There is very little that Oxford or Cambridge as universities can do about this – the Oxbridge experience is about the individual college first, the University as a whole second. I suspect that most teachers in the State system know very little about the differences between the colleges, which can make all the difference. And there are so many of them that it must be very intimidating to applicants. There must be a case for encouraging colleges to “adopt” schools and colleges that have significant numbers of “A” level students. My daughter did hers at Tottenham Tech where the staff were openly hostile to people applying to Oxbridge* (this was in the 1990s, has it changed?) – that kind of prejudice could be broken down if the colleges wanted to. What may be harder to tackle is her subsequent experience – she was offered a place at St Hilda’s, Oxford but didn’t want it because she couldn’t stand the thought of three years with all those Hooray Henriettas. It probably doesn’t matter for Londoners – I’m sure SOAS educated her as well as Oxford could have done.

*Or, indeed, the better London colleges. It seems to be an iron rule that no teacher wants their pupils to go to a better university than they attended themselves.

particularly, as Heather McRobie notes, when the interview system already gives private school kids an advantage over their less privileged peers

Anyone care actually to look at the data in a little more detail?

State school students are admitted to Cambridge in exact proportion to their share of applicants (they are 44% of applicants, 45% of acceptances).

Independent school students do benefit (28% of applicants, 35% of acceptances) but at the expense of overseas students (28% of applicants, 16% of acceptances).

The most obvious way of getting more state students into Cambridge is to get more to apply.

I would guess that independent schools actively encourage anyone with a chance to apply.
I would guess that state schools do not.
Indeed I would guess that in some cases state schools positively discourage it.

There must be a huge pool of state students who could make it but simply do not apply.

This may be Cambridge’s failure.
But I would bet that it is at least as much an expectational failure on the part of (prejudiced? surely not!) some state teachers.

http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/2007-08/special/14/table1_1.pdf

And yet Cambridge offers a hugely successful outreach mentoring programme by graduates which is almost universally ignored by all other British universities.

So the elitists get criticised for leading the way where nobody can be bothered to follow, well that’s democracy, or at least, it’s not Guardian-worthy news unless you can fit in a saleable minor celebrity angle.

I’m not sure if this article is encouraging the bright students from disadvantaged backgrounds to be more confident in their application choices, or whether it really is trying to encourage raised aspirations and standards across the board.

For the latter I’d suggest funding for graduates of all universities to undertake similar action as Cambridge practises, the voluntary method has so far spectacularly failed.

The only person I know to turn down an offer from Oxford was from a state school (because she didn’t like the feel of it) and ended up at the same Russel group university as me where she did rather well and probably had a more enjoyable experience. Is this emphasis on Oxbridge itself a little dated? I’ve stayed in colleges at both Oxford and Cambridge and attended lectures as a guest and I don’t feel the magic as such and I am not convinced the people coming out are necessarily better educated. Sure, they are pretty good for getting involved in any of the major political party machines but I don’t think greater emancipation will come through the political system, quite the opposite! Oxbridge may only remain important because people think it is important. But that perception might not last for much longer.

I’m not sure if this article is encouraging the bright students from disadvantaged backgrounds to be more confident in their application choices, or whether it really is trying to encourage raised aspirations and standards across the board.

Frankly, this post is a question mark; on this issue I’m not sure there is an easy solution to driving up numbers other than adopting a policy along the lines of affirmative action, and that has plenty of flaws. I think the suggestion of doing away with the Oxbridge-only application form has a degree of logic to it, if only because it might encourage applications from people who, like me, don’t think they have a chance in hell of being accepted but had a free place on their UCAS forms & thought ’sod it, I’ll give it a try’.

The fundamental question is this: why, with an excellent bursary system, an improved outreach scheme, reasonably cheap food and accommodation (it was less expensive for me to live in the centre of Cambridge than it was for my brother to live in a dingy flat in Leeds), Cambridge is unable to increase the number of state school admissions? For me, the fault probably lies in the admissions system itself, and that is probably the trickiest part of the process to remedy.

I think the image of oxbridge also has a part to play. I’m not going to pretend I got the grade to go, but I considered cambridge from my state school upbringing. It seemed like an awfully boring place with very little to do with what I (from a state school social circle) felt a place I went to university should offer. The three others that visited one of the colleges felt largely the same.

Admissions is probably the biggest issue, as you say…but I think Nick has a point when he says that oxbridge just may not be as important as it once was…and from the perspective of state school perhaps it isn’t really in tune with what students from state schools want from higher education, and life pursuing it, in the first place.

Is this emphasis on Oxbridge itself a little dated? I’ve stayed in colleges at both Oxford and Cambridge and attended lectures as a guest and I don’t feel the magic as such and I am not convinced the people coming out are necessarily better educated.

Possibly true. An Oxbridge degree alone isn’t a mark of superior intellect, and most of those who pretend otherwise are rather blatant snobs. As for whether Oxbrdge graduates leave with a better education, that’s up for debate. They regularly occupy the top two places in terms of teaching quality, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that they’ll be better educated as a result.

But I think it still remains true that Oxbridge graduates are still seen as superior by the major employers, and still hold many of the top positions in the worlds of politics and media. Regardless of how good the other universities are, that can be a little self-perpetuating, can it not?

“But I think it still remains true that Oxbridge graduates are still seen as superior by the major employers, and still hold many of the top positions in the worlds of politics and media. Regardless of how good the other universities are, that can be a little self-perpetuating, can it not?”

