My son has been accepted to Cambridge this year. He is at a selective independent school. Yes he has had the benefit of teaching that’s been excellent on the whole, as well as the benefit of being surrounded by peers who pretty much all attained 9s and A*s. I don’t underestimate this! However, there is no special Oxbridge guidance in the school whatsoever. The things he talked about in one of his interviews were things he did off his own bat and nothing to do with the school.
As I understand it, at 6th form age, just over 20% of students nationally attend independent schools. So Oxbridge are looking to reflect this 80 / 20 national picture in terms of admissions. The situation is complicated by the fact that many independent schools are academically selective (some highly so) so you would naturally expect a higher proportion of those in super-selective schools to be in a position to apply anyway. In the same way, you can’t compare a selective grammar to an comprehensive and complain that more are applying to Oxbridge from grammars.
Based on the Cambridge stats from the last few years, most colleges seem to be achieving between 70-80% state intake. Obviously this hasn’t always been the case, but most colleges are already hitting their widening participation targets by the look of it.
As for the so-called ‘squeeze’ on applicants from the independent sector - well, those students such as my DS will just have to recognise that three A* from a ‘top’ school are going to look less impressive than the same grades from a low performing school and adapt accordingly. By ‘adapt’ I mean, use extra initiative - in the same way that those in low-performing schools have has to compensate for gaps in teaching or generally low standards in their schools. Students in top schools will have to ‘do more’ basically. This is the reality if it. They can go beyond the curriculum by entering essay competitions and this kind of thing. Show they have drive and determination that way. I think this is fair enough.
Also - I can only speak for Cambridge - but teachers in independent schools are still claiming that it doesn’t matter which college you apply to because the ‘Winter Pool’ will ensure that the best applicants are offered places across the university. I think this is poor advice.
In the case of applicants to Cambridge from the independent sector, college choice absolutely matters nowadays. There was a thread some time ago on MN, on which two admissions tutors admitted that independent applicants will very rarely, if ever, be taken out if the Winter Pool these days. This is because colleges now go to this pool to look for certain candidates to top up their widening participation targets. (abeit very able candidates). They are all aiming to hit the 80/20 contextualisation target and no college wants to be out of the loop here since they now mainly use the Winter Pool for this purpose. I think this has been the main shift and this is why many independent schools are noticing a downturn in their Cambridge success rates - ie a student will either be accepted into their first choice college or not at all.
As an applicant for from the independent sector, you are better off applying to a college that, in recent years, has already been receiving about 80% of its applicants from the state sector (many colleges now do, but not all). Then you can be more sure that you are not being potentially ‘squeezed out’ because of contextualisation. You can look at the admissions stats - some colleges have 80% ish state applications and 80% ish state intake - so that’s fine. Other colleges only have say, 68% state applications but are still aiming for 80% state intake. You don’t need a degree to work out which colleges independent candidates have a better chance of being accepted to.