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?

How do you know what class these people are? Do you judge their class by their accent, or do you have details of the backgrounds of all the people you are explaining things to?

"Many parents sending their children to private schools aren’t privileged. They work really hard sacrifices a lot and in fact many gets bursaries as well. There is nothing wrong in being aspirational. Not all children going to private are born with a silver spoon."

Possibly not. But they are all born with a spoon.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow
Yes but the ones 'on the websites' are the ones where they will actually take a child with lower grades, taking their disadvantaged background into account.

I imagine what you're talking about is if they are comparing two students with the same grades they may be inclined to take the state student, partly to fill their quotas. But this is totally ignoring the fact that children are more likely to get better grades from a private school (a good one anyway), so they are still at an advantage and therefore would argue it is still 'worth it', not to mention grades / uni application isn't the only benefit of choosing private anyway.

A vast proportion of people looking for private schools are doing so because of better quality teaching / smaller classes / less disruptive behaviour.
(Yes I know not all, some really are looking for sport or wrap around care, plus of course SEN).
The logical extrapolation of that however is they think their children will get better results in private than otherwise in state.
So to me it is only reasonable for universities to go for a state candidate above a private one if there are equal grades, especially if the state candidate is coming from a comp.

(I say this as a private educated Cambridge graduate.)

No. As a parent we had to fill in contextual background as part of UCAS application. E.g illness etc. We had to do this at the end of Year 12. School then put it on UCAS forms.

So it is just an outline on uni websites. If you have any context it would be considered.

I mean that's not unsurprising that there's a space on the form to write things like that. But I wouldn't put much hope into the that being factored in, if one of the official contextualised critia isn't met (bottom 20% school, having been in care etc..) and if it is taken into account I don't think it would lower the grades needed (unlike with the official contextualised offers). So it would be being compared with children of the same grades.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow
And are you suggesting that writing 'went to a (not crap) comp / went to a grammar' on there would give you an advantage over someone who gained better grades?

Makes sense to be able to note illness etc, which is a different matter to the topic of this thread

@TheaBrandt Goodness me. I must make sure that my unborn son is called Sean, wears nothing but denim and T-shirts and speaks proper Estuary English. We will never live in a posh house, fortunately. That way we can ensure that his innate cleverness will shine through.

I need to know their circumstances to do my job.

Oh chill out! Was just making the general point - just annoys me SOME people that are not that bright do so well in life and those from more modest backgrounds who are just as sharp don’t.

This is life all over though isn't it, and doesn't just apply to education/jobs.

No, l was talking about illness, problems, things like that. They are still contextual backgrounds and subject to contextual offers.

AND, my dd is very bright but has ASD. I enquired about this with a Russell Group as a contextual background relating to their offers.

The Equal Opportunities people were very interested when l said she didn’t fit their offer. And they contacted them to tell them so.

I was responding to the poster making the point that private school pupils were more intelligent

So many generalisations here. Many people go back to state at 6th form not to game the system but because there is far more choice, at least in London, at this stage then there is when moving to secondary where tiny catchments mean that you end up with a school you're not happy with. Loads of people I know would have happily sent their kids to a state school if there had been a good or outstanding one available. I send my child to a mediocre private school because I felt it was a better option that the local choice. He'll go back to state at 6th form as his school doesn't have one. A few kids I know got into Oxford having gone to outstanding state schools in London where they had a similar level of support as they would have had in private. These applicants, and those from grammars, should be subject to the same positive discrimination as those from private schools. It's not about private v state as there are good/bad ones in each and there are people gaming the system in each. Also, why are people still obsessed with Oxbridge? The most elitist and privileged establishment possibly in the world? There are many many other good if not better options which don't involve looking forward on others.

Ok, but this thread is about whether it's still an advantage to go to a private school Vs State.

And people reference contextual offers in terms of this, saying it's easier to get in from state. Which isn't true, unless the state is bottom 20% it won't qualify for the offical contextualised offer (which means lower grades can be accepted) Or if you're comparing two students with the same grades, unis may favour state. But as mentioned they are more likely to get those good grades at private anyway.

I brought it up because you are incorrect in your contextual offers. It doesn’t just apply to people from rubbish state schools. It applies to a lot more than that. Disrupted studies come under contextual offers.

https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/study/policies/access-sheffield

Yes, it also applies to people who have been in care, live in disadvantaged areas etc etc, but this thread is about state Vs private, that's why I was mentioning that element of them in particular

But 'from a more humbled background' means more than just going to an average comp / state grammar. It means going to very low achieving comp, coming from a very deprived area, having had very disrupted studies due to illness etc. They aren't randomly taking children which lower grades because they didn't go to private school. You are still much more likely to get the grades / get into your uni of choice from a private school.

Our local comp in a very affluent area doesn’t get the same treatment for Oxbridge as one from a more deprived area. They look at postcodes.

Wow. The ignorance and smugness will never cease to astonish me!

Wow. The ignorance and smugness will never cease to astonish me.

There’s also inverted snobbery on this thread - sneering at posh Hugo with his big house and pink shirt (oddly, no mention of red trousers).

Name999999 · Today 12:50
Our local comp in a very affluent area doesn’t get the same treatment for Oxbridge as one from a more deprived area. They look at postcodes.

Do they look at postcodes of the schools or postcodes of the applicants’ addresses?

For some universities it can be any state school, in combination with other factors, not just state schools in lower performance bands that can qualify for contextual / widening participation offers.

eg Edinburgh and Durham - any state school with students home address being in the lower two quintiles of POLAR4

Some universities used to have a list of specific schools which were eligible for contextual offers regardless of where the DCs lived (I know because DD's secondary modern was on it).

I thought one element of contextual offers was comparing an individual's results against the school's ie if the average A level grades at a school are 3 x Ds and a pupil achieves 3 x Bs then clearly they have done exceedingly well in the context of that school. Albeit they haven't got any A grades.

Whether they would have achieved 3 x As at a better school is a moot point, and is bound to be subjective. That's why contextualised offers are a somewhat blunt instrument, though personally I think their heart is in the right place.

Yes, and that's not right either, but the ridiculous attitudes displayed by people like the OP are not exactly helping poor Hugo's case, are they?!

Crap like the stuff that the OP is spouting only feeds the stereotypes about private school "types" having a superiority complex, because clearly, some of them do.

Now, of course, little Hugo may be delightful and not like that at all, and he has every right to be judged on the basis of his own attitudes and behaviours, not the awful attitudes of people like the OP. Unfortunately, that's not always how it works, and the shitty arrogance of some is unfairly associated with others who are not like that at all.