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.

If a school achieves excellent GCSE results in a POLAR 1 or 2 area, the school has done it's job

Comp is polar 4

thehorse, I know and in my area when I was little (NE England) they abolished the 11+ in about 1970. Although it is not true that every child at a fee paying school has parents with more income than every child in a state school particularly here in the SE.

To be purer you either go entirely by exam results or you look at each child in context eg rich parents but they rape him every night or the parents are always drunk or taking drugs - gets credit for his getting over that or no money but has full scholarship to a private school. It is only the Bristol system I know as that is where my sons are and it has its unique list of factors including the 40% of worst schools in the UK.

It just feels a bit unfair that children of women who have not worked for 20 years whereas I have worked full time even when my twins were a week old get an advantage in cases where had the mother worked full time she could hage afforded school fees. Or she has worked full time but spent the money on her 3 lovers and flash car.

If people want to check you can put your postcode into the Bristol website for the postcode part of the test www.officeforstudents.org.uk/data-and-analysis/young-participation-by-area/young-participation-by-postcode/ On that I win over my parents' newcastle house except in ethnicity as we are more mixed here in London so that seems to give us brownie points for deprivation down here over up there.

Where have I gone wrong? I suppose it was going back to full time work when ds was 6 months, rather than 2 weeks. It's meant I can neither afford school fees nor, damn it, 3 lovers and a flash car.

Bugger.

@TulipCat then I have absolutely no idea why someone would pay for private education in that case.

@Dilkhush oxford do not give contextual offers regardless of contextual data.

@Xenia

It was your decision to send your children to private school. Absolutely nobody forced you to. They are trying to level the playing field for those who would never be able to pay private fees regardless of what job they have.

Do you understand that there are some people who would never have ben able to get full time jobs which would pay private fees for their children because of lack of education, racial discrimination etc?

I think them and their dc are in a worse position than you and this contextual data should be passed into universities to level the playing field.

I don't think Xenia is that bothered by contextual offers. I don't have a problem with them either but I'm surprised to see our leafy comp on the list. Every other uni apart from Bristol seems to take students postcode into account.

I just cannot understand these ‘woe me’ attitudes from parents who send their children to private schools and say their child is disadvantaged at uni applications.

If state school kids have it so much better then withdraw your child from private, send them to state and save thousands of pounds a year and have them cruise into top universities with no effort like all the state school students do

@Trewser well then you believe there is a problem with Bristol’s contextual offer criteria, take it up with them then.

Their admissions email is on the website so you can give feedback.

BTW I'm really not woe-is-me about contextual offers. I think they're an essential thing and I find it infuriating when private school parents moan about it when their A* offspring doesn't get their Cambridge place. Of course private school is an advantage, otherwise who'd be daft enough to shell out for it.

I just want the places to go to people who deserve them, not for them all to be nabbed by those at exclusive faith schools/swapping at sixth form/grammar schools. But it sounds as if (with a few exceptions e.g. Bristol), they're not.

Who has said woe is me? Dd doesn't want Bristol anyway, she's doing brilliantly at her school and its far better than the comp pastorally, sporting and in the arts/debating/travelling, otherwise we wouldnt be wasting our money! I am surprised to see it there as local parents do try and pretend it is just as good as the private schools, but clearly not.

My children have got in where they applied to go so the system seems to work fine (none of my 5 tried Oxbridge) on the whole. It is just a bit of a blunt instrument and needs to be watched to see it does not become very unfair. My son's B is the highest grade in his school in that subject and I am very proud of him for all the effort put in. Who knows if he would have got an A star at a state grammar or a comprehensive but it was enough for his AAB Bristol offer, thankfully.

Some of the tools and schemes being used can feel a bit unfair eg to City employers helping children in London rather than white working class boys in Sunderland. (i am from the NE) etc.

@PatienceVirtue People have disproved the swapping form private to state at sixth form thing so many times on this thread.

Any university worth their salt ask if the student has only been in state education since they were 11 years old. Even if they were in private school for a month they would count as a private student for the statistics.

