Does Oxford Discriminate Against Comprehensive School Pupils?
Francis Beckett questions whether Oxford University discriminates against bright comprehensive school kids.
19 Aug 2011, 17:00
An Oxbridge Obsession?
There’s one little niggle, though he’s not letting it worry him today. He was turned down by Oxford, even though his A-level predictions – now his results – were actually better than Oxford’s requirements for the course he wanted to do there.
I am careful about jumping to the conclusion that this was because he is a comprehensive school pupil. He himself doesn’t want to be another Laura Spence, which is why I’m not naming him. He’s focusing, rightly, on the course he will do, somewhere else. But as an education writer, I’m naturally interested. Let’s look at other possible reasons.
Did he lack confidence in his interview? The admissions tutor in the Laura Spence affair said she lacked confidence “like many comprehensive school pupils.” Well, this is one of the most relaxed, confident, articulate and interesting 18-year-olds I’ve met in my life. I don’t believe that was it.
Did his teachers fail to encourage him? I recall, when I was writing about these things, that the Master of the college which rejected Laura Spence claimed comprehensive schoolteachers told their pupils that Oxbridge was not for them. They would love to take more pupils from comprehensives, he said, but he was constantly frustrated by the class warriors in the classroom.
Well, this young man’s teachers encouraged him all the way. He didn’t, of course, have access to the specialist coaching for Oxbridge interviews that they provide at fee-charging schools, but that can’t be it, because all the Oxford admissions tutors I’ve spoken to assure me they can see through that at once, and discount it.
Perhaps there wasn’t enough hinterland? Perhaps they thought he was a bit geeky, with no interests outside science? While getting these brilliant A-level grades, he was sailing at international level, and was in the British international squad for his type of sailing boat. When we meet, because he knows I am ignorant about science, he talks to me knowledgeably about literature, and politics, and many other things.
So what are we left with? We’re left with a university that still takes about half its intake from the seven per cent of the population who go to fee-charging schools; and which has claimed for years that it would like to change that percentage, but has not done so. The university will of course claim that my young friend was shown, by the mystical wisdom of its admissions tutors, to have less potential than those it admitted. And of course, there is no way that this can be proved untrue.
The author
Francis Beckett
Francis Beckett is a writer and journalist and editor of the book Prime Ministers Who Never Were.
Full profile →
Comments (6)
Subscribe to this posts's comments feed
As an education writer, I am sure you know that each college has a limited number of places for the subjects they teach.
Selecting which few students for any given subject who will be offered places is not an exact science. It would be ludicrous to think otherwise.
We don't know how many applicants the college in question received for this particular subject. We don't know the background or qualities of the students who have been offered places.
When I was applying to Oxford, I researched which colleges were more open to state school pupils - and made my choice accordingly. This was back in the late 80s when attitudes were not as open as they are today.
I made the right choice - was offered a place - and now have the requisite letters after my name.
I fear that this talented young man may have made an ill-advised choice of college - or just came up against a very strong pool of candidates and he just fell short.
We will never know. And yet every year we get the same stories being written.
Not everyone can get a place at Oxford or Cambridge. It is a simple as that.
19/08/2011 18:03As a comprehensive school pupil and now current Oxford undergraduate, I don't think there is any discrimination, at least from the majority of tutors. Having been through it, I believe in the interview process and now everyone has at least 2 interviews at more than one college to allow for an 'off day'.
The only significant factor I believe makes a difference is familiarity. My privately educated friends know people in the years above, at other colleges and studying different subjects. It's not coaching as such, but it removes a lot of the unknown and nerves surrounding the application process. Oxford has had some very successful initiatives recently, the UNIQ summer schools for example, while others such as Target Schools are student led and aim to dispel 'myths' about the Oxbridge system.
Independent schools are highly competitive and selective at 11 and to some extent at 16, so maybe the statistical anomaly isn't as severe as it first looks. There is still progress to be made, but I don't think the problem is with Oxford; it is the job of the comprehensive schools to encourage and motivate pupils right from the beginning.
19/08/2011 18:34A single anecdote tells us nothing. You might as well go with my anecdote of my shy, rather anxious son, comprehensive school educated, but an early high-flyer in his chosen subject and a high acheiver.
He applied, he interviewed, he fretted, and he got an offer, and then got the grades.
My impression is that Oxford takes a huge amount of effort to go on merit - but given its worldwide status, a huge amount of gifted individuals will end up being rejected. C'est la vie.
19/08/2011 23:02For political reasons our exams don't stretch the top pupils and the tutors have a difficult job sorting out those applicants to find those whom they believe have the talent to take them to the top. Oxford doesn't just want students to graduate, it wants students whom it feels will do very well once they leave university thus enhancing the University's reputation.
20/08/2011 13:09If we had exams where very few got A's and A*'s, it would be possible to sort the candidates purely on academic merit.
Don't blame Oxford, blame our exam system which doesn't allow the top 1 or 2 percent to demonstrate how good they are.
Once again someone asks a question and uses one pupil.
Let us take some basic facts - everyone who applies to Oxbridge will have been predicted straight As and A*s. Indeed 38% of Oxbridge applicants last year achieved at least three A*s - better than your candidate. Grades alone are not enough to get in - if they were then we would have to triple the size of Oxford and Cambridge.
Oxbridge spend a significant amount of money on access work. It is a major part of student body activity. The academics at the university are broadly left-wing and increasingly made up of individuals who have not been at Oxbridge their whole life but achieved degrees or taught elsewhere. Therefore the likelihood of a direct discrimination is unlikely.
The stats on acceptance rates between independent and state sector aren't very different - a few percentage points. At both approximately half of all applications come from state schools and half of acceptances are.
21/08/2011 00:43Francis's story concerns a student who got to the last hurdle, and fell, for unknown reasons. He suggests that it wasn't a lack of confidence, and I am sure he is right.
But on a recent visit to Oxford, I was particularly struck by the final observations of an otherwise sensitive tutor who gave a good account of how Oxford took the educational background of each applicant into account in other words, they assessed the students' results against the overall results of their school.
Fair enough, in all senses, although by now, one could hear the restlessness of the audience, most of whom, I suspect, had a full clutch of A stars and just wanted some hints on interview technique.
She then moved onto the key question of the interview. Her advice here? ' Don't get your parents to practise your interview with you. Much better to get your parents' friends to do it.' I
Hmm the audience were once again stirring with interest. A good idea, that! Whereas I had to restrain myself from putting up my hand and asking, how on earth, students from more modest backgrounds were supposed to respond to this piece of class bound wisdom????
22/08/2011 15:29