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 )

No I am not accusing anyone of corruption. Mere information sharing.

The type of person who became a teacher at Eton tends to be friends with the type of person who became an academic. And they talk and they meet up as friends frequently. That is all I am saying.

I am not accusing anyone of insider trading, you wind your neck in.

Been in academic life a long time. Eton, Harrow etc. - a few academics come from schools like these but, honestly, most are not into jobs in academia

Well if I sent my child to the nearest secondary school, geographically, he’ll get beaten up for being bright, quiet, and working hard, all of which are despised at his nearest secondary school. Just sayin’ 👀 I’d love him to have the free education he’s entitled to and that we fund through our taxes, but sadly it wasn’t an option for us unless he was prepared to accept a certain level of violence/abuse in his daily life, so it seems we must pay twice: once through taxes and then again through school fees. ☹️

OP’s question is whether, all else being equal, Oxbridge admissions teams favour grammar school applicants over independent school applicants. Both groups are usually from privileged backgrounds. I don’t have the answer OP but would also be interested to know. I also wonder how much universities adjust for personal circumstances. Is an applicant from a low income background, who attended independent school on a 100% fees merit-based bursary, discriminated against in favour of an applicant from a high income background who got into grammar school because of their parents’ ability to buy an expensive house in catchment and pay for private tutoring for years? I don’t know.

But OP my advice is not to overthink it, if your DC do well at whichever school and are discriminated against, then they’ll do well at Harvard etc, the American Universities admissions teams aren’t taking the same approach as Oxbridge.

(Also, DH works for a top UK company who do ‘blind’ recruitment without regard to university or school name, and the vast majority of successful applicants who ace their recruitment process are coming from independent school, whether or not they came via Oxbridge…)

@Greenight I can sympathise with your issue regarding state alternatives. That would have been the situation for us had my DC not got into their grammars. From my own experience, if any group is overrepresented in grammar schools, I would say it is those DC whose parents have sent them to prep school and then privately tutored on top and switched systems at a convenient point. However, that aside, intake generally is far more diverse than my friends' DCs' London day schools. And buying expensive houses within catchment is just not true for the super-selective grammars where places are allocated on top scores over a wide geographic area. I can't comment on your DH's individual company but blind recruitment has its limitations and that is said coming from a sector where an Oxbridge degree, was pretty much de rigeur at point of entry, when I started my career. It has changed a bit now. Over the years I have seen how much comfort people seemed to take from recruiting in their own likeness. It takes more than a blanked out name of university or school on an application form to cancel that out. A lot can be conveyed even subconsciously through smalltalk. People tend to warm more to people like them. It's just human nature. I am absolutely not saying everyone is prejudiced but I think there can be an almost subliminal judgement of perceived risk of taking a punt of someone who is different from them.

*punt on

Yes, it doesn't surprise me that the candidates who 'ace' a recruitment process set by ex-private school managers are those who have also been to private school.

Obviously people 'like us' are the 'right sort of people' 😂

I mean, what if they weren't the best for the job? What if I got it for fitting the mould, not because I was a precious, special little diamond myself?

This thread has gone hyperbolic. Oxbridge is great, but it’s not that great. Other universities are available!

I think a good secondary education that fits your DC + anyone of the top 50 UK universities is a better choice than a poor secondary (chosen to game the system) + Oxbridge. Those seven years at a younger age will have a greater weight on your child’s formation as an individual than 3 years at Oxbridge.

@EmpressoftheMundane absolutely. Seven years in a poor school is obviously a dumb choice when there is a choice. And on the flip side, for the DC who don't have the privilege of that choice, it is only fair that this disadvantage is taken into account by universities and a fair adjustment be made. No big deal.

It will only become a problem if, and only if, people are let in who are not up to the standard and if those when they leave are not suitable for employers such that employers move to different universities and recruit from there. In other words the free market ultimately will work fine as it usually does.

We are in independent schools but I think it's fantastic that those in state schools also get the recognition they deserve! I have seen so many children in state schools showing off their results and Oxbridge offers this year. It made me happy!

