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?

@tadger98

It gives detailed breakdowns elsewhere in the report but the 1 in 3 statistic is for option C only - private GCSE and state A level.

Pretty much every other possible option is 1 in 4 or lower.

@uk2020

Cambridge private school graduate here. I would love to understand why you think in a choice between a state school and private school student the dons should choose the privately schooled candidate? Scores aren't everything. And research (I'll have to find it) suggests state school graduates do better at university outcomes because they haven't been spoon fed.

This all the way.

A friend in another part of the country sends her DD to a local comp. Girl very, very bright and got into v selective grammar. Admittedly, she chose it because the comp is v good and more local which is fair enough. However, they could have gone private, own a large house etc etc so she's not disadvantaged at all. In fact, at that school, I think the top set probably outperforms some of the local grammars but because there are so many sets and poorly performing students, I'm guessing contextually her DD will be better off even though not disadvantaged in the slightest.

And research (I'll have to find it) suggests state school graduates do better at university outcomes

Just to qualify a little, the data indicates that state school pupils tend to do better at university than private school pupils with the same A level grades.

But yes, you're absolutely right @crosstalk, this is well known to be true among educational research professionals. There's a ton of data and numerous studies to back this up but as I no longer work in the field I can't quite be bothered to track it down 😅

I'm private school & Cambridge educated. I think the widening access these days is great. (I probably wouldn't have got in if it had been as wide in my day.)

Ultimately, if you are paying for private to get better results, then you are de facto saying that if your child went to state they'd probably get lower results. This to me makes it obvious as to why some level of contextual offers are needed.
If you are going private purely for other reasons not related to academic success (such as ...?) and you honestly believe the private doesn't also increase academic results, then I guess that's your look out.

Note: Places /grades aren't given based on 'hard work'. If you are less able you can work as hard as anything, you still won't get top grades.

Oxford & Cambridge get far more applicants of quality than they have spaces for. Looking at potential as well as basic results is important. People have to be at a standard to access the courses, but I wouldn't begrudge an AAAA student from a comp a place above an A star A star A A private one.

If the only happy outcome of school is Oxbridge then yes, private school isn't "worth" it any more. A lot of very bright, very hard-working private school kids with perfect grades and more importantly scores in the entrance tests/interviews get rejected for someone with less perfect scores but a more challenging backgrounds. If you'd spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on the basis Oxbridge would be the result then you'd be pretty peeved if this happened. If your dc had a happy educational experience and ended up at another great uni you would accept that you made your choice in the knowledge you were no longer buying a golden ticket to two specific universities and that fair enough other kids without your resources were allowed a look in. In my circles (three dc, one of whom failed to get into Oxford and is now v happy elsewhere) that seems to be the majority view. I don't feel i spent my money unwisely.

You can game the system if you have the energy - one dc I know who had the poshest education imaginable, top schools from nursery onwards, ended up at Oxbridge by applying for a very niche subject, then changed when they got there to something mainstream.

Another Oxbridge-educated power couple I know were shattered when their first, privately educated child failed to get in and ended up at (shudder) Manchester , after which they pulled out all stops to get him a banking job - they always mention how brilliantly he is doing in the city but when he was a student literally couldn't bring themselves to say where he was studying, only talked about his holiday internships.

They decided to send child two to the roughest comp they could find right the other side of town from age 11 (no risking switching at sixth form). He did get into Oxford. He also had a miserable time at school so they decided to send child three to a more genteel faith comprehensive, also miles away. She will have just done the entrance stuff but I haven't heard if she succeeded or not ...

Huge numbers of private schools never did send droves of Dc to Oxbridge. Of course parents are not just paying for this. Unless they are totally deluded. There are very many people who would never ever look at a state school. It’s not what their families do. Never have! Others have made money and aspire to private. Others aspire to state grammars. These are state educated pupils who do just as well as anyone! Plus some comp educated pupils, especially leafy lane ones or ones with many immigrants who value education . The biggest issue is lack of comp educated pupils from some areas of the country. It’s very different when you compare area with area!

Yes. hopefully it will continue to be so until the numbers reflect the percentages of privately and state educated children in the country (something like 7% and 93% respectively). Its the logical thing. I send my kids to private schools but teach in a state school. No difference whatsoever between both settings in terms of students’ ambitions and abilities. To me it thus make sense that uni acceptances reflect the reality of the student population.

Actually @WinterMusings private schools during COVID did hand out high grades to their students on a plate.
There's lots of stats out there showing how the private school system over inflated grades compared with state. Those parents literally bought those grades.

To those frothing about middle class kids in middle class state schools those schools don’t get contextual offers.

