Private v State & Oxbridge (& 11+)

[Morefreedomless11plus]

I read this and thought of Mumsnet... Interesting links to “11+ flawed measure of aptitude” and Cambridge University research on state pupils doing better than independent school pupils at university. Written to provoke.
www.telegraph.co.uk/education-and-careers/2020/02/11/need-protect-private-school-kids-places-oxbridge-stolen-disadvantaged2/

@titchy

Is that so? I’ve tried to find those specific stats but have been unsuccessful.

Given your absolute certainty in their existence, together with your unnecessary and witless cattiness, perhaps you could furnish?

www.ox.ac.uk/about/facts-and-figures/admissions-statistics/undergraduate-students/current?wssl=1

www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/apply/statistics

together with your unnecessary and witless cattiness, perhaps you could furnish?

I see the pp has kindly done this for you.

Witless and catty: yep. I get annoyed with posters with a chip on their shoulder posting nonsense without even bothering to do some basic fact finding to support their post.

PaddyFodder - also Oxbridge and all unis these days make “contextual offers” - eg DS is required to achieve A*AA for a particular course, the contextual offer for students in state schools (not high performing grammars etc) is AAB.

As for the disproportionate amount of students coming from independent schools, the fact is, private schools vary A LOT. You could argue it’s harder, relatively speaking, to get into some of the super-selective independents in London, where ten children apply for every place at 11+, than it is to get onto certain courses at Oxbridge where the ratio might be three applicants for every place. So it’s not surprising that certain schools will be sending 20% to Oxbridge, given how selective they are in the first place. Look at the GCSE results, 95% 9-7 grades at GCSE etc. They don’t claim to represent the national range of abilities, do it’s not comparing like with like. They will also be sending that number again to Ivy League or other equally competitive unis such as Imperial, UCL or LSE, etc.

There will obviously be other private schools that cater for SEN or non-selective ones, particularly once you get into less populated or rural areas.

It doesn’t matter where you are coming from, a “thicko” as you call him / her will not get into Oxbridge regardless of where they’re coming from. Those days are long gone. Getting AAA is hard from any school and nobody does the exams for them.

Though it is true, of course, that schools which see Oxbridge as perfectly attainable are likely to inspire more students to feel as if they can have a go.

That’s really interesting thanks.

Quick rough calculations suggest...

• roughly 20% of state school applications get offered
• roughly 25% of independent schools applications get offered
• roughly 13% of high deprivation area applications get offered

Interesting. Not great, but better than I’d thought.

So the main tasks are:

• more applications from less rich families
• more offers to those not privately educated

Other main tasks:

Continue to work on aspiration and attainment in state schools in all areas of the country, not just better off areas of London and the South East.

Lol. A 5% differential vs an 80% one in your OP and your response is 'not great but better than I thought'!

If you'd realised the gap was so small would you have started the thread I winder?

If you want to know what Oxford and Cambridge are doing read their access and participation plans. I'll leave you to Google yourself....

(State schools need to advise kids better too btw - there's a HUGE issue there with lack of aspiration from teachers, and downright ignorance in some cases: eg the really bright kid that wanted to be a medic advised to do a BTEC inHealth and social care for example).

I didn’t start the thread how passive aggressive lamp.

Back to the OP (don’t think anyone thinks Oxbridge are “thickos”.. great word btw) it’s interesting that state school pupils perform better at uni when comparing like for like with grades. And what do people think about the 11+ bit? I think it’s a valuable lesson for all of us going through it.

don’t think anyone thinks Oxbridge are “thickos”.. great word btw)

There’s a consensus among some on mumsnet that anyone who voted Tory or Leave is a thicko. Pro Brexit Tory ministers are therefore the thickest of all and no amount of Oxbridge degrees prove otherwise.

I didn’t start the thread how passive aggressive lamp.

Ah no you didn't. Apologies.

Apology accepted.

If “thicko” = Tory-voting Brexiteers then i still suspect they’re a minority group at Oxbridge

there are a strong minority of brexiteers who are extremely intelligent - in an evil supervillain sort of way. if you are rich and canny you can make a lot of money from the Brexit chaos. a lot of the EU regulations are there to stop the exploitation of the vulnerable by the wealthy. of course an unethical brain can think of dozens of ways to cash in, and therefore donates to the vote leave campaign and tells whatever lies necessary to persuade millions to vote against their own best interests.

The wealthy Tory brexiteers are not at all thick.

Another slightly random point from me is that the best schools will recognise that Oxbridge entrance is not the bloody be all and end all. Really good higher education departments (probably more prevalent in the independent sector) will be advising their students that the best place to do that particular course or prepare for that particular career might actually be LSE, or Bristol, or UEA, or Yale - and helping them get there. Oxbridge statistics are a pretty crude measure of how academically successful a school is.

