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.

Our local comp is hugely leafy, in a really posh postcode. Mad. They got 10 to Oxbridge last year. I suppose that way Bristol can get naice clever kids and also look as though they are being diverse!

ALthough to be fair to Bristol where my private educated sons are, my son did say most of those he knows with contextual offers in practice got much higher grades anyway closer to or bette rhtna his AAA, even though their offers were quite a bit lower. I don't know if that is just anecdote though or if the statistics of grades achieved by Bristol contextual offer people v. what they were offered.

I'm surprised that @titchy isn't on this thread as she has been on so many others with a similar subject. She (I'm assuming she is a "she" by the way) is something like an admissions tutor from possibly a Russell Group uni and she knows all about this topic.

As far as I am concerned, I spent the last third of my teaching career coaching students in my heavily creamed state comprehensive, (latterly an academy), to help them get into RG unis. And they came back from interviews telling me that they had been told that coming from their background made quite a difference. But unis don't just look at students' schools, they look at postcode, parents' situation, first to uni etc etc.

But don't give up hope, getting into a top uni isn't all about grades. If you are predicted top grades or not, you also need to have a very solid UCAS pesonal statement containing the sorts of things that a private school student's would. Also the reference in the UCAS matters. I once had a student go to interview at Imperial and he was told he was there as they wanted to see if the glowing reference was true, it was and he got in. If I was you, I'd not try to game all this. Uni admission tutors are not fools. Put your child where you and he/she are happiest and work on getting the grades and ensuring the UCAS is solidly packed with great stuff. Best of luck.

Someone was telling me about this 'contextual offers' situation and specifically Camden Girls just a couple of days ago.

Her dd is in the sixth form there, and there are lots of girls who were privately educated up to GCSE then transferred to Camden Girls, as OP describes, for the potential advantage of being a 'state school applicant' for Bristol specifically.

I wonder if school 'request' to be included on contextual offers lists? Because it is peculiar that Camden Girls, Fortismere etc are and other local comprehensives in much less desirable postcodes and a much higher FSM intake aren't. They do describe the list as 'aspiring state schools' so maybe that is the case?

Bristol has always been known for its posh intake, and I suppose this is a way of maintaining that while also ticking the odd diversity box.

Bristol has always been known for its posh intake, and I suppose this is a way of maintaining that while also ticking the odd diversity box it must be. There are pockets of deprivation in our local town but it is generally moneyed. If you type in the postcodes they are all in a very high socioeconomic bracket (using the program that other unis use to make their contextual offers). Naughty Bristol.

I've just checked the Bristol contextual list. My dcs comp is on there as well as pretty much all big standard comps in the area.

My dcs comp is not outstanding in results, but in a fairly monied area. However about a 1/4 of its intake is from an extremely deprived area.

My friends DS has just gone to Cambridge from our Comp. I'm confused about the contextual thing though as his grade requirements were AAA*
Did he have a 'contextual' offer with AA A*?

All universities contextual offers are different. Ie some use your home postcode instead of the school (must be state).

Trewser so if the school you attend is on the published contextual school list from a certain university, they still use your postcode?

Just trying to understand it.

@XelaM 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?

@merryhouse This is Simply Not True, and a few seconds pondering numbers would make that obvious.

The Sutton Trust's news release states:

"Eight top schools and colleges sent as many pupils to Oxford or Cambridge over three years as three-quarters (2,900) of all schools and colleges across the UK",

specifically that

"the eight schools and colleges with the highest number of Oxbridge acceptances has 1,310 between them over a three-year period, while 2,894 with two or fewer acceptances sent just 1,220 pupils to Oxford or Cambridge in the same time period."

The Sutton Trust did not name the eight schools and speculation is that two of them are Hills Road Sixth Form College and Peter Symonds College, but the other six are indeed 'Westminster, Eton, St Paul's, etc.'

Even taking out the two state sixth form colleges, it's likely that the top six private schools sent more than 1000 students to Oxbridge over three years, which will be more than the bottom half of schools combined.

Milicentbystander72 they all have completely different criteria. Bristol uses just the school, so eg a girl that went to private prep until 13 then moves to the comp (popular) gets a lower offer despite living in a huge house with wealthy parents and a tutor.

Why is this a surprise? Three of the most academically successful schools (Eton, St Paul's and Westminster, to which you could add Winchester, and St Paul's Girls and Wycombe Abbey) send a high proportion of their pupils to the best universities. That is exactly what you would expect. And the least successful schools don't send many children to top universities.

This sort of analysis ignores the transformation in these schools over the last 50 years. Schools that used to educate a social elite, now educate an academic elite, as society as a whole has changed and become meritocratic.

When my DC wanted to move from state to private for sixth form I was slightly worried that they might be sabotaging their Oxbridge chances.
In the event they received an offer from their first choice (old, central) college so I think there is a bit more to admissions than state/ private quotas.

A. They look at where you take your GCSEs not a levels and b it's only failing schools that get a boost. There's 6 factors taken into account, school is just 1

Ps the biggest factor in oxbridge offers is the course, some get 10+ quality applications per place, others just 2, you are more likely to get a contextual place for the latter eg dd was told AAB would get her in because she had 4 out of the 6 factors they consider (school in special measures, poor postcode, special needs and no kids into oxbridge from school - we aren't fsm and we went to university which were the other 2), she didn't get the grades due to mental health problems unfortunately

"This sort of analysis ignores the transformation in these schools over the last 50 years. Schools that used to educate a social elite, now educate an academic elite, as society as a whole has changed and become meritocratic."

