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.

@Abraid2 what I said still stands in my opinion. Of course there are going to be a middle ground who struggle to pay private school fees but they can easily solve that issues by sending their children to state school.

Why should middle class people who want to send their children to private school for an educational advantaged be given contextual offers for university? They are not educationally or economically disadvantaged.

And before you say ‘the children have less holidays/cars/electronics because their parents are paying fees’ then we are right back to my initial point - their parents chose to do this and sending them to state school would solve that issue instantly.

strawberries quite.

I don't think those experiences are desirable at all (having lived through both). But somehow when socioeconomic background is included in contextual data, this somehow gets seen as 'unfair' to children who don't have the same disadvantages but might have abusive but rich parents aka Xenia's worldview.

If I’m being honest I personally do not care at all if less middle class student people go to private schools because their parents don’t like the fact that the school gives generous bursaries to disadvantaged students.

@thehorseandhisboy I really do not see how you think the problem can be solved. Being in care, a young carer, from a low income family etc. are things which can actually be verified and checked and so this is a reasonable basis for contextual offers.

Do you believe universities should ask whether students have been (abused by their parents/ neglected / had minimal time with their parents as their parents were working) and if the student says yes, give them a contextual offer?

I think you can easily see how a system like that could be abused. It just wouldn’t be viable to base contextual offers on things like that which would not be able to be proved or verified at all.

However a lot of people are focusing on offers and not actual university places. There are many situations in which a student misses their grade on results day and can contact the university and tell them about anything going on during their exams/ study period which may have effected their results and the university can consider accepting them anyway.

I honestly believe that this is the only feasible way to deal with issues that @Xenia was talking about.

*strawberries8 the situation can't be 'solved' per se.

The HE system has become much LESS meritocratic with the introduction of tuition fees and cutting of maintenance grants.

Access to selective education has always been based on income and even more so since the partial nature of the 11+.

Universities should be able to make contextual offers based on things that are known to be structural disadvantages ie being poor, being female, being in the care system, having a learning disability, having English as an additional language etc etc.

I was disagreeing with Xenia's viewpoint that a child who is privately educated but beaten every night is structurally disadvantaged.

@thehorseandhisboy

Well it seems than that we agree.

@crosspelican there were a couple of misunderstandings in your comment - sorry, don't want to nitpick but these might matter to some :

(how many state schools offer Philosophy, Politics or Economics?).

None of those is a 'facilitating subject' and you don't need to have studied any of them to apply. It wouldn't be an advantage to have studied them. The entrance test is for aptitude, not knowledge.
The PPE course assumes you have not studied them before. In fact, you're probably more likely to find philosophy on offer at A-level at a state sixth form than a private one as the private schools do focus more on traditional subjects.

a state school is less likely to offer Latin and Greek at A Level (whereas I bet nearly all independents do), and you need top marks in at least Latin OR Greek to apply.

No you don't. Oxford offers a Classics entry route specifically for people who've studied neither one. It was introduced to widen access and is strongly promoted. My old college has recently appointed a member of staff specifically to encourage applicants for Classics from state schools via this route.

@XelaM I thought there was a study published in December 2018 that 8 schools dominate Oxbridge (all independent schools)

Oxford makes admissions statistics by school publicly available, so you can look schools up and see how many Oxford applicants they had and how many received offers.
The offer rate for applicants from these schools is similar to, and in several cases lower than, that for a number of selective state schools. Some independent schools, like Eton, have huge sixth forms and are very selective in the first place. The offer rate for Adams' Grammar School (state) was 44%, for example, while that for Eton was 25%. But Eton had a lot more applicants.

*Universities should be able to make contextual offers based on things that are known to be structural disadvantages ie being poor, being female, being in the care system, having a learning disability,

Thehorse, I heard the Labour politician who brought in student loans on that issue on radio 4 recently and he said despite what people say that more not fewer children from from less well off backgrounds are getting in now there are loans. That is the opposite of what is being said on the thread so may be someone can go to check the data on it.

in theory it should not put people off -you get about £8k loan if you are from a poor background plus fees and only £4k loan - not enough for rent -if your parents are better off even if your parents contribute not a penny so in a sense more of those less well off can go than even in the days of full grants when only 15%of people got to go at all. Given you never pay a penny back unless you earn over £25k which any student can check in about 2 minutes it perhaps ought not to be off putting particularly for those who get these full loans which I think ar up to £11k a year in London for your maintenance alone.

I don't have a major beef with the current system but I can see unfairness creeping into it if we are not careful and as I say my 5 children got in where they were happy (one - my older son got his place in clearing at Reading as he missed his grades (yes in private education as people do every year from state and private schools ) for Exeter).

I looked at Dame Alice Owen school on Bristol's list (state school) and it is not disadvantaged - not bottom 40% www.bristol.ac.uk/media-library/sites/study/undergraduate/documents/English-aspiring-state-schools-2020-21-cycle.pdf which seems fair enough.

Politician in 'my policy is fab' shocker! Honestly, Xenia, when have you ever given anyone from the Labour party any credence!

Of course more children from poorer backgrounds are going to university - approx 50% of young people now go to HE, rather than the 15% from a few decades ago that you mention. Many of these are the institutions that you describe as 'particularly poor' up thread, so make of that what you will.

Also, when loans were brought in,HE was still divided along university/polytechnics lines - so even if admission numbers didn't change, of course more young people go to university!

Young people will need to earn over £25k per year if they want to be able to actually live in London in particular. I'm happy to disagree with you about the benefits of entering adult life with a huge debt (fact check - I think it's crap).

Everything in society is 'unfair'. Society has become increasingly 'unfair' in recent decades as the wealth differentials between people increase, and the basics of life in a developed country ie reasonable housing are out of the reach of so many people.

Contextual offers are an attempt to reduce some of the barriers to entering HE, especially in sought after institutions.

I think the thing that I have the most problem with in all this is people who have multiple advantages in life complaining about things being 'unfair' when there is any attempt made to reduce the effects of that advantage, even if the effects are minimal and don't particularly impact on them.

Hello there ,,my daughter got an offer from Camden School for Girls .. but she cannot decide which either CSG or North Bridge House which is a private school and pretty similar ranking ……
can anyone advise me ? Who knows about CSG ? NBH??

The private to Camden route is as old as time. The hint is in the name, contextual the context of the school matters, not whether their state or independent.

AHH why would you resurrect a zombie thread instead of starting you're own??? @Newtothismumsworld

@PatienceVirtue I've only skim read the thread, so somebody may have already made this point, but Oxbridge don't give contextual offers. They do use contextual data to help decide who to give offers to, but all the offers will be the same - a students at comp x will need to get the same grades as a student at private y. (This is different to some other universities, which will offer lower grade targets to students from certain backgrounds).

Secondly, each university may have their official targets set out on their websites. Oxford's are here and say nothing about state/private: www.ox.ac.uk/about/facts-and-figures/admissions-statistics/undergraduate/additional-info/access-agreement-target-categories

However, individual admissions tutors are likely to have their own systems and biases that aren't published. The Higher Education forum on Mumsnet sometimes has posts from former admissions tutors giving insight into this.

Ah, just seen its a zombie thread. What a pain!