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.

Of course, I am not an expert of this contextual offers thing, but I really don't think that there will be a huge benefit to switch from private to state for university entry. People just exaggerate it.

First, there are not that many university offer this contextual offers , I only hear Bristol and Southampton so far.

Second, for people who can afford private school, will they move their DC to a really need improvement college to qualify for this contextual offers and risk for their children to not get the needed grade? I think it's unlikely. I do know lots of people move their children from private school to state college, because the private school fee are so high, when there is a good enough state six form, they move to relief themselves from the big burden. Will this good state six form qualify for contextual offers, I doubt it is rarely the case.

When people mention the private school privileges, sometimes I think people mixed the really privileged private schools like Eton, St Paul's etc with the ordinary private school. I believe that those supper private school do has connections with the top universities, so they can send more students to these top universities. However, for vast majority ordinary private schools, they only have the privilege of a good education the same as the other grammar school and good state school.

LoveAutumn, you really aren't an expert 'of this contextual offers thing', I'm afraid.

First, there are not that many university offer this contextual offers, I only hear Bristol and Southampton so far

That is just plain wrong. Pick any 5 UK universities and then put the words 'contextual offer' after their name and you will be taken straight to their contextual data pages. My ds and his friends are all currently going through uni application so I can tell you that Bristol, Cardiff, Warwick, Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle, St Andrews, Bath, Sussex, Cambridge, Oxford, York, Nottingham, Loughborough, Royal Holloway, Surrey, Glasgow ALL do contextual offers. You just have to google a university you can think of and then the words contextual offer and it will come up. Some universities call it Access, some Widening Participation but you will find most of them have a way of checking - either by sixth form and postcode or by Y11, sixth form and postcode and they then lower the offer if you are eligible.

Your school does not have to be Requires Improvement to get contextual offers for students. A school can be Outstanding in a difficult area and it might have students who qualify. If you live in London, though, and you know that Camden School for Girls is getting contextual offers, you might well try and buck the system and save nearly £50k of school fees if you can get your child in to the sixth form - but that's only if you have your heart set on Bristol Uni.
Manchester, for example, does not offer Camden contextual offers.

Perhaps the only way that contextual offers will be fair is if unis finally wise up and make it solely dependent on where a child did GCSEs.

Some contextual offer employers will outsource it and I believe the typical system is post code and exam results from that particular school. I suppose if you have thousands of applicants for 100 jobs and everyone has 3 As you need something to differentiate them and that blunt tool is as good as any but a bit unfair on children who don't choose their address and don't choose their school.

Well, that's a lot more than I know then. Anyway, we live at a not very affluent area, no grammar school system, not many students going to Oxbridge from the whole city, still We rarely heard anyone have received this contextual offer except from Bristol.

Sigh. Contextual offers/levelling the playing field/increasing access/widening participation - call it what you will - isn't meant to be 'fair' across the board.

It uses data about factors that are known to reduce the likelihood of educational success ie low socio economic group, English as an additional language, disability etc etc to try to reduce the disadvantage these factors afford to individuals.

It is a broad brush approach that cannot possibly, and doesn't pretend to, offer exactly the same level of opportunity to all.

How could any centralised system know for example that Y12 in School A had a string of supply teachers so were disadvantaged?

There is little that children 'choose' about their circumstances, which can often be said for adults too. No-one can choose not to just forget about their disability, or change their sex, ethnicity or age, or choose to dramatically change their socioeconomic group if they don't have the necessary advantages and support to do that.

And contextual offers also use broad data ie that from whole national cohorts, not just the other children in a particular child's class!

I understand that. But only Bristol doesn't use postcodes. Just schools. And lots of schools on their list are good schools in leafy areas. It seems strange.

It does seem strange. I wonder whether schools nominate themselves to be included on these lists and then the HE institution applies some sort of criteria?

I don't know. I just wish it was still more like my day ('80s-90s) with maintenance grants, fees paid, fewer wealth differentials between students.

I worked during the holidays and left with not a penny of debt.

That's what made it possible for me, and so many other people, to attend university.