Yes, but I think that is more of a problem of machine politics (even politics in general) rather than a problem for whichever universities happen to have been co-opted into the system. Major employers can’t stay major for long by picking only who they PERCEIVE to be better candidates, unless that is (as public sector organisations and many major corporations are) they are propertied within the political system. In other words, they rely more on contacts and connections than value and talent, because that is how you get business/funding coming your way. Hence Oxbridge being so important. In actually productive sectors of the economy (i.e. goods and services that people want to buy rather than state organisations), I don’t think it matters where you went to university.

“But by ramping up their attempts to attract new applicants without being seen to have addressed why so few of them are being accepted in the first place”

Eh? I thought that the acceptance rates *for applicants* were pretty much the same across the board (and certainly, none of the links you’ve provided shows otherwise). The reason so few kids from poor backgrounds get in is that so few apply, not that they’re roundly told to piss off once they make it to the college.

Here we go: comp school acceptance rate is 25%, average is 26%, public schools do slightly better, state grammars do best. While it’d be better if the rates were the same, that disparity is a tiny factor compared to the disparity in % of people predicted 3 As who apply.

As an example, take the NHS that though state owned, is certainly a moderately productive organisation. Does it make that much difference that a doctor was trained at Oxbridge or that a nurse held an Oxbridge degree? It doesn’t seem so from my (admittedly indirect) experience.

In actually productive sectors of the economy (i.e. goods and services that people want to buy rather than state organisations), I don’t think it matters where you went to university.

After 5+ years’ work experience, that’s true. At recent graduate level, it isn’t: I’ve been recruiting graduates in various roles for a while, and Oxbridge is generally a pretty good guarantee that they’ll be literate, capable of independent thought and not entirely lazy.

Of course there are plenty of people from other universities who achieve this spec, but – at least, short of people with a list of voluntary and intern work as long as your arm – Oxbridge is a decent guarantee that you won’t hire someone completely useless.

@John

Like most things written whilst in a rush, that line could’ve been better worded, but my contention remains that increasing the numbers of applicants through successful recruitment drives or sympathetic storylines in soaps will not, by themselves, increase admissions among those kids we’re talking about. It’s one thing being trained to test well, it’s quite another having the training to progress through an admissions process that places a great emphasis on interviews, and thus puts you at the mercy of fellows who are accustomed to the kind of academic banter that kids from private & grammar schools are more used to – a point that Heather McRobie makes better than I just have.

So whilst I think it’s all well and good trying to increase knowledge of bursaries or shed Oxbridge’s stuffy image, I still think a greater emphasis needs to be placed on how best to assess these kids if they’re called for interview.

John – an interesting perspective but surely one would hope those rather minimal requirements could be gained a lot of people fresh out of 6th form (or even secondary school). Is Oxbridge “adding value” (whatever the hell that might mean in higher ed) or just coasting off its intake, especially bearing in mind that experience counts for so much more eventually?

Neil – as others have said, state school students are admitted in proportion to their applications.
The key is to increase applications.

In which case, cjcjc, we really have to ask if it’s possible or even the right thing to increase admissions of state school students. Perhaps, I’m not sure if really anyone has asked the question, state school students holistically don’t really care much for studying at oxbridge compared to Bristol, London or other socially thriving student areas? It’s all well and good saying more state school students need to be admitted (and therefore apply) to oxbridge, but what if they inherently don’t really have the desire?

You also can’t ignore the fact that private schools’ exam results are much better than state schools’. Oxbridge can be reasonably expected to compensate for some of that, but not all of it. Does anyone have the numbers for percentage of state school students getting all A’s compared to the percentage at private schools? I don’t know but it might be interesting. Exam results are obviously not perfect predictors of who will do well at university, but aren’t they the only measure universities have? I feel that we would do better to focus our efforts of schools than on the universities. That said, I’d also favour a partial lottery system for deciding who gets to go to oversubscribed universities. Oxbridge, could set a minimum standard (say three A’s at A-level) and choose randomly from among the people who applied who attained that level (other universities could do the same). This would remove any interview bias and still maintain high standards.

Lee – maybe not.

But I bet many are put off by prejudiced (bitter?) teachers!

I’m confused about something here: my inbox shows that cjcjc’s written three comments on this thread, and yet I can only find one. Where’d the other one go?

Just for the record, I was never given any encouragement to apply, but that might’ve had something to do with the fact that my stubborn reticence in class probably didn’t bode well for having conversations with well-credentialed academics…

“But I bet many are put off by prejudiced (bitter?) teachers!”

Maybe that too, who knows

My Godson has just left a state school. Although he was pretty good (possibly not good enough but who knows?) and wanted to apply to Oxford, the school absolutely refused to let him. It was never explained why and so I assume they feared failure. I think the problem as previous posters have said is much more about schools not encouraging pupils to apply than Oxbridge not taking them. The stat quoted above (post 2) about state school pupils being accepted in exact proportion to the rate they applied was pretty compelling.

On whether or not the admissions process or lack of applications from underrepresented backgrounds is of greater importance: It is difficult to prove anything with the statstics available, especially given all the other social and developmental factors that may come in to play across society (and I know nothing about, so i won’t say anymore on them). Qualitatively, that the admissions:acceptance ratio is so similar across different groups, suggests that it is the lower proportion of applications from the state sector (particularly non-selective), that is a first order control on the difference in admissions relative to population size of the relative groups. A good place to start for possible factors that might affect the likelihood of application to Oxbridge is the 2004 NFER report on the matter (www.nfer.ac.uk/publications/other-publications/downloadable-reports/pdf_docs/OCBsummary.pdf), this is a follow up to a 1998 investigation

Sorry for the dry language, but I find people tend to get very emotional over this sort of thing, and being a bit technical seems to damp that down.

Lazystudent