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?

Top Eton students are going to Harvard because Oxbridge snubbed them

What you actually mean is that Oxbridge is no longer a shoe in for top private school leavers.

A 2018 <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.is/o/sjipN/www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-46470838" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Sutton Trust study showed that just eight institutions, six of them private, accounted for more <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.is/o/sjipN/www.ft.com/content/15da8c42-b325-11e9-bec9-fdcab53d6959" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Oxbridge places than 2,900 other UK secondary schools combined.

The two state schools were Hills Road and Peter Symonds.

https://archive.is/sjipN

the kids at these schools are surely not applying to both Oxbridge and US?

...why not? I did. People apply to many places to be on the safe side. I studied where I got a scholarship. It was not a brainer to chose.

No @SabrinaThwaite - it is not about “shoe in” or sour grapes. The boys who are relatively intelligent decided some years ago that they won’t play the game themselves. So there is mutual snubbing.
Why is it even a problem?

I totally get that if you have been to Eton and rowed on the Thames then maybe you want a new experience and the US is more exciting? Especially if you have seen some of the most talented boys in the year above being snubbed. So off you march to better pastures? If you can?

Hills Road and Peter Symonds are full of privileged middle class white kids with educated parents. Just another category of privilege. Just look at Winchester or Cambridge house prices.

“the kids at these schools are surely not applying to both Oxbridge and US?”

The schools are advising them not to apply to both. Because it takes up too much time to follow the process properly, as well as A level, as well as play X, Y Z sport, debate and orchestra etc. Why would they apply to both?

If you want to maximise your chance for Ivy League you need supracurriculars. So that is where the time goes.

No idea what Hills Rd is like but Peter Symonds is the largest Sixth Form college in the country and has a huge catchment area with a mixed demographic. Kids get bussed in from all over Hampshire and even from surrounding counties.

@RedFluffyPanda - I did say this year (2023 applications) the tide is turning back towards private schools again, because the unis have realised.

All of Westminster, Eton, St Paul’s have some very clever kids too. Just because their parents paid up and sent them there, you cannot hold that against them. It makes zero sense. When you then realise as a uni that you are losing out to other unis then of course, you have to adapt as well.
Brampton Manor is also full of clever kids and pushy alpha parents. You do not need to be rich to be an alpha parent.

All these competitive schools whether private or state are self selecting. Intelligent ambitious parent has intelligent ambitious child and chooses schooling accordingly from an early age.

There have to be checks and balances on universities, of course. But unis need money and donations as well and international fees. So it is a question of balance. There are loads of scandals around Harvard/Yale etc allowing in rich kids with big donations. But then those donations fund poorer bursary kids so I cannot get too worked up about it.

If you want to maximise your chance for Ivy League you need supracurriculars.

It's my understanding that this is one of the big differences between top universities here and in the US. The US want all those supracurriculars because its degree structure (initially at least) is that students take all sorts of, often unrelated, courses and modules and it is looking at the whole person rather than a, say, chemist or engineer.

Oxbridge only want supracurricular if they are directly relevant and related to their degree subject and will specifically help their studies. One Oxbridge admissions tutor of my professional acquaintance told me that he 'didn't give a monkey's what students did in their spare time'.

Maybe the US-style structure appeals more to the teenagers of today than it used to? It is arguably better if you are going to have a portfolio career with different jobs requiring different skills, and I can certainly see the appeal of a Liberal Arts degree, which seems to be gradually coming in in the UK too.

“No idea what Hills Rd is like but Peter Symonds is the largest Sixth Form college in the country and has a huge catchment area with a mixed demographic. Kids get bussed in from all over Hampshire and even from surrounding counties.”

And you can board there for over £18000 a year. What is the FSM rate for 16-18 year olds? The demographic is not listed on the DFE website. It is a large successful college. Where are the diversity and FSM statistics?

@Intergalacticcatharsis Eton details are available:
https://teacherprep.princeton.edu/document/248

A little earlier someone mentioned Asian children working very hard and doing well (which is true). It was on their behalf the university Supreme Court litigation was brought as they were actively discriminated against on grounds of race in favour of black students. The court held that to be illegal - a correct decision in my view. the UK Equality Act 2010 is the same - no discrimination on grounds of race allowed. The US is busy ensuring it removes the racial discrimination it had in its university at the moment after the Supreme Court decision.

How to be fair is never easy but pure exam results is one route which most people think is fair.

I don't think we are too far off being fair even with contextual offer systems particularly if Oxbridge let in people of any class or school who are not very good employers will not hire those people anyway so it all works out okay in the end.
It would be a pity for hard working FSM children if just as Oxbridge has got about the correct % from state schools based on 20% fee paying at 6th form level, that employers move to recruiting institution blind

To be fair @Intergalacticcatharsis, Peter Symonds has a massive 'catchment area' because most Hampshire comprehensives don't have sixth forms and you also get loads of Wiltshire kids going there for sixth form because it has a better reputation than most of the alternatives barring the Wiltshire grammar schools.

My nephew and goddaughter both went there – at different times but relatively recently – and neither of them fit your characterisation as they are neither white nor middle class and none of their parents had a university education. Very small sample of course, but I do feel you're generalising a little.