Yep it all went very quiet on the private school TAG scandal didn’t it…

I find it interesting that there appears to be no acknowledgement that it is possible to be BOTH very bright and very rich/privileged. In fact, the reason that some people have the money to send their kids to private school is because they used their intelligence to earn a lot of money, so it stands to reason that the kids might inherit the brains...

Of course it's possible. They are kids getting in to 'Oxbridge' already, and will probably continue to because they will be able to show their very brightness in interviews and eg STEP papers.

The point is that reasonably bright (or however you want to define those just behind very bright) private educated should not be getting places ahead of the very bright but less advantaged.

Private school pupils also statistically get more extra time in exams.
Perhaps they deserve it, perhaps they are just applying for it but could it be that they are keener to gain the system .

Pre COVID stats www.theguardian.com/education/2017/feb/10/independent-school-pupils-more-likely-to-get-extra-time-in-exams

Blame the State Schools/Staff/Parents for not applying for extra time if required.

Accept a lot of children with SEN are educated in private schools.

@TheatreWizard

i don't know what happened in other schools, but in our school they didn't. They compared with previous years results.

@NeverApologiseNeverExplain

no apparently they can't be bright or hardworking, they just buy their qualifications. 🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️

I’ve thought about this as I have very good state and private and in the end I think you’re best to match the school to the dc.

If they thrive on being stretched and doing co curricular then academic private could be good for their happiness

If they don’t want that pressure state can be really good

No-one gets a contextual offer from Oxbridge - all Oxford offers are standard wherever the dc goes to school. I think Cambridge offers are a little more variable but within a clear range. I think this is a common misunderstanding. During the admission process some factors in the decision making may be contextualised e.g. looking at GCSE results in comparison to the schools overall performance, so a candidate from a school with poor GCSE results with 9x A* will have a higher weighting than a candidate from a school with a much higher average overall GCSE profile.

If anyone is interested I would highly recommend a read of this www.timeshighereducation.com/alan-rusbridger-lifting-lid-oxford-admissions It's a little old now but makes for an interesting read.

From the horse's mouth (Oxford anyway)

www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/applying-to-oxford/decisions/contextual-data

And the other one

www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/applying/contextual-data

Do you think that someone with three As from a state school is less hard working than someone with 3 As from a private school?

If you do think this, then imagine how well the state school kid could do with the motivation and facilities that a private school could provide.

I'm inclined to think both are hard working and if only one can have the Oxbridge place, then the selectors have to look more broadly than just the grades.

I don’t think most people choose private schooling for Oxbridge entrance. Most people choose age 11 when they have no idea whether their child is a suitable Oxbridge candidate or not. Most people choose because they can afford it and they want their kids to have a nicer school experience with better facilities, lots of sports, drama, musical opportunities, school trips and a nicer classroom environment and a service they can complain about if there is a problem. So they choose because they think their DC will be happier there and have nicer memories. At the end of the day, you never get your teenage years back.
I am increasingly hearing from colleagues who are either US citizens or other European citizens that they plan to send their DC back to their home country for university. So I think that is a thing now. Plan to go back due to the state of the UK. Most of my colleagues have at least one other passport (it is an international law firm) and they don’t want their kids to stay in the UK anymore. So they won’t be considering Oxbridge.

. If two applicants are equal and only one offer can be given, the person from a state school will win over the other from a private school

If two applicants are equal and only one offer can be given, the person from poorer postcode will win over the other.

My kids have a father with 3 degrees, aunties who owns 10 properties and runs her own company, an uncle whose a top barrister, an uncle whose a top doctor, a grandfather who is famous in his field and knows nobel prize winners, a mother with 2 degrees, with a big inheritence due , they have been privately educated in prep school since the age of 2 and will continue till 18. They have grown up in privately owned property, been learning French and having music lessons and weekly swimming in a heated pool before they even started reception.

How in Gods Earth can they equal to someone from a deprived area with parents non-university educated in a state school that sends hardly anyone to higher education @uk2020 ????

You think Boris Johnson son should be viewed 'equal' to a kid growing up in a sink estate in the North East with a drug dependent mother? That's not discrimination, that's progress.

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Private school is there to bring thick as mince but pleasant rich kids up to the standard of bright comp kids, surely..

Personally I hope they go out of fashion, along with grammar schools.
(And I say that as a tory voter)

Or in my case, it’s there to stop my disabled child being bullied. To enable him to have a full time, qualified 1-1. To give him very small group sizes in his lessons so he can actually learn. To give him 1-1 tuition in things he’d otherwise not be able to do. To allow him access to a broader curriculum than state which allows him to excel at something; doing untold wonders for his confidence and self esteem. To prevent the academic gap widening between him and his non-disabled peers. Basically; to give him a chance.
For the first time; he has friends, he is learning, he is encouraged, he is safe, he is well supported, he is thriving and he is HAPPY.

But you just keep assuming we’re all in it for the same reasons.