George going to Marlborough? Article linked.

[Greatballzoffire]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12872215/William-kate-snub-eton-george-marlborough-college-second-visit.html

Indeed . And to be scathing about St Andrews - one of the top UK universities ! You couldn’t make it up .

"Getting into St Andrews for HoA isn't/ wasn't especially difficult"

Not true.

I'm half Scottish. Masses of my mother's side went to St Andrews in the last century when in was a great deal harder to get in for women, my mother and her younger sister among them. My father also went to St Andrews which was the UK university allocated to him in 1945 after coming out of the Polish Air Force. I'm not in the least scathing. It just is not a hard course to get onto. Classics at St Andrews yes, HoA no. And KM had the considerable leg up of a vastly expensive education which certainly boosts grades.

A lazy accusation Araminta1003. I have no reason to be jealous. I did a degree that I far preferred to HoA. My brother is an Art Historian so I get an education on that front from him. I wouldn't have enjoyed it as a degree.

I also haven't mentioned her looks at any stage.

It doesn't really matter how intelligent or not the Royals are ( to them or anyone else) they don't need a great deal of intelligence to do what they do. They just need to read some crib notes about people and be polite for 5 minutes ( some of them can't even do that) but they are never challenged or questioned as to what they actually know or about their ideas. They have staff to do all the thinking for them. Re Kate, the problem with her expensive education is that she's done nothing with it afterwards. So her spending 10 years doing nothing after her degree has meant that she has not really developed any interests outside of 'being Willams wife' so has not developed her own interests style or opinions. Perfect for the British Royals s someone who will just put up, shut up and do as they are told, but when you look at the women who married into the other European Royal families she is not accomplished in any way. She has little experience of life or other people or work, which would be the obvious benefit of having people ' marrying in'. Even Royals have done stints in the armed forces!

Standard entry to St As for HofA is 3 As at A level, apparently.

You have a very utilitarian view of education. I would suggest that Kate has a far broader experience of people than you do given the wide variation of people she meets and interacts with.

Surely not. They are in awe of her, they shake her hand with reverence, she doesn't know people or spend time with people who aren't taken aback that they are conversing with a royal! And one set to be the Queen of the UK no less! They are on their best behaviour. She doesn't see real raw life.

Surely surely you cannot think that an ordinary member of the public who is in a caring role, in the NHS, or a teacher, or a career driven hard working person, or a marketing exec, or someone who works for TFL, or in hospitality, has a less broad experience of people than Kate Middleton. They will be talking to, writing to, speaking to ordinary members of the public day in day out.
I am gobsmacked with this assertion. There is no hope. Literally none.

@derxa "You have a very utilitarian view of education. I would suggest that Kate has a far broader experience of people than you do given the wide variation of people she meets and interacts with."

Are you the poster who once went all gooey because she thought t looked as if Kate hadn't brushed her dry shampoo out properly and it proved she was a busy mum, just like us?

derxa I would despair if any of the teachers at our (co-ed state) school had thought that it was something laudable for a student to sit on their lazy backside for ten years after graduating despite being perfectly capable of having a job. Just living off handouts from parents instead. KM is a seriously terrible role model and there's just nothing there to admire or respect.

Are you the poster who once went all gooey because she thought it looked as if Kate hadn't brushed her dry shampoo out properly and it proved she was a busy mum, just like us?

Nits?

@derxa developing your own ideas, interests and opinions is not a utilitarian view of education.
What do you think the point is of education?

No! 😂

According to posters she should have done a degree in order to get a job. That’s what a utilitarian view of education means. Read John S Mill.

Exactly. I don’t know what your point is.

@derxa the post you quoted did not say that kate education was useless if she did not get a job. It said -

"So her spending 10 years doing nothing after her degree has meant that she has not really developed any interests outside of 'being Willams wife' so has not developed her own interests style or opinions."

Nobody knows what interests Kate has developed in private. We know she has a special interest in early years development in public. Would it have been better for her not to have done a degree at all? Most middle class children go to university and do a degree quite unrelated to future employment. Anyway the Middletons paid for it. Nothing to do with you.

I’ve been a teacher, a speech and language therapist and now a farmer. What I’ve found is that each group is in their own wee bubble.

I don't understand and can't pretend to. You have had three careers so will have mixed with very many different people. Ditto me. Ditto lots of people.

Kate has had no experience like that at all. Nothing to speak of. People aren't behaving in an ordinary way when in her company, having a laugh, chatting normally, because they are being polite as they are meeting the future Queen. She might have had more ordinary experiences (but not in a work environment) before meeting William but her life since is cosseted, her requirements are presented to her on a plate, people bow and curtsey to her, she doesn't see or experience ordinary life and people behaving in an ordinary way ever.

Her job is to meet and listen to experts, to meet ordinary/extraordinary people and highlight their work and meet endless dignitaries and converse in an appropriate manner with them. She seems to do that well. What you really mean is that she has never been poor and doesn’t know what’real’ life is. Well I’ve never been really poor either and I’m guessing that’s the same for many people here on Mumsnet.

Extraordinary then that she seems almost incapable of saying anything even vaguely engaging or interesting.

Have you listened in to all of her conversations?

Are you her shadow ?

Soooo many times you tell me what I mean and soooo many times you are far off the mark.
I am not talking about poor. I am talking about ordinary lives that ordinary people live.

Nobody is ordinary in my book. We are all human and unique.