammar gets favoured. It should be for those properly under represented groups. And tbh my child really not Oxbridge material so it's not a question that's personally motivated.

From Oxford's website, the page about contextual data they take into account says:

"Prior education:
"- The performance of the applicant’s school or college at GCSE (or equivalent level in Northern Ireland)

• The performance of the applicant’s school or college at A-level or equivalent level
• The percentage of students eligible for free school meals at the applicant’s school or college at GCSE or equivalent level."

From Cambridge's website, the equivalent page:

"school/college data – the GCSE performance, A Level performance, and recent history of entry to Cambridge or Oxford, of an applicant’s school/college"

DS attended admissions talks at both recently.
They both implied that an applicant's GCSE results are viewed in the context of the GCSE results at the school where the GCSEs were taken.

So if you attended school A until the end of Y11, then moved to school B, the university admissions team would look at the GCSE results at school A when considering your application.

Thanks so much, that really confirms my suspicions and seems a much more logical approach to the issue.

But if a university has two students, one state and one private, would they be under pressure to admit the state one in order that their top levels stats (55% state or whatever) is maintained?

I hear lots of private school parents whining about how unfair it is that their child didn't get into Cambridge and blaming anti-private prejudice as well as other parents telling me how advantaged their child will be coming from Tiffin or Dame Alice Owen or whatever other state school with microscopically small numbers of FSM pupils. So it seems that on both sides, people understand admissions as favouring state.

Your friends are going to get a nasty shock ! Contextual offers are NOT for all state schools, but a few who are either in areas of deprivation or not producing as good results as others. It's to try and even out the fact that private schools might have 15 kids in a class and state school 34. So Camden Girl and Tiffin will be treated the same as Eton. Bog comp in a disadvantaged area will get w bit of extra leeway.

If it helps, my school get contextual at 2 Unis this year. We have A level classes of up to 25 students. So I don't feel it's unfair at all.

How does this fit in with the fact that Westminster, Eton and St Paul's etc. supply more kids to Oxbridge than most others combined?

The odds against getting a place are high for everyone. The two universities admit about 6,000 undergraduates in total each a year and 43,000 students applied across state and private. Contextual offers themselves I read only gives a tiny few points advantages. The interviews, tests etc..are very very hard and with odds like those...with applicants with straight As not getting in, honestly I wouldn't worry about it. Concentrate on getting into a good uni, good degree and the rest will sort itself out..

OP, the 'talk' you've heard is utter bollocks.

End of!

Actually the OP is right. The number of private school children going to Oxbridge has fallen over the years (albeit from a very high % relative to the number of children educated privately) and the gap has largely been filled by grammar school pupils. Oxford and Cambridge also have increasing targets for the proportion of applicants they should admit from state schools. And looking at a sample of popular subjects their admissions do seem to be largely in line with those targets.

A state school can be useful in 6th form as many taster sessions at universities are only open to DC from non-selective state schools. However, some universities are trying harder to bridge real socio-economic gaps by restricting access to those who can also demonstrate real disadvantage rather then those middle class DC in a Comprehensive school. Hope that helps.

Some schools have concentrations of the super bright. It’s their usp. Eton is a very large school. Most schools don’t have this number of credible candidates. I also think some DC who go to these schools might well come from families of huge intelligence down generations. Of course they are advantaged but they are also highly intelligent DC.

Totally agree with Bubbles ...Yes, Wider participation is good...however you have to acknowledge that DC who attend private schools have gone through a selection process at an early stage and the DC are generally very capable...It's not always about money if the DC who attend private schools were brighter before they even started private school - SURELY?

From my personal experience (brother went to Cambridge) and I had an interview there at undergraduate level: I found it's definitely easier to get in if you are an overseas student (and paying higher fees) and easier to get in at Masters postgrad level provided you finish with a First at undergrad level at a different uni

They both implied that an applicant's GCSE results are viewed in the context of the GCSE results at the school where the GCSEs were taken.

So just to clarify, - it’s about the school where you did your gcses , not the school you moved into for A levels?
Is there a list of these schools? - these ones where a contextual offer may apply? Can you find out if your secondary school is on it?

Theovertoad
They just said that when looking at GCSE results, they take into account the GCSE performance of the school where the GCSEs were taken. These figures are available to anyone from the DfE.

I have heard that some universites (e.g. Bristol) do have lists of specific schools which trigger a contextual flag.

So just to clarify, - it’s about the school where you did your gcses , not the school you moved into for A levels?
DS just had to complete a questionnaire for a Cambridge application, to provide contextual data, and they asked for the name and postcode of the school where the GCSEs were taken. Then a separate question asking for the school where A-levels are being taken.

Some Unis have contextual lists of schools eg. Bristol, Birmingham but others are more specific and use data on postcodes and other data such as FSM, care etc. But any parent sending their kid to a high achieving state school, thinking it's going to give them any advantage at all are going to be very sadly mistaken.

And my take on why so many private schools have kids going to Oxbridge is because it helps their marketing ! For some courses they are not the best places to go, and they offer a limited number of newer courses so don't appeal to many state school kids who want an industry based degree. State schools mostly don't need to market where their leavers go, but private schools need lots of Oxbridge to entice parents in. So it's in their interests to encourage any suitable candidate to apply and to help them succeed. Bums on seats = money.

