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?

None of the private schools in our city would allow my friends bright but severely autistic son across the threshold

Not really in many cases

We were definitely very lucky with the ones available to us. I hear stories like your friends often.
My son didn’t “need” a special school; it wouldn’t benefit him at all. But mainstream didn’t offer anywhere near what he needed. A HCP once described him as “not severe enough for special, but not mainstream enough for mainstream”
We are very lucky to have our brilliant school and my children love it there. The difference is my son since being there is incredible.

I don’t think thick middling kids from private schools ever got into Oxbridge, that is just a cliche. It always had a rigorous entrance procedure. The problem in the past was that some state school candidates self selected themselves out of the quite complicated process. It is a good thing that has somewhat changed. I think the very top private schools that are really academic like Westminster still have plenty of candidates getting in. Perhaps those candidates would have also gotten in if they went to their local state school.

In any event, anyone smart enough to even apply will be just fine in life and in another good university, so it is hardly an issue either way.

Locally the private schools don't want/can't cope with the more challenging behaviour or learning. Which makes the 'extra exam time' stats all the more interesting.

This, this, this. Of course it is progress.

You will keep getting away from what OP actually asked. Is it worth sending your child to private school anymore? The answer is if you want Oxbridge and are doing it for that reason alone, no.

Seems perverse. So if you had a private school you really liked it was nearby and you could afford where your kid would thrive you would actually send them to a shit school so that if on the off chance they wanted to go to one of two particular universities they may have more of a chance getting in? Seems weird reasoning to me but crack on I guess.

Contextual offers aren’t just about the school, though. A leafy comp in itself doesn’t qualify for contextual offers. A comp where the brightest set outperforms a grammar definitely won’t.

Contextual offers depend on a mix of things : school (and how the school generally performs -and that has to be pretty poor, sending few children to university, for example, results below national average etc etc); the postcode where you live (if you live in a posh house, you won’t qualify, no matter the school); your parents’ jobs; your parents’ education etc. All these matter - just sending your child to a comp makes no difference at all.

Absolutely right Changing. In our small city the top performing states don’t get contextual offers just the state serving the most deprived area of town. That would be some leap for a privately educated child and one none of the private school parents I know would ever make!

Whenever I visit these chat groups in Mumsnet it becomes obvious that the great majority of active people send their kids to private schools. I'm not sure opinions in the Education talks are representative of the reality of the country. Again, 7-9% privately educated and the rest, state educated.

People get so sensitive here about posts that question the few traditional independent secondary institutions and their worth in modern society, like TheaBrandt above, using foul language to refer to state schools, just to justify why she chose independent education.

As a state secondary school teacher, I must say I am constantly amazed by the resilience of many of my students, their ambition despite their difficult backgrounds, the natural intelligence of many. Of course, there are a pile of problems in the state education sector but so is the case in independent schools. Why is it so hard for many to see that everyone deserves the same opportunities, that money does not make anyone automatically better? Is the bubble in which they live that thick?

My kids are both at state schools! Dh and I both state educated. I was being flippant in that post.

Oh apologies TheaBrandt! I have seen so many degrading comments about the state sector I thought you meant it. So sorry. The ironic thing is that I do send my kids to independent schools. Since I became a teacher in the state sector, I very often question that decision and my plan now is to send them to a state sixth from college.

And just returning to the general discussion. I genuinely still don't understand the fetish with Oxbridge.

Fewer obv.
access denied.

1. Moving to a state 6th form doesn't absolve you from being privately educated. My DD is at Oxford now and she had to list all her schools back to primary on her application form. That was true for UCAS I believe.
2. None of the kids who moved from private to my DD state 6th form got into Oxford or Cambridge. But yes, there are other great universities out there.
3. Why are people so afraid of state education in this country? I believe it is an asset and not in playing the system, but in the actual learning. Yes it is messy. Yes the facilities aren't the best. But the teaching, when it is good and in that community and a diverse environment is wonderful. At least in my experience. I wouldn't change educating my kids in the state sector for a minute. They are so in tune with the world and humanity as a result. Also, they are getting great results.

Good luck with your decision, but kids need to be kids and grow in many different ways. I don't think isolating them in a private school and pushing them to get into the best university is always the way to go to make them happy, productive members of society. Children need to develop their own internal drive and engine. Maybe think about that more. And kids are different. They need different things to grow. Some kids need to be in a private school. I understand this.