I have never heard of someone being given a contextual offer just because they are at a faith school? Where is your proof of that?

Finally I can say we at least agree on the grammar school point.

@Xenia well the problem with the city employers is not that they should support white working class boys in the North instead of disadvantage London students. It’s that they should be supporting both groups.

I don't mean anybody's getting a contextual offer for being at a faith school, I mean that some faith schools (certainly in London) have such complex admissions processes that only the very organised and motivated get their kids in there (e.g. Nick Clegg and Tony Blair). They're very high-achieving schools and it doesn't sound like pupils would get contextual offers per se but they'd count as a state school applicant.

Our neighbours avoided our v deprived primary for a private primary, child's now at selective state secondary with 2% FSM (Dame Alice Owen, officially a 'comprehensive') perhaps in part to small classes and much 11 plus prepping at school. Should they count as a state school applicant above a child who gets a bursary to a private school for sixth form, as one of those girls that Michelle Obama met when she visited an Islington girls' school?

But yes, you're right, completely agree that the moving at sixth form myth has been debunked!

I understand the points that people are trying to make that private or state, postcode etc aren’t the only relevant contextual factors. I.e physical abuse, how much time a parent had to spend on their child etc also plays a role.

But how would you expect a university to measure this? Do you want a box which asks if their parents have ever mentally/physically abused them? As soon as people find out this is a way to get a contextual offer than that will become completely redundant.

Postcode, the type of school attended, household income etc are actually proper definitions on which to be measured and aren’t open for interpretation. This is why they are used in admissions.

@PatienceVirtue
Well I can agree with you about the faith schools and grammar schools. It’s something which is again segmented by wealth in that whoever can afford 11+ tuition and to move closer to schools to be in catchment are more likely to get their children in.

But there are definitely many faith schools in perhaps less affluent areas of London that I know op whereby students get a less well rounded education due to religious biases too.

I am very much in two minds about those in private schools on bursary’s. in one way, they are there on academic merit and have parents who can’t afford the fees and probably achieved better than their peers paying fees.

However unlike a state school child they are receiving a private education and therefore they shouldn’t be treated as state school kids for university admissions.

IMO there should be an extra box which asks whether a child has a bursary/scholarship for their private school, how much of the fees they have to pay and this could be considered in admissions too.

Very children get a large bursary these days. And to be honest the parents who are only just managing fees would object to subsidising other children AND then having theSe other children advantaged when it comes to university applications. Why would they do that? You’d end up with a polarised school: oligarchs and disadvantaged. Nobody in the middle.

Very few children, that should say.

Xenia if all five of your children have got into the university to which they applied, then why on earth are you concerned about whether the children of women who didn't go back to work when their child was a week old have an 'advantage'?

strawberries the point about children receiving bursaries is they come from a low socioeconomic background. This has multiple disadvantages which cannot be compensated for by excellent schooling. Indeed, the bursary is there to try to close the gap, not that it ever can.

It does genuinely upset me when factors like poverty, being in the care system somehow become seen as desirable in the context of securing educational advantage when, in my experience, the reality of both is pretty shit.

@thehorseandhisboy I don’t think it is making these traits ‘desirable’. I think if you ask most people if they would exchange being with their family to being in the care system in order to get a contextual university offer they would obviously refuse.

It’s not making the traits desirable, it is levelling the playing field for those who are in these circumstances.

care leavers are less likely to progress to higher education than non care leavers, contextual offers help to close this gap as it is obviously unfair that people should have less academic opportunities due to family circumstances.

@Abraid2 sending your children to private school is a choice. People who send their children to private school and pay fees know they are subsiding other children’s education just like childless people who pay taxes are subsidising other people’s children’s education.

If they feel it is unfair that children whose families cannot afford fees get bursary’s and (possibly) contextual offers then they are completely free to enrol their children into state school like the large majority of parents in this country do.

Of course they are free to do this. But schools don’t always want to lose the ‘solid’ middle. So they may be wary of offering too many, too generous bursaries. A school made up of extremely rich and below-average-income children with nobody in the middle is a bit of a strange place.