Oxbridge admissions, state v private

[steerpike]

I understand that parents will always want to better the education of their kids, but if by doing so you end up bankrupting yourself in the process, only to find that they've made it to a good university along with all us untouchables, then it really begs the question:

just what was the point?

Quoting campbell from 12:40, 28th Feb 2007

Quoting box_of_delights from 00:57, 28th Feb 2007

Why is private education a 'priviledge'?

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http://standrews.facebook.com/profile.php?id=37101440

quoted for utter disbelief

why is [being given lots of things which other people have no access to] a [benefit enjoyed only by a person beyond the advantages of most]?

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Nothing is easier than to condemn the evildoer, nothing is harder than to understand him.

F.Dostoevsky

[Guest]

I'm a state-educated quadruple-A-scoring school-prize-winning extra-curriculum-addicted Cambridge-reject.

Bitter? Moi?

[blimey]

exnihilo - why is all state education crap?

[oddly familiar]

Quoting Bizarre Atheist from 13:09, 28th Feb 2007
Selective grammar schools KICK ASS. Though my many shiny A-levels, prizes, awards, extra-curriculars, volunteering and other such accolades weren't enough for Cambridge...

Oh me too. I'm a grammar school product as well, But I thought it was interesting that labour seems to have backtracked. My school was grant-maintained; we got a big dollop of money almost straight after labour won power, claiming they would try to get rid of grammar schools. Seems to me like they secretly never had any intention of reducing pupil numbers.

Quoting unregistered user from 12:05, 28th Feb 2007I'm a state-educated quadruple-A-scoring school-prize-winning extra-curriculum-addicted Cambridge-reject.

Apparantly theres about 4 or 5 well-qualified applicants for every place at oxbridge, so however great you were, three were another 3 you were competing with. I think the message is - Don't take it personally, they chose someone else for no better reason than they would have chosen you for.

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saru mo ki kara ochiru

[exnihilo]

Quoting blimey from 13:31, 28th Feb 2007
exnihilo - why is all state education crap?

Oh, FFS. Did I say it was? No, I did not. But maybe I should have as it no longer seems to teach reading comprehension.

[Senethro]

exnhiilo maybe you should sto preading the sinner its bad for your bloodpressure

[exnihilo]

Ha, you're not wrong, it really is.

[starsandsparkles]

On a similar note, I'd heard it said at my secondary school that we were quite successful with Oxbridge applications because we were known as a good school but we had a crap postcode thus Oxbridge could put us under their "poor area" quota.

I always wondered how true this was.

[rob 'f*ck off' wine boy]

To make you all feel better, I am privately educated, have reasonable grades at A-level and absolutely no awards or extracurricular wotsits to my name whatsoever (do you mean DoE and so on?); I was rejected by Cambridge (although clearly I have no reason to complain )

Think I fucked up when they asked me why some war poets wrote in the sonnet form, and my reply was roughly 'um......it's ironic?' Bravo.

[Okocim]

Quoting blimey from 10:06, 28th Feb 2007

Quoting Okocim from 10:00, 28th Feb 2007
.... It wasn't my teacher's fault - he'd just never coached a candidate for oxbridge before.

... should coaching be necessary? Not wishing to point at you specifically, just asking a question?

Good point. Coaching wasn't the right word to use. I'd say the advice given on how to prepare for interview and what I should write my essay about was poor in hindsight. Neither I nor my teacher realised that I would be grilled on topics related to the essay submitted (we thought the focus would be my personal statement) and hence it was a bit of a surprise when the questions started!

[Okocim]

Quoting flossy from 12:48, 28th Feb 2007
I was given an Oxford offer and thought that the interviews were fair BECAUSE they had chosen questions and essays outwith the A-level course to see if you had outside knowledge and initiative as well as the ability to regurgitate information. Ho hum.

My school chose the essay topic, not the university. The latter assumed that it was one closely related to my A level course - which it wasn't! I agree though, what you describe above is a fairer system.

[Irish Frank]

When I had my interview at St Hugh's College, Oxford, I was asked what school I went to.

