To think being prejudiced against the privately educated is OK

[EastLondonObserver]

I have spent 25 years working in the advertising industry at some of the most highly regarded agencies in the world. Most of these have been dominated (in certain roles, at least) by the privately educated who gained their entry to the industry through having personal/family contacts in it, were subbed by rich parents while working in low-paid or free internships to gain experience and had that empty confidence private schools instil.

Perfectly capable graduates educated comprehensive schools didn't get much of a look in. However a few managed to break through, including myself.

Consequently, throughout my career I have actively rejected almost all privately educated graduates applying for entry level positions. This runs into hundreds of applicants. I have managed to do this without being called out. Sometimes I have rejected them even when they clearly would have done a better job than a comprehensive school educated alternative. These were corporate companies - it made no meaningful difference to me if they were mildly less successful as a consequence. The only exception was one graduate educated at Harrow and Bristol. I gave him the job as an experiment. He was average at best.

I did this in the name of social justice: re-distributing opportunities away from those with unearned privilege.

Have I been unreasonable? Has anyone else done the same?

The private schools round here “bursaries” are for very middle class families who get say 10% off the fees because their kid plays the violin. They are not for Tyler from the council estate.

I think now the worm is turning, some people are panicking that their money and privilege isn’t going to get them ahead the way it used to.

@TheaBrandt same. Every kid st the girl school by us seems to have a ‘bursary’ for music, sport, dance, academic - knocks £1k off the £17k fees. Makes them feel a little better.
they’ll spend more than that on uniform & extra curriculars in a year easily.
it’s not exactly a leveller…

I don’t think there’s any turning of worms? Who is panicking? As others have said no one puts their school, private or state on their CV. And I’m pretty sure there aren’t hoards of graduates who can’t work anywhere because they went to Oxbridge. You probably don’t even have to state your uni if it’s that much of a hindrance.

The private schools round here “bursaries” are for very middle class families who get say 10% off the fees because their kid plays the violin. They are not for Tyler from the council estate.

You must be confusing a (music, sport) scholarship with a full bursary.

Who's panicking?

That’s a scholarship 🙄

A bursary is awarded to low income families and is whatever the bursar decides that the family needs to be able to afford the place, round here a scholarship is £1k but a bursary goes up to 110% of the fees.

Oh thanks for the info. None of the private schools here have a meaningful bursary program.

Those “panicking” are the numerous aggressive posters shouting that the op is “bitter” “chippy” etc. Just my take on it…

I find these threads so confusing because there is such an underlying irony in them. Which is that Oxford and Cambridge are very elite, privileged places just like the top private schools in the UK. So a child, whatever their schooling background, by going to university there joins the ranks of the top private school kids. Therefore, if you object to private schools and selective grammars then why would you not object to Oxbrige? Doesn’t make any sense to me, inherently speaking. And if you object to all, then do you object to City of London type jobs in banking, law, wealth management too?

It’s a bit of a stretch to say that because someone finds the domination of particular sectors, professions or universities by the privately educated problematic that that person should also for consistency object to the actual existence of those sectors, professions or universities.
Irony is a much overused word on this site, I think.

Just reading another similar thread - employers are becoming university blind to deal with the elitism of Oxbridge and see it as similar to private schools. My law firm is doing the same after much discussion (there were rumours that some of the Oxbridge grads were not actually very good with client skills, common sense lacking etc). Hence my point above.