Please could I ask a question.

I looked up funding for 5-16 year olds and it is £6970. There is so much about underfunding in state schools.

I always assumed that university students on art courses in huge lecture halls would be cheaper than state school pupils. But the academics are saying that is not the case and that the £9250 students pay does not cover it?

So are unis struggling as much as our schools? Are they run just as leanly as the schools?

There's a lot of cross subsidy between courses. So your English course is subsidising medicine and engineering etc, which need a lot of specialist equipment and books. Not much call for a full sized wind tunnel in your average secondary school. Pretty standard for an aerospace degree at a russell group uni.

You also have to pay a professor of cardiology a bit more than a primary school teacher because they are rarer and have so many other well paying opportunities.

The campuses are much bigger as so many more subjects are covered as well, I guess. Some of them have historical buildings to maintain that must be expensive.

Universities are very different from schools. They are as much research institutions as places of teaching. They are also large places (20,000 undergrads is quite usual) which include living accommodation, libraries containing many more and far more advanced books and journals than schools.

And so on. Think of a university as a small town.

Absolutely agree. And actually, the real lost potential is arguably not those children who have attended a mediocre school but are still well supported enough to achieve top (or nearly top grades) and will easily get into the top universities if not Oxbridge, but the ones whose schools are so poor and uninspiring (and also perhaps where parent support is lacking), that by the time they reach 16 they're already much too far behind to have a hope of Oxbridge (etc), and wouldn't cope even if they got there. I know a couple of these - kids who were SO good in primary that I have no doubt they could have been Oxbridge candidates if they'd gone to a different secondary (state or private), but they were so let down by their schooling that they ended up with very mediocre results at GCSE and A level.

I have just read an interesting article in the FT about how Chinese students are less keen on US unis these days.

www.ft.com/content/e636d024-c6d0-438b-90e4-6bb491c7560f

“Mainlanders are still going overseas to study, but more are choosing the UK, Singapore and Hong Kong, educational consultants say. Chinese students in the UK rose by 50 per cent between 2016-17 and 2020-21.”

From a funding perspective it is good news for UK unis. However, I am a bit worried about UK students - if our state schools are underfunded etc and kids potential is not fully reached then how will they get the top uni places? Especially if the top unis have no restrictions on how many UK places they have to offer? It is all a bit confusing. Or maybe the Tories like this because it means they don’t have to fund the unis more themselves (rich foreign students do it instead) and they get the next generation of highly skilled immigrants in to contribute to the economy.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/27/demand-prestigious-degrees-falls-first-time-eight-years/
And then this article is a bit worrying too. Why such a drop in applications to study medicine? When we are in dire need of future doctors? The right kids need to be encouraged to apply. Why the drop in applications to Cambridge from UK students?

Interesting articles thanks

5% drop doesn’t seem a huge number really but maybe it’s a big deal to the uni?

perhaps medicine seems like a stressful job so that’s put people off but as they can’t fit in all applicants anyway it prob doesn’t matter

the uk has a lot of Hong Kong families now so inevitable that students will choose here too

It is an interesting article. In the context of this thread, it would be illuminating to know the split between state and private for the drop in applications.

If I had a private school educated 6th former with predicted grades of AAA or even AA’A, I think the best advice would be not to waste a precious chance on Oxbridge, but to keep one’s powder dry for Imperial, UCL, LSE, St As, Edinburgh, Warwick, etc. Which are also becoming scarce an unpredictable.

Perhaps it's just candidates with very little chance having a better understanding of their odds now and not wasting everyone’s time, energy and emotion.

That was meant to be AstarAA and AstarAstarA.

Yes. I think also an element of the courses not seeming as modern as some eg London unis. Finance, business etc students have a lot of options and might prefer city unis with more variety of courses

The best possible secondary school education trumps the oxbridge. There are still IC, LSE, UCL & of course the IVY leagues.

Finance and Business are more vocational versions of Economics and Maths. I would be a bit surprised if Oxbridge expanded their courses in this direction when there are plenty of other places people can go if they want the more vocational base subjects.