The reason why state school kids are getting into Oxbridge more now is because they have the confidence to apply. They didn't apply in the same numbers before. And they are bringing great minds to those universities.

I think that’s what has changed. Deciding to apply. Plus don’t forget huge numbers of state educated dc at Oxbridge are from selective state grammars or very leafy lane comps. Still plenty of schools where no child gets near Oxbridge. Oxbridge is still a postcode and wealth issue in the main. It’s just shifted a bit from some elite private schools.

Also 93% of state kids would never be able to access Oxbridge so the stats can never be that high!

I find it quite offensive to suggest that a child is not "in tune with the world and humanity" just because they go to a fee-paying school.

It’s true though. That’s what you’re paying for! There was a fight in my teens English class last week. That ever happened in your child’s school?!

@TheaBrandt are you saying that having to deal with other people having violent fights while you are trying to learn about Shakespeare etc is "in tune with the world and humanity"? How often is the typical professional office workplace disrupted by violence like that?

I don't mean it in an offensive way. It's a reality of many privileged people who do not mix with those outside of their social circles. I know kids and young adults from the private sectors who have no idea how it is for some people and they often say very offensive things without knowing it is offensive. Equally I have witnessed it in the world of work.

yes it has

@Artsyblartsymum

Very true - my DH was at a business meeting yesterday and chatting to the son of the company director who is being trained up to take over, and who went to a prestigious private school.

He said he goes to a local pub every week with a group of friends, a new bar staff member had started who he fancies but she 'doesn't know much about champagne' He is a lovely young man but absolutely no idea outside his social group!!

That is not true, I’ve worked in a (top) university, state school children are very hard working and have had to be to get to these top positions— without all the support of a private education. To take one example, I had a student and his parents ran an electrical business and he had done all the admin for the business, he had way more skills and potential than any privately educated children. He’s gone on to be an academic himself. I have friends whose child went to private school and has suffered horrible bullying and r*pre threats from boys in text messages, but they were too ‘worried’ about state schools to put her in one, where I think she would have thrived [some details changed for privacy of those mentioned]

@SillySmart you have a very skewed view of the world

Some have a good experience in private, some better in state schools. I don’t think you should make generalisations. There is definitely a lot of private school children in top universities, but they sometimes struggle just as much as state school children

Oxbridge want the very brightest kids from everywhere. They don't care whether they're state or private. To do that they need to get those exceptionally bright kids from state schools to apply in the first place when traditionally they might not have done. Oxbridge are also competing against other institutions as students are becoming more savvy about the right courses for them.

They have become more adept at sorting the bright from the exceptionally bright and seeing the potential in kids without the polish. As more state kids apply Oxbridge can have the pick of them too.

Oxford do NOT make contextual offers to anyone though and ALL applicants are contextualised. The data is used mostly to determine who they interview using a ranking system with a cut off point. You still have to have the GCSE grades and predicted grades to meet the standard offer and often much higher to get an interview.

Private schools and selective state schools have always been more geared towards supporting Oxbridge applications and use it as a selling point when advertising their school / college. It is the comps in Bristol or Swansea or wherever that have one or two exceptional students that they are trying to get to apply or the ones where they get one child every couple of years who are capable of making it. Whether these kids want to go to Oxbridge is another matter but they can at least not rule it out as an option.

The bottom line is they want the brightest kids from everywhere and if that means that some private / selective school kids miss out because of the increased competition then you have to accept that overall that's a very good thing.

I think the point @Artsyblartsymum was trying to make is that dc at state schools are likely to mix with a much wider and mixed group than that at a private school. This is a conversation I have had with my own ds.
He was state educated in a school that at one point in his education was graded 'inadequate' by Ofsted (it wasn't really and soon got it's 'good' judgement back). We actively chose the state school over private because we genuinely thought ds would be happy there. We offered the option of a very good private again at 16 for A level and he declined saying he was happy where he was.
He is now at Oxford and I have had conversations with him where I asked if he regretted not choosing the private option at 16 or whether we should have chosen it form him 11. Overwhelmingly he said that he truly believed going to the school he went to has given him both an 'edge' (because he is streetwise, can mix with a large and varied social group and learnt to work independently - ok, yes he has 2 supportive and educated parents) but also that he feels comfortable and understands the challenges that may dc face.
Choose the school that you think your dc will be happy at - because ultimately if they are happy they are likely to do well.