[Closed] uni admissions criteria-- background not taken into account

The kids who stay in the state school, and get the same A-level results as your kids do, are 99% certain to be more capable, more hard-working and have more academic potential. But they have the same A-level grades. So how do the universities deal with that if a selection has to be made?

Utter rubbish.

There's some real BS being spouted from both sides. Still, I guess that makes it a balanced discussion 😀

Most of you a being a bit binary about this; private school = rich / privileged, comp = poor? What a narrow view

Even your own post accepts they got a better education from the private sector and a quick glance at the statistics would back this up in general

Utter rubbish.

As has been noted it is harder to get good results with a poorer education* therefore[ on average] you will be brighter if you did it the hard way/
Imagine you ride 10 miles on a road bike
I ride 10 miles on a mtb through mud and we both get the same time. Are we both just as fast then or would it be fair to say the MTB er had to try harder and is the better rider or is that just "rubbish"?

* not all state education is poor but it would all be enhanced if we paid £30 k per pupil

Here is a subject I might know something about

I went to Cambridge from a Comprehensive. Did rather badly there but that's not the main story here. I also work in a sixth form college and help students prepare for Oxbridge entry. My best mate has just finished 3 years as head of admissions for an Oxford College

Mrs Ampthill, who had quite a deprived back ground. She had an assisted place to a independent school and then went to Oxford. She has a friend who is the first ever state school educated head of an Oxford college

Firstly feed back from mate who does Oxbridge admissions for a living. Like me he went to a comp so he might not fit the normal profile for an Oxford don.

He recons that all the admission process cares about is your potential on the course. He says he does give the benefit of the doubt to state school pupils. Basically at interview he is trying to spot the kid who has been tutored to the max and therefore has maxed out at A-level.

How we reduce the proportion of private school kids at Oxbridge is a nightmare topic. There are lots of reasons why private school kids dominate:

There parents clearly care about education
They went to a great school. I've not spent long in private schools but what I've seen suggests its often the case that students get really inspiring lesson. Not spoon feeding
You've probably got the idea that going to Oxbridgeis normal and something that you'd like to do
You must be quite clever or you wouldn't be at your private school
your from a well off house hold and that has huge implications, on average, for that crucial language development

set against this is a feeling from many state school pupils that it not for them. Also it can be hard to be stimulated to go for 10 A* if 5A8 will make you top in your school.

Finally I have never heard of a points offer from a top university. So no D of E will not save you a grade.

Oh finally Don mate says he has never read a personal statement. He really couldn't give a toss about what extra curricular stuff you've done

I'm really struggling to understand how people who went or sent kids to fee paying schools square the circle that it doesnt give them an educational advantage.
Still waiting for the poster on the last page to tell us how state education can be bought up to scratch because he reckons its easy.

As has been noted it is harder to get good results with a poorer education* therefore[ on average] you will be brighter if you did it the hard way/
Imagine you ride 10 miles on a road bike
I ride 10 miles on a mtb through mud and we both get the same time. Are we both just as fast then or would it be fair to say the MTB er had to try harder and is the better rider or is that just "rubbish"?

The trouble is that its not as simple as that. Its closer to I get to train 2 days a week and you get to train 4. So at our trial you are fitter and faster. Now the selector has a tough choice. Firstly you are fitter and therefore they have to make less progress to reach the final standard needed. Secondly we don't know whether I would be as fit as you had I had the chance to train 4 times a week

Although in many ways I do take your point

Here is a subject I might know something about

She has a friend who is the first ever state school educated head of an Oxford college

whatever you want to say the problem remains that they select massively disproportionately from the private sector irrespective of grades

Interesting they don't read anything I would imagine this is quite an unusual selection technique tbh

The first state school educated head of an oxbridge college think is awful

I think alot of the over selection from private schools could be addressed with a bit of political will power. But as the as the powers that be are products of the system we hope in vain. I'm not blaming a party here but goverment

The old Oxford entrance exams probably worked well for the top end - they were substantially harder than A-levels so could identify the raw talent, whilst filtering out the public school dross who might otherwise impress at an interview. Beyond those top and bottom bands, though, you just have the same issues with student coaching substantially distorting things.
ISTM that it would still be a powerful selection method because they could craft the questions very carefully to try and differentiate between students. But the entrance exams were binned off a while back so you'd have to assume that was not the case.

I didn't do an entrance exam, or S-levels - though they still existed when I went. The impression I had is that if anything they favoured private school pupils (maybe one reason they binned them) as they were the ones with access to the extra tuition required - though to be fair a couple of my teachers did suggest they were happy to give me extra tuition for the exams outside normal school hours if I'd wanted to do them. I suspect I'd have still been at a bit of a disadvantage though as whilst my teachers were undoubtedly pretty good, they weren't used to tutoring for those exams. Given there were a few colleges which didn't require them, I didn't need to take that route though - and to be honest I wasn't all that keen on spending extra time on school work. I don't suppose it's a coincidence that my college had a disproportionately high number of people from state school on my course (also the case for other colleges which didn't require entrance exams for my course). Neither is it a coincidence that the next person from my school to go ended up at the same college.

As explained above, the aim of the interview is to ascertain potential, not how well you've been tutored - hence the infamous strange interview questions (I didn't have any of the classics, but did have open-ended questions which gave you the opportunity to show you could think).

I'd agree with Aracer

Traditionally Oxbridge entry was what was called seventh term. Exams after your A-levels. Top schools ran an extra term to coach for them. So it really was a barrier for state schools