This is from the Eton website

https://www.etoncollege.com/college-life/after-eton/

“US and Global UniversitiesWith over 15% of leavers applying to the US, supporting prospective US applicants is the joint responsibility of the Master-in-Charge and the US Universities Adviser. The US Universities Adviser also offers preparation classes for US standardised tests (SAT or ACT), for which an additional fee is placed on the school bill. Eton enjoys private test centre status for the SAT, allowing boys to sit tests on site. Eton also benefits from having an Annenberg Fellow, an annual post filled by a recent graduate of a top US institution. The US universities team not only advises the boys about their applications, including the essays that form part of the application, but also supports their House Masters and teaching Masters in preparing their references. Boys are encouraged to engage with the US universities team from D Block (Year 11) onwards through a series of lectures, visits by admissions tutors, and targeted advice at critical points in their Eton career.
A small number of Etonians go on to universities in the rest of the world, which have included Trinity College, Dublin, Canadian universities, Bocconi university in Milan, and the University of Hong Kong.”

@Xenia “It would be a pity for hard working FSM children if just as Oxbridge has got about the correct % from state schools based on 20% fee paying at 6th form level, that employers move to recruiting institution blind”

No I think it is still good for FSM kids to go to Oxbridge and attend formal hall and deal with all the shenanigans and hear the speakers/societies and experience the full stocked library and what the world can offer. And get an insight into the don bubble as well. It is not too different than many other British bubbles.

Employers are uni blind because they just do not care where you went to school or uni. They want intelligent competent people who work hard with people skills and common sense. The rest is simply irrelevant. You cannot pay for your unmotivated child to go to private school and reach that nor can you push push push your lacking in common sense child all the way either. Once they leave uni, it is down to the kids. No amount of helicopter parenting that has become the trend these days will do. I actually think people are holding their DC back with the amount of helicoptering and cushioning going on.

I studied in US at postgradual level. Honestly, I applied to around 10 universities. The requirements were the same everywhere and the same statement. It is no brainer to complete the few forms. The chances of getting in or getting a scholarship are higher if one applies to several places.

Hills also has a big intake from the Cambridgeshire villages were house prices are very average as most schools stop at 16, certainly don't need to be rich to go there. Bright yes. There are quite a few switching from private at Hills as they think being a state applicant will increase their chances of Oxbridge but certainly Oxford has wised up to that and does contextual on where you did GCSEs. But some privately GCSE educated Hills Road are getting deprived contextual offers despite living in million pound houses from RG unis. as parents bought houses in the right postcodes. Bristol also does not give contextual for Hills but will for Long and the few comps that have sixth forms despite almost all the kids coming from the same feeder schools. I think Oxbridge now aims to be a meritocracy thus will try to cancel out the gain in results from private.

“But some privately GCSE educated Hills Road are getting deprived contextual offers despite living in million pound houses from RG unis. as parents bought houses in the right postcodes.”

Isn’t it more likely that those parents just bought a big house and then had no great 11-16 catchment school and so went private for those years? Because moving again and paying out stamp duty would be far more expensive?

”I think Oxbridge now aims to be a meritocracy thus will try to cancel out the gain in results from private.”

But all bright kids are getting 3 A stars these days at A level anyway regardless of what type of school they go to? Because there are just so many A stars now. So it is pointless to go private for results and far cheaper to tutor. People choose private schooling for roundedness, childcare, happiness, sports not results. Especially in London - people don’t choose for results. They choose for stability/mental health etc extracurricular.

I think all bright kids get 3 A stars is a huge exaggeration ....

@RedFluffyPanda Those Eton details are from 2020/1 so not upto date

“I think all bright kids get 3 A stars is a huge exaggeration ....”

Well they do in my DCs London grammars. They attended different ones.

I think Peter Symonds is quite different from Hills Road. PS has 4500 pupils? Hills Road more like 2700 students.

According to this https://www.hillsroad.ac.uk/ 93% went on to Higher Education and 50% got First Class Honours at uni in 2022. It clearly is a very privileged intake, in an educational sense at the very least.

I don’t think it is fair to accuse local private school parents of gaming the system if they move their DC their for Sixth Form. There is probably a wider range of subjects available and it is free. Why should anyone have to pay for private school if there is a better local state options available?

But it is indicative about the trend there. And more we can read here:

https://www.etoncollege.com/college-life/after-eton/

They are not storming European universities and the very same European university pops up as with St Paul's and Westminster: Bocconi university in Milan

ALL the pupils got three A stars? Wow. Kids I know at well-regarded grammars got things like 3 A stars or A-star, A, B

I have met a few Oxbridge graduates in my life. The disappointing detail is that they do get redundant as well and they are sometimes jobless just as the graduates from any average university in UK. I know two dudes who studied humanities and struggled to get a job.
So much effort to get in and not an amazing career...
The University of Oxford or Cambridge on the CV only helps a bit to secure job as a graduate. Later on it is all down to the job specialty and experience accumulated over the years.
Not to mention that nobody is particulary interested on earlier education if you were in St Paul's school, selective grammar or state comprehensive but what experience you have and how you present yourself.

Couldn't edit this in time but I meant to say got things like three As. Unless you're counting Covid marking three A stars is still pretty exceptional in my world but maybe that's just me ... Friend with a child at one of the schools being much discussed on here was saying just the other day how no one got three A stars.