The Bristol list is the 40% worst schools in the UK by exam results I believe so presumably changes year by year a bit.

In my day 85% of people could not go to university and if your parents did not make a minimum grant up to a full grant you usually could not go so I am not sure loans you may never have to pay back are worse.

if we tihnk boys are disadadvantged - 10% fewer go to university in the UK - then applying the same logic we should make it 10% harder for girls to go and adopt an equalising for boys and girls as used to be uysed for the 11+ exam to get equal numbers of each into grammar schools (girls did better than boys in those days not surprisingly as they mature younger than boys around that age).

Gcses or a levels?

Anyway I'm glad i moved dd then if the comp is in the bottom half for exam results!

I still don't get the inclusion of Fortismere and Camden though (for example, I've no idea about others on the list). They have above/well above average levels of progress and Camden has 75% 5 good GSCEs and Fortismere just under 70%.

I've just checked out comps gcse press release and its hard to get any direct figures, but one of the students got 11 grade 9s and they had 80% grade 4 and above, with a national average of 68%

Come on Bristol

Xenia I don't know when you went to university, but I went late '80s - 90s and received a full maintenance grant and tuition fees paid.

My parents weren't in a position to contribute financially, nor were they expected to.

I worked part time and left without a penny of debt.

Rent and living costs were much cheaper than now. Expectations were lower. Debt wasn't the norm.

I would not swap this experience with those going to university now, and I can't imagine that many young people entering HE think they're better of than a couple of generations ago.

Being male isn't a structural disadvantage. Quite the opposite, in fact. Your understanding of equalities and disadvantage isn't very good, is it?

The Bristol list is based on poorer than average A level results / progression to university. Not GCSE results. Maybe Fortismere et al have a lot of kids that don't go to university?

Titchy that just felt wrong to me, I know kids at Fortismere and Camden sixth forms and I'd have thought the opposite.

I've just looked at the government compare schools website and think I might have found the answer. Both schools have far better than average A level results (B/B+ vs national average of C+). However, both schools have marginally less than the average number of students progressing to an apprentice or full-time education (marginally - like 78% vs 89%).

This seems strange until you read that these statistics are for what pupils are doing the following year between October and March. Therefore any pupil taking a gap year will count as one of these education/further training dropouts.

And which group of students are most likely to take a year out, in general? Why posh ones with affluent families who can support them.

If I'm right, Bristol is being generous in their offers purely because, say, 10% of kids take a year out... Which brings me back to my original point that contextual offers are a very good thing only if they use robust data.

Don't know the policy, but my DD did not get a contextual offer for Oxford. Her giant comprehensive, which was rated RI for most of her time there, was not bad enough academically for contextual offers to be considered appropriate (c. 60% got A-C in 5 GCSEs including maths and English).

I was told by a Cambridge admissions professor that his broad line was that he would normally only consider students with 8 A stars at GCSE from most schools, and 6 A stars from academically poor schools. (Different parameters can apply for Maths and physics.)

I laugh when I see people complain about bias against private/selective school kids. Admissions people analyse their data and know that an A star AA pupil from a shitty comp gets a better degree than the triple A star student from a top public school. That's the reason they give contextual offers: the professors are greedy for those students with potential and don't really care where they were educated.

People game the system here too: top local public school then to the ace local sixth form. It does backfire for some people because the local sixth form, as good as it is, does not spoon feed in the way the public school does, so a small number sadly do crash and burn spectacularly.

I think that some (non-selective) state schools are better than some private schools. Paying a fortune for your child's education doesn't guarantee that it will be better than if you didn't. This can be very hard to stomach for some people when it comes to university admissions so I guess they need something to blame it on.

At the end of the day, everyone is sitting the same exams. Just like admission experts on this and other threads have said - Oxbridge only care about academic results. It's just a question of whether private schools are able to facilitate an easier and nicer learning environment, so kids can achieve those results. The exams are the same and anyone can revise for them and achieve top marks.

it’s about the school where you did your gcses , not the school you moved into for A levels?

