With Oxbridge taking less and less private school students, is it still worth it??

[SillySmart]

stats shows that the number of private educated students Oxbridge enrolled has dropped 1/3 in the past 5 years. Any thoughts?

Yeap, I think your message is spot on but I won't send my kids to a sixth form college so they can boost their chances of getting into Oxbridge at all, but for "the being in tune with the world and humanity" side of things.

I am sorry for the parents who feel offended because you say state educated kids are more "in tune" but, from my perspective as a state school teacher who has children in the independent sector, I can assert this is true. Of course, independent school children are also lovely. No one is saying there is anything wrong with them, but it is a fact that in this day and age of polarisation and widening socio-economic gaps in Britain, we need people from all backgrounds at the top who can bring broader visions of the world.

Also, it makes no difference what school they are applying from because their grades are contextualised against the average performance in THEIR school.

Every school has to publish a UCAS profile. This states the average grades attained for the last five years, among other contextualising info.

So someone applying with A star, A, A from Westminster etc, or a top grammar such as Tiffin in Kingston, could actually receive a negative contextualised grade score if the average profile at their school is higher (which it probably is). On the other hand, someone applying with the same grades from a school where the average grade profile is CCC would receive a very strong contextualised grade score.

If it’s against the school in most cases it would be better for that dc to attend state?

In a highly selective school the grades can be high.

Do they only look at average grades though? If DC gets AAA at a medium performing private like let's say St John's Leatherhead or Tormead, will they get a better contextualised grade than a child with the same grades at Wilson's / Tiffin Girls, assuming everything else equal?

Yes it is against their own school in every case. But it doesn't mean that it's always going to be better to attend a state school because how can you be sure if the same DC would achieve the same grades in a low performing state school as they would in a highly selective school ( state or independent)?

Children get carried along by their peers. If it's normal to get an A star and most of their class are working at that level, this becomes the norm and sets the level / pace of teaching and class discussions, so it is far 'safer bet' the child will receive the very top grade as they are capable of.

A student who achieves an A star in a school where most of the class are aiming for a C at best or who are disinterested / disruptive will indeed be an outlier and will be contextualised as such at the point of application.

But whether they get to the point of application is more uncertain, as children are highly influenced by peer group norms and may underperform. Or they might be lulled into a false sense of security if they constantly receive the message they are outstanding against not much realistic competition in a very mixed cohort.

Does Oxbridge always want the very brightest kids from everywhere? I have full respects for these unis but gosh there have been some serious glitches in their admissions in the past. I mean, Bojo, Liz Truss and Rees-Mogg went there.

Basically, if they are in a top grammar or independent, they can still get in the same as anyone else, but they have to accept that they need to have done 'MORE'. Top grades alone will not be enough.

This is fair. Where students have excellent teaching and a likeminded / equally able peer group, they can show the type of 'outlier' initiative Oxbridge are looking for by entering essay competitions etc. Or doing an EPQ, work experience or something else to make them stand out. Oxbridge are not penalising anyone. They just want to see that an applicant has made use of the opportunities available to them and pushed beyond those in some way. For a student in an underperforming school, just achieving the grades will be enough and they will have to have shown a lot of resilience / initiative in the context of their cohort. It's all relative and all contextualised.

There are many private schools that are awful, truly dreadful, I cannot understand why people pay for such mediocrity. However, the top 15 private schools in the UK are amazing, there are fewer oxbridge entries from these than in the past because a fair percentage of their students study at the top international universities abroad.

Those are around my generation. There was far less state representation in my day. There is much more outreach these days, support for those who aren't used to the process, etc. hell, I did '7th term Oxbridge' which wouldn't have been supported within the state system.

And for whatever you think of Boris, he is bright.

I think it's 60-70% of students actually at Oxford have achieved at least three A stars at A-level.

The problem is, the uni sets the minimum grade requirements at AAA, or A star AA so students from very selective independents with those grade predictions are lulled into thinking they have a fighting chance when they don't really. In reality, you would only get in with AAA or A star AA from a selective independent for some of the smaller humanities subjects. Otherwise, your application would have to be highly contextualised for some reason.

Ah, good for him! I must admit I yanked DS1 out of that school and sent him to a super selective (state) for A Levels - my fancy political ideals around education did not really survive contact with reality 😬

My DD (1st year Oxford) was an outlier. Low performing school and wanted to stay on for 6th form. All STEM A'Levels. Average A'Level grade for the school is a C - she got 4 A Stars. CAG's for GCSE's were pretty good too but Oxford put less weight on them due to grade inflation. She sat an admission test and to this day won't tell me her score.

Yes exactly carben. You DD was an outlier in her cohort. My DD is at C and also got 4 A stars. But the average grade profile at her very selective independent was probably one or two A stars and the rest As (nobody really gets a B, put it that way). So she did quite a lot of extra things over and above the basic A-levels (work published, won essay competitions etc) because she was aware of her advantage and needed to prove she could go beyond the opportunities conferred by the school. This is only fair, I think.

I have known students get contextualised offers for many reasons, council tenants, refugee status, orphaned, PP, homeless, etc

@Nimbostratus100 not from Oxford though because they don't make contextual offers. Many other Universities do though and usually for very good reasons.

I suppose one of the main reasons why parents paying for private school is to help their kids getting into a good university, right?

Only among the kind of parents who think buying the right car will help get their kid into the right school.

I’m a bit worried that private education might be looked at negatively by top universities.

Luckily, universities don't share your idea of what school is for.

This is probably why...

I’m not sure that is “pretty mixed”, though. How about the number of children with non-English speaking parents, those homeless or living in temporary accommodation, the number with SEN, the looked after children, those without any parents, those living in severe overcrowding, refugees, young carers? My DC’s very average primary had 65% children who did not have English as a first language.

My 14 year old has a friend who lives in what looks like a national trust Manor House with staff and a friend whose mum is a single mum who is a cleaner at the hospital on FSM. She knows them both. They do not know each other.

Boris is bright? He comes across as a complete idiot.

I don’t think it is good for a child to be an “outlier” and labelled the most academic in their school and so much emphasis placed on it and then they get to Oxbridge and there are lots of other really clever students around. It is never a good idea to make too much fuss about Oxbridge, not in any school. This is where the kids in superselective or high achieving schools (whether state or private) are at a real advantage.

@Intergalacticcatharsis there was absolutely no pressure on my DD to apply to Oxford by the school or by us. Entirely up to her - wasn't even mentioned as a possibility until after Easter of Yr12. She made her own decision to pick it as on option on her UCAS application and all the prep she did for it was off her own back. Believe me I was on a very steep learning curve from then on.

Yes, this!

I would assume that those who pay for private schools have decided to do that for a variety of reasons - eg facilities, smaller class sizes, more subjects on offer.

And yes, unis are wise to the ridiculous state for 6th form ploy. They look at the schooling history.

Have you a link to the 20%?
Not disbelieving, just a bit surprised. I've tried to google but can't find anything about sixth form in particular.
I'd expect more people at college and other settings at that level rather than more moving into the private sector.

Utter jealousy. Because if you could you would. I say that as a Daughter of immigrants, my parents were illiterate, we are of colour. It’s easy for white people to not buy an education (white privilege).

Once you tell me all these inequalities are erased from society, class prejudge, racial prejudice, sexism. Then I won’t buy my Asian second generation daughters an education. Until then I will because I worked my arse off to do.