State school oxbridge bias

[confusedmommy]

Hi, come March 1st, we are very likely to be in the fortunate position to be able pick between a top independent boys school in london ( KCS or St.Paul’s ) and a grammar school ( Tiffin or Wilson ) for my DS. The choice will be a difficult one for us. We can afford the fees but not without some sacrifices. Meanwhile I’m hearing that oxbridge is beginning to favour state school applications more so in recent years. Is this really true ? And if yes, is this only true in Oxford or is this trend seen in other top Russell group universities too. Given grammar is a realistic option for us, I am wondering even more if independent is the right choice for my DS ( who doesn’t really have a strong point of view personally )

One thing the government could do is eg make all money left to your university’s endowment IHT free. That in itself would make a difference. Plenty of alumni would jump at that.
Next, start actually managing the Oxbridge endowments properly.

Are places really shrinking when looked at over time however? When I went in 1979 5% of teenagers went to university. Now it is closer to 50% so a massive increase.
When my older daughter went to Bristol there were 50% fewer pupils on the identical course her brother did who graduated about 13 years late in 2020 because a few years ago the state lifted the cap (for students with AAB+ grades) as long as the university had space for them.

I don’t know Xenia.
Are you OK with Oxbridge places going to the DC of rich Chinese, Middle Eastern and Indian parents?
It is how the money has in most cases being generated that is an issue for me.

It is just another UK style elite sell off as far as I am concerned. No different than the real estate sell off in Central London to rich foreigners.
I know the private schools have been doing it for years, but shouldn’t we be restricting our unis?

I see the uni’s predicament - they need cash to compete internationally. However, I think it could be done in much better ways.
I do not think it is OK as a concept to subject our own students to contextualisation but not our foreign students. Of course the excuse is practical - we cannot check every school etc worldwide, nor their circumstances.
The reality will be very different. There are ways for rich people from these countries to repatriate semi dodgy money and clean it in our education system. And I am not comfortable with that.

@diar private schooling is more controversial than spending money on a big house because educational inequality has strong links to social mobility and long term life prospects.

I do agree that the differences between state schools is far greater than the difference between state and private and those with money dominate through their wealth access to all of them.

For the poster asking about academically selective private schools, parents choose them because it’s a fallacy that all bright children will do well anywhere. Gifted kids in particular are at risk of significant underachievement without appropriate levels of challenge and stretch that state schools lack the budget to provide. State plus tutoring and enrichment can make up for this but is a lot more work for all involved and might not be right for some kids / families. It’s the difference between buying a home turn-key and paying more for the convenience or buying a doer-upper and spending less money but more time getting the house you want.

Are you OK with Oxbridge places going to the DC of rich Chinese, Middle Eastern and Indian parents?

I'm not sure how many times we need to repeat this across all these MN threads, but international students do NOT "take" places from UK students. There are different quotas for each fee-paying category.

And such a question is disingenuous at best, given how many MN parents seem to be asking questions here (as the OP is doing) on how best to game the system, or how best to buy educational advantage for their DC.

I see it as being the other way round. If your children are very intelligent then they will do well wherever they go. Private school is often for parents whose children are a step or two down in terms of intelligence and so who need to do whatever they can to try to get them to do well.

This is already the case. All universities are charities and any gift to charity made in a will is IHT free, so long as the value of the charitable legacy is at least 10% of the value of the estate.

from the underlying issue which is places are shrinking for all UK students. And the distraction bait being used is privileged private school students have been taking those places. Or if you reverse it, that UK state school pupils are now taking your privileged DCs places.
Well guess what - they aren’t - the unis are selling the places to rich foreigners!

This is bollocks

Gifted kids in particular are at risk of significant underachievement without appropriate levels of challenge and stretch that state schools lack the budget to provide. State plus tutoring and enrichment can make up for this but is a lot more work for all involved and might not be right for some kids / families. It’s the difference between buying a home turn-key and paying more for the convenience or buying a doer-upper and spending less money but more time getting the house you want.

This is a bit of a sweeping generalisation. Some state schools can and do challenge gifted DC in spades. My DC's schools definitely do. It is true that the government funding levels for state selective schools is abysmal but, in our case, it is very much enhanced by generous donations from old boys and girls who have gone on to forge excellent careers themselves. There is never a shortage of encouragement for olympiads, writing competitions, staged Model UN and similar.
We have senior medics, scientists, city and human rights lawyers etc, many of whom are former pupils, and who are happy to come in to help pupils explore career options. I have one DC now at medical school and the guidance he got from his school with his application was much better than that which a friend's DC got at a well-known public school. I was passing on information to her from my son's school Medsoc. My daughter's school offered four languages including Latin from Year 7 and Classics is taught to A Level. Overall, I can't see much difference in the provision between what friends' DC get in London private day schools, apart from smarter premises, potent PR and probably more pandering to parents. We have never tutored simply because there has been absolutely no need for it. Of course, I know our own experience is not mirrored across the state sector and it is a selective school. However, there are also many excellent non-selective state schools across the country. We have friends outside London, whose super-bright children have gone right through the state system (also without tutoring) and have thrived, been constantly challenged and have gone on to achieve very well. One of their DC is just starting their doctorate at Harvard after a first degree at Oxford.