Can't find it now, but I read a detailed report which said that, for data collection purposes, applicants are recorded as state educated if they have only attended maintained schools throughout secondary education. If they attended an independent school at any point during secondary education then they are counted as privately educated. Thus, trying to "game" the system by switching to a state sixth form wouldn't influence the stats. Whether it would influence an institution is a different question.

I'll see if I can find that report - will post a link if I can.

The schools I referred to admit boys and girls on academic merit, according to highly selective criteria. You cannot "buy your way in", or expect a place because your father and grandfather went there. By any definition they are highly meritocratic. They educate the brightest children. Unsurprisingly, they then send those children to the best universities. You cannot buy privilege for your child in this sense - the boy or girl at Westminster, for example, already has privilege in the sense that they were very clever before they started at the school.

The uncomfortable truth is that the switch to a meritocratic society, in which the best jobs go to the brightest people, leads to the brightest people then meeting and marrying each other, and having more bright children, who they send to highly selective schools, and so on and so on. Which is why the parents of the brightest children are also able to pay the eye watering fees.

The state could participate in this process if it chooses, by running its own selective schools, that do not charge fees, and which will feed the brightest children into the best universities on merit.

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

A friend’s son got in to Bristol with a contextual offer. The school may be mediocre but his parents are both highly devoted professionals who have given their children every opportunity apart from private school. They live in a large house and have lots of holidays. And private tutors are used.

The uncomfortable truth is that the switch to a meritocratic society, in which the best jobs go to the brightest people, leads to the brightest people then meeting and marrying each other, and having more bright children, who they send to highly selective schools, and so on and so on

It also means there are some areas where anyone with any get up and go has got up and gone. I don’t know what the answer here is.

Tbh I'd rather my dd got excellent A level results at her uncontextualised school than poorer ones with a lower offer, so wouldn't want to 'game the system' in that way. Someone will take her!

Globaliser is right - it has become more meritocratic eg look at the difficulties the Beckhams had in getting their children into good (i.e. very academic most children are rejected and do not pass ) schools.

When the MD of a company used to marry his secretary who may not have been very bright but knew her place at home etc there was more genetic mixing even between classes and IQ levels.Now people tend to marry someone similar eg both went to godo universities, both are accountants or whatever.

Abraid, that is true. i was looking at my father's old state grammar school in NE England (now a comprehensive as the NE stopped the 11 + in about 1970) - in my father's day he and his brother went to Durham university and became doctors from that state school. I looked at its A level announcements last year and the few people they were praising were going to particularly poor universities and the A levels they were praising were grades which are not very good at all in state or private schools outside of that area. My father moved from there to Newcastle and we all moved from there elsewhere - I to London just as some of his ancestors moved to the NE from lincs. in about 1870 because it was booming with lots of jobs.

Globaliser and Xenia, you're both talking absolute nonsense, with a pre-GCSE level understanding of society, history, psychology and economics.

The primary privilege that child at any independent school has is financial. It doesn't matter how clever you are if your parents (or someone else) can't afford the fees or even know these types of schools exist.

There are plenty of grammar schools in the state system, some extremely selective, more so than many independents.

They are generally full of the children of highly motivated parents, who can afford and facilitate books/educational days out/tuition etc etc. The FSM numbers for these schools are very low.

The nearest selective grammar to me has 3% of children eligible for FSM, compared to 30% at the comprehensive down the road.

Grammar school entry WAS strangely more meritocratic in the mid-20th century, when children were just told one day that they were going to take a test which was the 11+.

It's very different now.

If a school achieves excellent GCSE results in a POLAR 1 or 2 area, the school has done it's job. It's pupils still deserve to have their results considered in context, because they have gone well against the odds and regardless of social background.

At Oxford & Cambridge applicants still have to have a high number of 7s, 8s and 9s at GCSEs, the more grade 9s the merrier. They still have to meet or exceed the standard offer ranging from AAA to multiple A*s. They still have to get top marks in the entrance exams. However, their application is considered in context, as they may not have been able to access work experience in a top teaching hospital or university masterclasses to include on their personal statement. They may not have had the support on preparing for interview which many private schools provide. They still have to interview well and show as much academic potential as their private/grammar school counterparts.