Dropping the Oxbridge bit of it:
“State pupils do better at uni” (like for like grades)
&
we - and our kids - need to realise 11+ is a poor indicator of future academia

Interestingly I have found, in general, the posher private/public kids prefer catered accommodation. Doesn’t matter how shabby it is either - they just don’t want to food shop and cook. This is true of all universities I know.

Radical idea for Oxbridge: do away with the posh dinners, balls and public-school-like names and traditions, get a few more clubs in town and build a modern college with en-suite rooms with shared kitchens. i.e. a more ‘normal’ student experience. The great unwashed will follow .

Oo and advertise the courses better on the website with more emphasis on the modules and content rather than the colleges. And make sure some of the more traditional courses are promoted as current and modern.

It makes me laugh when people wring their hands about bright state school pupils not applying - many just don’t fancy it as a university experience.

No one’s child I know (from the state school my Dd went to) has any intention of working down in London or the South East in general. There’s not a big urge to earn huge amounts of money or to have Oxbridge on your CV to get into ‘top’ London companies. It’s actually quite a pain to get to Oxbridge universities geographically too from here. Normal things like that are more of a hindrance to pupils that are used to being at home and going to a local school.

At the public school I went to status/money/connections/competition was certainly more talked about. It’s not right or wrong just different.

As a pp said it’s just not the be all and end all for lots of state school pupils.

build a modern college with en-suite rooms with shared kitchens.

Heavens! You’re behind the times. There were Oxbridge colleges like that in the eighties.

and advertise the courses better on the website with more emphasis on the modules and content rather than the colleges.

You must be reading different websites to everyone else. Course content at both universities is more than adequately detailed. As is information on each college. In separate areas of the websites. In their printed literature, too.

Yes, I had an ensuite room and a shared kitchen back on the nineties. Loads of people chose to eat in hall because the food was so good and so cheap, but you could cook if you wanted. There were admittedly lots of shared bathrooms, but I think my college has pretty much all ensuite rooms now. They need to market to international conferences as much as to students, so they've really had to modernise their facilities.

I do think PP has a point about Geography.

If you live in say Newcastle surely there is less incentive to go to Oxford/Cambridge than say Durham or Edinburgh or Warwick.

another slightly random point from me is that the best schools will recognise that Oxbridge entrance is not the bloody be all and end all. Really good higher education departments (probably more prevalent in the independent sector) will be advising their students that the best place to do that particular course or prepare for that particular career might actually be LSE, or Bristol, or UEA, or Yale - and helping them get there.

THANK YOU!
FINALLY!

many of the undergraduate courses at Oxbridge are really not that inspiring, look at the course content!

Get your point about the facilities on modern rooms/kitchens. But it certainly is not promoted that way nor guaranteed you get a workable kitchen due to ‘pooled’ systems - that’s what we were told. It is much more of a risk if you want to be more independent. The outreach talk at Dds school discussed the formal dinners and balls and college system and choosing a college and the extra exams and different deadlines for getting in. Personally we thought the talk emphasised all the differences/ difficulties in getting in. Dd printed out the information on the best-fit course and found it lacking compared to other universities. It sounded very dry. This was 2 years ago. I did notice there was an article in The Guardian about this course and how student-pressure had led to changes I think they are bringing in next year.

Also I have followed the higher education board for a while. There is a thread with over 8000 posts about getting into Oxbridge this year. That’s a group of heavily invested parents. I know a pupil who does want to go from a northern non-selective state school whose parents didn’t go to Oxbridge. I started another thread and asked if anyone else was in the same position as they felt a bit different to a group on an open day. There were only 2. Hilariously the thread then veered towards disadvantage and contextual scores. The pupil in question is not poor nor disadvantaged by going to a northern state comp. We are not in a selective area for schools and it’s not a poor area. I hadn’t even considered that stereotype.

I’d welcome some views on the points that aren’t Oxbridge: state pupils doing better at uni and 11+ a misleading indicator. (Perhaps I should have explained I’m at the 11+ end of the secondary spectrum, not the uni application end).

As a society we can’t complain about the rich staying rich and powerful if at the same time we say I don’t care if my kids have access to opportunities that will make them rich and powerful as that’s not my ambition in life. That’s the main issue and as an American living in the UK I see this attitude as well as the fear Oxbridge isn’t for certain types as inherently linked with the negative legacy of the UK class system. English working class people intentionally opt out of opportunities they psychologically feel aren’t for them in education and professionally.

Grammar schools make up the bulk of state school admissions which is a bigger issue in my view that the private / independent gap.