On the other hand, once you get to BA level, this no longer operates – partly because grade inflation at many places ensures that degree results are not level playing fields like A levels. Given the choice between someone with a 1st at Oxford, and a 2.1 at Luton, I’d go for the former, if what I was after was sheer ability.

P-G is right about Oxbridge colleges, although there are time lag effects – such as in 1988, when all those private school kids who were desperate to meet state school kids swamped the admissions of one college which had a reputation for selecting lots of state school pupils. Still, they were nice to us oiks on arrival.

I disagree with Ken entirely about how alienating Oxbridge is to people without the private /grammar school background. Oxford certainly was, and I think it still is. But this is not the fault of the University; merely a manifestation of a wider high vs low culture snobbery thing.

Katherine, your point about state school pupils needing to apply and that their schools should encourage them more is definitely true. It’s often overlooked in statistics that acceptance rates of state school pupils at Oxbridge tend to be pretty close to the application rates, too.

The biggest problem universities like Oxbridge have, though, is that the media and the government are so determined to run them down. Anyone at Oxford would tell you that except for certain small groups, what school you’ve been to isn’t an issue at all. There are pockets of nastyness and elitism, it’s true. But just because the media seizes on them so quickly, doesn’t mean that it’s representative of the place. When Charles Clarke talks about Oxford’s “Brideshead” image, he’s the one who is perpetuating it.

My comment should be headed by a quote from Katherine. I was responding to her last paragraph:

“A quick look at the state/private school proportions at Cambridge colleges, for example, will show that a college such as Kings takes on a much higher proportion of state school pupils than, say, Peterhouse without any appreciable difference in results at the end. Some of this is to do with the proportions of applicants, but it does also suggest that the pools from which certain colleges choose their intake is rather more limited than others.”

Oxbridge colleges are a funny lot: they are relatively small – perhaps only 100 undergrads in each year – and each one has a specific feel. What you are seeing here is perhaps less a difference in admissions policy (indeed, the fact that there results are similar would suggest that they are recruiting students of comparable quality, no?) but more students choosing to stick with their own.

If a college (Queen’s at Oxford might be an example of this) is known to have a strong “Northern” feel to it, northerners are more likely to apply (and non-Northerners might – God forbid – be less inclined to apply) because of the particular esprit-de-corps and desire to fit into a very small and tightly knit group of people.

Whether or not you think that this is a good thing (perpetuating elites/ghettoisation whatever), it is undeniably a facet of human nature – you will find exactly the same thing in, for example, officer recruitment to a small infantry regiment, as opposed to one of the larger Corps (e.g. Engineers, Artillery). Self Selection is key.

This is the kind of small/local effect that make a total mockery of the centralised approach, but yet it is a key ingredient in the success of the Oxbridge college system.

The problem the colleges have is this: it is to show that the real toffs (pace Boris recounting a Bullingdon Club incident in the Torygraph today) are a) a tiny, tiny minority and b) largely keep themselves to themselves; that there is room for a bright kid from a local comp and that it is not all “champagne and traffic cones” or whatever.

Choosing the right college to which you should apply is the real complication – but it is an undertaking that repays the effort.

Toodle Pip!
PG

My personal experience of top universities taking state school pupils is that both sides of the fence need to so some work – state schools at encouraging their pupils to apply, giving them help with the forms etc, and top universities getting out there to tell state school pupils that this is an achievable aim and that they shouldn’t be put off by perceptions of poshness and privilege.

A quick look at the state/private school proportions at Cambridge colleges, for example, will show that a college such as Kings takes on a much higher proportion of state school pupils than, say, Peterhouse without any appreciable difference in results at the end. Some of this is to do with the proportions of applicants, but it does also suggest that the pools from which certain colleges choose their intake is rather more limited than others.

Were a new grade to be introduced, the prv school kids probably would do a little better at the top (given that new grades would still be prone to old marking habits, and the paid-for coaching works pretty well) but it wouldn’t be as bad as it’s made out to be.