I'm not sure you are selling the attraction of grammar though. You would like your children to go to a school where they are able to reach their potential in an appropriate learning environment. Very many of us (my DC go to a genuinely mixed comprehensive - no tiny catchment with million pound houses here - and very bright children are able to learn effectively and come out with a clutch of good results.

The issue in your case seems to be that so many people don't use the local school but choose private education, thereby skewing the cohort. The option of grammar schools will have weakened the local school even more.

@sheepdogdelight, a bit more fundamentally, I would like my children to go to a school where they were not at risk of being stabbed!

Students by nationality
International students make up 45% of Oxford students.

65% of all graduate students are from outside the UK, as are 23% of all undergraduates.
www.ox.ac.uk/about/facts-and-figures/student-numbers

So Oxford sets the “quotas” and we should all cheer from the sidelines … so the quotas are set according to their budgets and strategy @BirdinaHedge

Pile of … - I don’t agree with our top places going to international students. I want them to go to the kids of PAYE UK parents and legal immigrants already resident in the UK.
Don’t see how that is disingenuous one bit!

So yes, they are jolly well taking our places.

@FaazoHuyzeoSix
“This is already the case. All universities are charities and any gift to charity made in a will is IHT free, so long as the value of the charitable legacy is at least 10% of the value of the estate.”

Yes, I know that. However, most alumni are not “rich” and don’t have 10 per cent to give because they have DCs et al.

Why can it not be everything? If every alumni gives 2000 to Oxbridge, that would make a huge difference. And if it is IHT free it will happen.

I went to a state comprehensive. We were completely horrified and shocked when contemporaries flooded the girls toilets by blocking the sinks with paper towels and turning on the taps.

DD goes to a state comprehensive. She rolls up her skirt before she leaves home, but doesn't dare keep it rolled up so high when she gets there 😂

That's the reality for the vast majority of state school pupils, not being stabbed.

I was friendly with someone from an evening class and kept in touch when she had a baby. She mentioned when said baby was less than a year old they were putting his name down for local prep schools. I must have looked surprised, because she said 'I wish we didn't have to, but the local schools are impossible'. 😮she grew up elsewhere, her husband went to private school.

It surprised me, it was a wealthy London borough (pre-children for me). When I looked them up the local schools all seemed fine... I suspect they never really considered state schooling..

@opoponax it’s not a generalisation to say that some gifted kids if not challenged will underachieve it’s just a fact. Your state school sounds terrific and most medics I imagine went to state school. I’m talking about gifted children not bright. There will of course be some state schools that are better or equal to some private schools but UCL research has shown controlling for all other factors including background and GCSE grades, independent schools produce higher A-level grades than state schools. on average independent schools are better academically and can have more resources for differentiation for the most able.

Yes, controlling for other factors independent schools provide better A-level results.

And, controlling for other factors, better A-level candidates from private schools don't do as well as slightly lower A-level grades as state school pupils at university.

Because once they have the same educational input, it shows the private school pupils better grades are due to external factors. not their ability or work ethic

Hence contextual offers. Universities are trying to differentiate between natural ability and work ethic vs the educational input from the school

@JennyForeigner2 what you’ve said isn’t borne out by the facts.

On average private schools outperform state schools academically. Also cognitive tests like CATs and ISEB suggest that the average ability in the independent sector is slightly higher than the general student population. Nothing crazy but the idea that private schools are for the less able isn’t true

@Sigma33 i don’t disagree with that except they are only doing this for disadvantaged pupils not all state pupils at Oxbridge. Otherwise everyone state or independent needs to get the same grades

It absolutely is borne out by the facts. Private schools do outperform because the fact is that with enough effort you really can polish a turd, but the underperformance of private school pupils at Oxbridge relative to state school pupils on a matched-grades comparison is pretty solid evidence that their A-Level results were inflated.

I’ll be happy to switch mine to a private school if I think that they need it, but I’m hopeful at the moment that they won’t. DH and I both have very good academic doctorates and hope that if our little ones need any turd- polishing that we can probably manage it ourselves.

@LondonGirl83 I quite agree. Selection inflates grades, whether state or private. I am glad if universities see beyond this when giving places.

And I have no skin in the game. DD struggles academically, and gets amazing support from her state school. Her best friend is academically talented, and is the Oxbridge/RG track. Their comprehensive state school meets both their needs and has excellent behaviour standards.

I would have been happy with any of the state secondaries in our Borough, on paper. Of course paper doesn't necessarily translate in practice, but I have met a number of parents from other schools who have also been happy.

@JennyForeigner2 these are two separate points.

1. all things being equal on average a private school pupil with get better grades than a state school pupil. Once both are getting the same education, two pupils of the same ability will get the same grades at university. This doesn’t mean private school pupils are below average at all but is a like for like comparison of students of the same ability.
2. the average ability in the private sector is higher than the general population. This is borne out by cognitive ability testing data normalised against both cohorts

So private schools take children on average who are brighter and get them better results than they would have gotten in state school even when factoring that in.

@Sigma33 its not selection inflating grades necessarily. UCL research suggests it’s the additional resources in the private sector.

Of course there are comps and grammars with huge value add scores that are wonderful and privates that are mediocre. I’m just talking statistical averages.

So of course you support universities taking those additional resources into account when offering places?