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?

This is true. They select first for the interview stage and this is true to the predicted grades asked for when applying as well as any other outside tests needed for a particular course in Law or Sciences. Then if you have passed this interview stage (which was really rigorous for my DD's course) and they make an offer, they seem to lower the grades required if they want you. It depends on a lot of factors. But to get to the interview stage you need high predicted grades and they look at your GCSE's as well.

We send DC private for the quality of education, not for Oxbridge. There are other good universities in the UK and abroad and they may want to study (or not study at all!) there. We won't be giving DC money for the house deposit but we will give them the best education we can. What they will do with it - is up to them.

Oxford certainly take test results into account if applicable and written work. It also deigned if course is grossly oversubscribed or not. However most candidates ending up at Oxford have grades above the minimum asked for.

We turned down a top academic scholarship to a prep for our DS and he went state all the way. We are lucky that our state schools are very good.

All of the children were/are at super selective state grammars. DS1 started at Cambridge (studying engineering) this academic year. He got four A stars, 11 nines at GCSE, had to take the Cambridge PAT test and have two interviews - I'd like to think that he has got there on merit, not because he's gone to a state school and been given some sort of credit for the type of schooling. He said that they don't really talk about which schools they all went to, but most of his cohort went to ''normal schools'' and there is a significant number of foreign students in college (certainly he seemed in a minority when we dropped him off). He is working SO hard and I'm not sure is really enjoying it - he says he's "enjoying the challenge of trying to keep up"!

OP, I don't think it is remotely sensible to decide what school to send your 11 or 13 year old to, on the basis of two universities you'd like them to attend. The chances of getting in to Oxford or Cambridge shrinks every year as the numbers applying increases. At a recent dinner I was at, there were 12 people round the table - DH and I were the only non-Oxbridge graduates - 10 of them agreed they'd not get in nowadays!! Pick a school that you think they will thrive and be happy in - happy children learn - stressed and unhappy ones don't.

Panic that’s so interesting. School are gently suggesting year 12 dd1 applies to Oxford - she has recently said she doesn’t want to as she wants to go somewhere more fun and less pressured! It’s got to be up to her. So for me the choosing of a school for an 11 year old based on far off university admission seems bonkers.

One thing that is also worth bearing in mind OP is that many employers are now also less prone to prioritising Oxbridge candidates over other universities, in the name of social mobility, meeting ESG targets etc.

At the professional services firm where I work, all applications have the name of the university removed before they go in front of any decision-makers, in order to lessen the risk of unconsciously assuming that the Oxbridge ones will be better candidates.

@TheaBrandt if she adores her subject, and isn't afraid of hard work, then it's worth a crack. But DS's best friend who we all thought was a Cambridge 'dead cert' didn't get an offer, was devastated - but has gone to Durham and is having a blast with so many extra curricular stuff and without working in the hols. I barely saw DS over Xmas. He is doing a STEM subject so the workload is intense, but I do sometimes wonder whether he'd have had a bit more fun somewhere else!

My law firm has also become university blind (as well as “school blind”). So yes, what is the point of working your backside off at Oxbridge anymore? Or going to a pushy private school either, if you can go and have a nicer and more relaxing time in your local school and then just work hard for your A levels. Better and easier option now for bright kids from privileged backgrounds.

@Panicmode1 - I also sent my DC to competitive grammars but just assumed that they would be viewed similarly to private schools kids, because the vast majority of their peers got straight 8/9s and A or A stars. I don’t see their schools as ordinary state schools at all. They get trips and extra curricular more akin to many private schools.

“He is working SO hard and I'm not sure is really enjoying it - he says he's "enjoying the challenge of trying to keep up"!”

He will get used to it and once he attends the balls and societies etc and got used to the fact that he isn’t easily the smartest anymore, he will just be fine. It becomes a choice of how hard you want to work, just as much as when you work in an elite professional environment.

@Panicmode1
A super selective grammar is surely regarded more like a private school. It’s high end. There won’t be any contextual offers from that.