Thanks so much for all these great points. I agree with all of them, even those that might appear to contradict each other.

Yes, definitely right that it's easier as a foreign student (from my experience) and secondly that private schools are much more desperate to send kids to Oxbridge for marketing reasons so will encourage children to do course they might not be as interested in.

DancingDreamer is right that there are a higher proportion of state school students at Oxbridge now and I suspect also right that they're coming from the 'wrong' places (i.e. high achieving schools filled with children from affluent/graduate families). I also suspect that if there are two equal candidates, one from Tiffin and one from private school they'll take the Tiffin one to aid top line stats. But only in that case.

I really want to believe that elite institutions are using the information wisely and truly reaching those under represented groups (as opposed to state school kids with teacher-parents as it was in my day). There was talk on R4 of 25% coming from FSM backgrounds and the presenter said, oh no, won't that hit the squeezed middle, i.e. non-FSM state school applicants.

I also hope if more children from elite, wedged up with money and cultural-capital backgrounds go to a wider range of universities, it will dilute the ridiculous Oxbridge obsession. I'm in North London and the majority of parents I know are Oxbridge-educated and they are obsessed, obsessed I tell you, with them. In reality, with equally clever kids, it's a lottery as to who gets in and I think parents are looking for reasons why their 4A* kid didn't get a place when in reality there are more good applicants than places (which is why there are so many other great universities). It drives me mad when they whine about some unfair state-school bias because why are they sending their children private if they don't believe they're getting a better education, something which should be recognised by admissions?

The idea that people would even try to game the system like this is utterly, utterly disgusting and they should be ashamed.

That's the trouble with social mobility though, isn't it, Bertrand, (not all) middle-class parents are fine with children rising up but they're not so keen if it means their children will have to go down.

And there's a lot of gaming going on all over the place. I don't know that I blame these parents any more than our neighbours who've paid for private primary and now kids got to a selective state secondary - I'm don't want them to get any putative admissions largesse either. And it might be that the parents who are opting for state sixth form just want to stop paying ridiculous fees.

“ That's the trouble with social mobility though, isn't it, Bertrand, (not all) middle-class parents are fine with children rising up but they're not so keen if it means their children will have to go down.”
Why will their children have to “go down”? Contextual offers are ^specificially* to help children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Even thinking of ways to steal from those children is utterly, utterly despicable.

I think Oxbridge (and any university) admissions are pretty sophisticated they'll know that a high performing comp in a leafy area is just that.

They'll also know that grammar schools in Kent are a different beast to the superselective grammars in other areas.

State schools are not equal.

Neither are private schools. I'd have thought they'd weigh up postcode and affluence with private schools as well. Eton is not the same as an independent grammar with lowish fees.

I may be attributing more sophistication than admissions tutors actually employ, but I think they're pretty clued up and they'll have a good idea if someone is gaming the system.

Maybe I should have put 'go down' in inverted commas. The thing is about mobility is that not everyone can 'go up' unless we're in unique time such as the post-war period when there was an expansion in white-collar workers. Part of the reason that social mobility stalls is that those on the 'lower' end aren't as desperate for their children to go up as those at the 'higher' end are to make sure that their children don't go down.
[I know phrases go up/down, higher/lower are loaded].

And universities are part of that. If a disadvantaged child (rightly) gets a place at an elite institution then one less advantaged child doesn't.

Havingtochange that's the question I'm asking really, is how sophisticated the admissions tutors are when the number that gets reported in the press every year is a very binary state/private one with no distinctions made about what sort of schools they are. My children were in a primary with very disadvantaged cohort (60% FSM) and I've seen first-hand how wide the gap is within the state sector (and equally in the private sector as you say).

Sorry should that be one fewer advantaged child? Never get that one right...

I thnk utterly despicable is going a bit far. You could call it "love" instead, to want to do the best for your child. It is what all parents do from cuddling the baby and feeding it to reading to older children and keeping them warm and safe and helping them with homework, picking a good school, or moving countrie even with many immigrants to put their child in a sense before all others. So not despicable but love and kind and lovely and common sense.

As for the system I thikn it works fairly well. my twins are at Bristol from a private school. They know lots of children there from all kinds of backgrounds and schools. Bristol has its own system different from others for contextual offers. This list 40% of schools which get the worst exam results and if you go to one of those you may well get an offer 1 or 2 grades lower than my sons had to get (because I chose to bust a gut, work full time even when they were 2 weeks old - which perhaps in some mothers' views means they were deprived and should get a contextual offer for maternal neglect although not my view).. so I could afford school fees.

The best thing all of us can ever teach our children is that live is not fair so you just have to get on with it and do the best you can.

Bristol's contextual offer system is at www.bristol.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/entry-requirements-qualifications/contextual-offers/ You can find the 40% of schools which are bad on there and you can also type in your postcode to see if it is in a failing area. I just tried mine and then also my late parents' in Newcastle. Newcastle bea where I am on something called a quintile based on ethnicity - I live in one of the most mixed London boroughs but otherwise Newcastle seemed lower although both are good roads in their respective places Newcastle and outer London.

“ The best thing all of us can ever teach our children is that live is not fair so you just have to get on with it and do the best you can.“

And how does that square with gaming the system to get something you are not entitled to and which was designed specifically for people with far fewer advantages in life than you have? Basically stealing from them. It’s practically a definition of despicable.