[maenad]

Do you know you can pay a huge wad of money for special coaching days to help you get into Oxbridge? I signed up to this company's mailing list at an Oxford or Cambridge open day - can't remember their name but they were hanging about with clipboards and said they offered advice about applying. I thougt, why not? Then I got all these letters about how I could *pay for* training days/weekends to ace my interviews. Er, no thankyou. Piss off.

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Tommy can you hear me?

[David Bean]

First of all, YAY that Okocim is finally back on the Sinner - haven't seen you for ages! AND I've just noticed you have a Facebook account - added.

Now, on the subject at hand, hmm, it's an interesting one. I went to a private school, and didn't apply for Oxbridge because I wanted to come to St Andrews and would have turned them down to go there anyway even if I'd been accepted. Now, I do know that a certain department in my school had a 'special relationship' with one of the Oxford colleges, whereby if they referred a candidate to the college to study their subject as a degree, the candidate would have a very good chance of getting in. Was there anything wrong with that? Not really, I think. The relationship was built on the understanding that the college trusted the department to know its pupils and only bring to their attention people who could obviously make it, based on their experience with previous successful candidates. However, this isn't the kind of relationship that would be open to a lot of state schools, whidch don't have the history of sending candidates to specific courses in specific colleges (or, in many cases, anyone ever). Coupled with that, all universities like to see involvement in extra curricular activities, but what if a poor state school didn't offer anything that an otherwise perfect candidate was interested in?

So it's a tough call, and by no means as obvious as it might first seem (discrimination = bad). On balance, however, I haven't seen any evidence that there's a more accurate way to predict future performance than past performance, or to gauge merit than the examinations system, and I'd hate to think of a private school pupil losing out on a place because of the choice their parents had taken about where to send them to school - bearing in mind that a private school pupil, likely as not, had as little control over where they were sent to school than a state school pupil. Individuals matter.

Coincidentally, I'm watching The History Boys" tonight.

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Psalm 91:7

[harmless loony]

To the original poster - do your friends think that straight A candidates from private schools are rejected in favour of those with lesser grades from state schools? Because to be honest I think that's crazy!

The way I understand the system is that Oxbridge are now widening their net to include straight A students from schools that wouldn't normally feature on their list. It's also an acknowledgement of how hard the straight A state school student has had to work given that their educational facilities are not to the same standard as private and grammar schools.

As someone said earlier there are around 5 applicants per place - that means someone at some point is going to have to be rejected.

"Discrimination" of this sort happens everywhere - it gets worse when it comes to job applications - you just gotta deal with it!

Last year I posted a thread on a Management Consultancy firm who rejected students without interview because they didn't go to a prestigious uni (St A is not considered prestigious enough by them) and it annoyed me because I knew an Imperial graduate who had less experience, a 2:2 and had wasted his 3 years at uni who got offered an interview on the basis of his prestigious uni! (I knew this happened because the recruitment consultant employed by the Management consultancy decided to share this piece of info!) However, I also know people who went to post 1992 unis who have done well and gone onto get high level jobs too - it all evens out in the end!

Your friends should quit with the sour grapes and concentrate on improving their interview technique.

[Jono]

Quoting David Bean from 19:32, 28th Feb 2007

Now, on the subject at hand, hmm, it's an interesting one. I went to a private school, and didn't apply for Oxbridge because I wanted to come to St Andrews and would have turned them down to go there anyway even if I'd been accepted. Now, I do know that a certain department in my school had a 'special relationship' with one of the Oxford colleges, whereby if they referred a candidate to the college to study their subject as a degree, the candidate would have a very good chance of getting in. Was there anything wrong with that? Not really, I think. The relationship was built on the understanding that the college trusted the department to know its pupils and only bring to their attention people who could obviously make it, based on their experience with previous successful candidates. However, this isn't the kind of relationship that would be open to a lot of state schools, whidch don't have the history of sending candidates to specific courses in specific colleges (or, in many cases, anyone ever). Coupled with that, all universities like to see involvement in extra curricular activities, but what if a poor state school didn't offer anything that an otherwise perfect candidate was interested in?

So it's a tough call, and by no means as obvious as it might first seem (discrimination = bad). On balance, however, I haven't seen any evidence that there's a more accurate way to predict future performance than past performance, or to gauge merit than the examinations system, and I'd hate to think of a private school pupil losing out on a place because of the choice their parents had taken about where to send them to school - bearing in mind that a private school pupil, likely as not, had as little control over where they were sent to school than a state school pupil. Individuals matter.