It’s a tough one we had a choice between very good state and private.

In the end I’d say go for the school that fits the dc. For some it won’t feel like extra hard work or pushy but a better fit.

In fact, I think it will be mental for DCs mental health in general if the pressure is off a little in their teen years to be top of the top all the way through.

I grew up in a European country where you just had to pass your baccalaureate and could then choose to go to any university. Employers were then only interested in how well you did at university and if you were organised and had good people skills. There is no need for our young to be pushed so early 11 plus/13 plus, GCSE, A levels, hard uni exams every year, then tons of job applications. It means early burn out and less overall happiness. With the ageing population the way it is and expectations to live until 90, kids should be kids for as long as possible, out in nature, playing, then happy teens etc and their brains keep growing into their early twenties. All this early pressure is no good.

“But DS's best friend who we all thought was a Cambridge 'dead cert' didn't get an offer, was devastated”

Somone needs to explain to these kids that there is an element of luck involved! As in, there are so many colleges - you pick one to apply to and it may have just been one where 2 other geniuses applied for the same course as you did, so you don’t get in! If you had applied to another college, you would have just been fine. It is literally down to random competition in specific colleges for specific courses. Yes, you might get pooled but really this is where the private schools know their stuff and don’t send the same kids applying to the same college for the same course and make them spread out etc.

He is incredibly focussed and driven - I didn't even know he'd applied to Cambridge until after he'd put in his UCAS form..he IS rowing and debating and going to socials, but he has an insane timetable (he said he thinks only NatSci has more contact hours), and has to schedule most of his time carefully to ensure he fits everything in. He is enjoying it really, but it is hard!

@Intergalacticcatharsis
I couldn’t agree more. Round here the pressure starts for the 7+ with intensive tutoring for the very academic prep schools. Some parents think that their job is over then if their DC gets into one of these schools but often the stress is just beginning because then the pressure to keep up with everyone else starts. Especially if it turns out that your DC wasn’t super bright after all but just a bit earlier to catch onto to the academic side of things than others in their cohort.

In fact, I’ve even heard of tutoring for reception school places and help with interview preparation etc for 3 year olds. Madness!

I think so much of this pushing in primary school and basing a secondary school choice on if you have a better chance of getting into Oxbridge is insane and a total waste of time. Time you could spend with you kids. Children grow and learn when they are happy and feel loved. Life is pressured enough. If you want build resilience in a child you have to allow them to fail on their own terms at various points in their life. I am baffled by so many responses in this post.

My DD's best friend had parents who both went to Oxford. She is incredibly bright. All 9's at GCSE, All A predicted A-levels at the time of the applications. Same state school as my daughter. Different subjects. Her parents put so much pressure on her. She made it to interview, was rejected by the college, but put in a pool and was interviewed again by 2 further colleges. She didn't get offered a place and the devastation was massive. It was awful. She received offers from 2 of her other choices. Good offers and schools and she almost didn't go to uni at all because she felt like a failure. She was going to reapply because her parents were so disappointed in her. All 9's and all A is not failing. It was hard because my DD got in.

She sat at my kitchen table and cried. I had to say to her "Take the offer from the schools that want to teach you, that are excited to have you. You don't know where life is going to take you, but you must seize this moment and go for it". I told her the story of my college applications. How I didn't get my first choice and then ended up in an incredible program that completely made me. She is now living her best life at Bristol and loving the course. I love her parents, but I think they did her a huge disservice. It should not have been me saying that to her. It should have been her parents.

@Artsyblartsymum
You could afford to say it though. Your Dc got in. You were not disappointed. You actually had a very smug position. Of course parents can be upset and not see things clearly. I was one when Dc missed a grade and didn’t end up there! You might pause and think how that feels! It’s difficult not to get invested in the process and want the best outcome. It’s hard to say it doesn’t really matter. X university is just as good when no one else believes it. Hopefully you won’t try out the upset. I don’t recommend it. However we all get over it but it’s raw when it all goes wrong!