Eh? Eton, St Paul's and Westminster DON'T educate a social elite? Aren't the basic fees for somewhere like Eton 40K+ a year. Who else are they educating then?

Society hasn't become meritocratic. If anything, the increasing wealth differentials, stopping of maintenance grants and tuition fees being paid and more middle class 'gaming' of the system, it's become even more hostile towards other less privileged social groups.

If people even half believed that society organises itself along meritocratic lines, they wouldn't feel the need to send their children to private schools, move to get into the catchment of 'good' schools etc etc etc.

People would be more than happy to send their children to their local school, regardless of how good or not it is, because a child's natural ability would determine their educational level and prospects.

Ha, ha, ha.

@thehorseandhisboy Well said

My sons at Bristol had reasonably high offers (AAA and AAB) from a private school (which offers they met).

You say that but AAB is the same as the contextual offer that mine received but didn't need as they got A AA compared to the standard offer of A * AA

Just wanted to pipe up as someone who might be considered 'gaming the system'. DS in private for y7-11, and will go state comprehensive for y12-13. We look at the results of private and state, and they are the same (in fact, slightly better for state). We look at our finances and see that not paying private fees would make a big difference to our lives. We look at uni applications and see, if anything, private school students being held to higher standards. Why should we be obliged to keep paying school fees when they give us nothing? Our other 2 kids went state all the way. We never intended to keep DS in his current school beyond y11. All state school kids in our area change school at 16 anyway. Everyone who pays private fees, or tutors, or moves house to get into a school, are gaming the system up to a point, of course. But is moving out of private school at sixth form more reprehensible somehow? Does choosing a few years of private make us morally ineligible for a state 6th form?

Do you really care?

@hoodiemum I personally think parents have to make the best choices fir their kids within the system. It's not "gaming the system" - it's doing the best for your own kids and family. It's only to be admired that you care so much about your kids' education. I see nothing at all wrong with it.

flora, that is consistent with what one of my sons said - those he knows at Bristol with contextual offers often exceed them when the exam results come out. (mind you my son's private school B was the highest result in his subject in the year, but I doubt anyone would ever contextualise that B as they just think private school - massive advantage !)

hoodie, that is perfectly okay - doing the best for your children is a moral good, not a wrong.

Xenia a private school IS a massive advantage! That's why people pay for it.

hoodiemum as others say, do what you think best for your own children.

The point people are making about 'gaming the system' is that it isn't an indication of how much you love your child, or how much you value their education.

Being able to pay for private education, pay for tutors or move into a desirable catchment to do so rises from fortunate economic circumstances, meaning that you have options that poorer people don't have.

Do what you think best for your own child, of course, but don't confuse having money with loving your child more or wanting any better for them than less wealthy people.

Or you being cleverer than poorer people, if you can't work that out for yourself!

Does choosing a few years of private make us morally ineligible for a state 6th form? Of course not, you can send your kids where you like. I just don'T think that you should be getting the special contextual treatment that is given to state school pupils in general.

Yes, although some pay for religious reasons - there is a ersidential girls Saudi boarding school in the UK and I doubt that is an educational advantage - more a purdah and indocrination advantage (and a parently right of course just as other religious schools operate). I just thought if no one got higher than my son's B at A level in the school for that subject that was probably unusual even amongst some comprehensives so perhaps it should be contextualised - not that it bothers him - it just shows how when you try to go beyond raw A level grades achieved you can end up being unfair to some eg the child beaten every night from a posh home or who is carer to a sibilng in the family but happens to have money or whose mother works night and day in low paid work as do 4 other family members to pay one set of school fees so has no time to read to the child. It just can become a bit of a slippery slope to try to even things out. The new exam for solicitors as to its first part SQE1 in tests recently found that BAME applicants obtained worse results in essay quesitons so they have decided to get rid of all essay questions and just make it multiple choice even though that was partly because some of those people were foreign born with poor English - yet English is really important for lawyers as one word wrong in a contract and the meaning is changed with sometimes mililons at stake. So just also seemed a rather unhelpful way rather than for example having those pupils do an extra year of essay writing and learning English.

I'm the OP and I'm so grateful to all those who've answered and discussed my query. Very thoughtful responses with little brouhaha.

I'm glad that those in the know seem to be saying that contextual admissions are more nuanced than just state v private. It's a good thing to make distinctions between those who've been advantaged and those who haven't, but I wanted reassurance that these distinctions are robust. Not entirely reassured by Bristol's list - it's odd that the kid I know who wants to leave v rough, v high FSM school to go to Camden for sixth form is actually going to be advantaged as a result. Really don't understand that list at all.

And of course hoodiemum you can choose any sixth form you like and why would you pay for an inferior education. But as Kokeshi points out, nor should you be given any special treatment as a result. Nor, I suspect should most of us however we're educating our children. We're inevitably invested emotionally otherwise we wouldn't be on boards like this.