Coincidentally, I'm watching The History Boys" tonight.

[hr]

Psalm 91:7

Not as bad as it sounds? David, that sounds absolutely scandalous, and I'd hope that someone would have put a stop to it by now! Universities should consider all candidates on their individual merits! Giving the Boys from "St. Snuffingtons," a leg up just because the old-guard all went there, is just as bad as giving candidates from state school backgrounds prefence places (Assuming that accusation has any basis in fact).

As for private/independant schools; they're not inherently better (I know a couple of really bad ones) than state schools. They just have enormous advantages over them.

Private schools can set fees, set entry exams and interviews, have less regulation and can generally pick and choose from the best qualified teachers, and from pupils who are more likely to do well, and less likely to cause trouble! State schools on the other hand are beholden to both local and central government regulations, they have less funding, have to take every kid in their catchment area, and are hard pressed to discipline or expell disruptive and violent pupils.



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[Lovely Goat]

It was my friend's comments that started me thinking about this just now, but I've definitely heard similar sentiments from other people connected to private schools, including, I think, something that an independent school head was quoted as saying - wish I could remember where. As I said, I think they're wrong, but I wondered what evidence there is one way or the other.

Exnihilo: you mention government quotas; true enough, they exist. What evidence do you have that entry requirements are falling so that universities can fulfill these quotas, or that private school people are prevented from going to university in favour of less qualified state school applicants?

My friend's private school has seen a large drop in the number of its pupils admitted to Oxbridge. This could be to do with the pupils, the school, or Oxbridge admissions. It does seem to be the case that more state school applicants are being accepted than previously. Personally, I think one reason for this IS to do with widening access, but absolutely not to the detriment of standards.

I'm from a comprehensive background and I believe myself to be the academic equal of at least the majority of my fellow students here. However, I'm aware that in class it sometimes doesn't sound like it. From my observations, I believe that the educational atmosphere in an average comprehensive is very different to that in most private or grammar schools. In my background, it was important to know the answers without looking like you did, to say clever things without sounding clever, so that's pretty much what I learned. In private or grammar schools, it seems that the general style of communication is more academic and more intellectual, so naturally, many pupils of these schools are likely to sound, at least on the surface, more intelligent and more academic than most comprehensive pupils.

If Oxbridge admissions have indeed changed recently, I would suggest it's because tutors and interviewers have become more aware of this difference and the reason behind it.

[Lovely Goat]

harmless loony: I completely agree with you. I was hoping to find something concrete to respond to these daft folk with, to blow these frankly insulting theories about state school pupils being given unearned leg-ups out of the water. To me, it smacks too much of elements of the private sector thinking "oh, no, I don't have this thing any more that I previously took for granted, why not? I should!"

Or, alternatively, be given evidence to the contrary before I shout my mouth off too much about it.

[CheeseDaddy]

[quote]Quoting Lovely Goat from 22:27, 28th Feb 2007I'm from a comprehensive background and I believe myself to be the academic equal of at least the majority of my fellow students here. However, I'm aware that in class it sometimes doesn't sound like it. From my observations, I believe that the educational atmosphere in an average comprehensive is very different to that in most private or grammar schools. In my background, it was important to know the answers without looking like you did, to say clever things without sounding clever, so that's pretty much what I learned. In private or grammar schools, it seems that the general style of communication is more academic and more intellectual, so naturally, many pupils of these schools are likely to sound, at least on the surface, more intelligent and more academic than most comprehensive pupils./quote]


Couldnt agree with you more, thats exactly what it was like at school and I think to a degree explains why on coming here tutorials were so difficult to adapt to.

[Lovely Goat]

Cheesedaddy - so glad it's not just me! Bit of a culture shock, after years of waiting to put up your hand until no-one else knows the answer, then saying what you KNOW is right like you're not really sure, coming here and not getting a word in. Or feeling lke a prat because you say the most basic thing, because that's where your school teachers always wanted you to start, and your tutor looks at you like you're kidding.

Not complaining; I'm happy to learn a different way of operating. Just nice to know it's not just me.