But why are some parents so obsessed with Oxford? What do you see your child doing differently in 10-15 years if they went there as opposed to Bristol or UCL for instance?

I very much agree with this, and it is what I told my daughter when she did her personal statement. She was at a bog standard comprehensive and she did her PS on her own, I was really happy about that because surely the relationship between a university and a student, like any other relationship, relies on mutual affection ? If a college doesn’t want you, then that means it isn’t the right fit, not that you are a failure.
She did get into Oxford and she fits in there very well, but I have a younger daughter who will probably not apply as it doesn’t hold the same appeal for her. She is also academic and hard working but doesn’t want to have such short, intense terms. She can see the pressure her sister is under and wants something else.

It's a good question. Like I said earlier, and someone else has echoed, it doesn't have the same advantages I getting a job any more. The courses are not necessarily the most modern or innovative either, and you have less scope to combine subjects than you might at somewhere like Edinburgh.

For my parents, and me, Cambridge was a fantasy dreamworld compared to where I had grown up, a real chance to step into another world and be the family of "that girl who went to Cambridge when her parents both left school at 16." It had novelty, kudos and cachet and it was everything I hoped it would be. I also made many friends for life.

For my son, with 2 Cambridge grad parents, whose friends mostly went to Cambridge, surrounded by kids with Oxbridge parents in professional jobs it's much more normal and less relatively prestigious. For him and us the equivalent in exotic terms would be if he ended up at Stanford or MIT or the Sorbonne or somewhere. Or RADA or the Royal College of Music maybe. Or became a trainee chef in a Michelin-starred kitchen!

@NeverApologiseNeverExplain i suppose I just wonder if it becomes a restrictive family tradition, a bit like when all the males join the military - it becomes normal to the extent that they don’t consider anything else. DD is 3 and seems fairly average, of course I think she is bright and wonderful 😉 I don’t have any specific hopes for her but I suppose I would encourage something pragmatic, a skill - whereas the Oxbridge leavers when I was at school are still students 10 years+ later, doing PHDs and seemingly unable to cope with the ‘real world’.

It's more likely that someone with academic leanings who might end up being a career academic will get into Oxbridge. It's also possible that some develop a deep love of their subject while there. However the vast vast majority of Oxbridge graduates just get jobs afterwards. You have a very weird sample there if most of the ones you know are doing drawn-out PhDs. I know hundreds of Cambridge graduates and can only think of about 10 with PhDs. Huge range of jobs though. In fact, a lot of people see Oxbridge as a superior job networking environment, and it's really those social connections that parents are aspiring to for their children.

@TizerorFizz my DD got herself into Oxford. It is her accomplishment, not mine. I didn't do the work for her. I didn't write her personal statement. I never told her to apply. I didn't try and get her into a networking private school.

I told her to look at the courses she was most interested in and to narrow her choices based on that. I sent her to her local school in the middle of a housing estate because she could walk there and she would have local friends. The teachers and staff were caring and kind and didn't push them. She was bright and curious and I encouraged her and allowed her to continue that. No it was not perfect. It is their life not ours. Our job is to help them launch themselves into whatever they would like to do and to make sure they are good people. They have to do the work. They have to want to do it. Pushing them and making them feel like a failure if they don't get into Oxford or Cambridge or Harvard or Yale or any other those places is Bonkers.

They won't do well anywhere or in life if they feel like a failure and a disappointment to the people who have raised them. That's not smug. It is the truth.

@SirVixofVixHall I have the same with my middle DS. He went to visit his sister and he said he didn't think he could handle it there. "All she does is read and study" he said. Like I said above. They have to do the work once they are there. He may take a gap year. They need different things.

Agree with every word Artsy. Dd1 could apply but probably won’t. Dd2 is bright but a glamorous fashionista party girl so don’t see that as her path either! Dh struggled slightly as Cambridge was so important to him but they have to make their own choices.