What should we call it?
University Admissions Targets.
- Thread starter GreatAuk
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What should we call it?
Soldato
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I completely agree with what you're saying. Universities only need to discriminate on the grounds of ability to be successful in the subject that the student wants to study.
But that's part of the problem I think.
With A levels getting easier each year and grades improving as a consequence, a university might have lots of students applying with 4 As at AS level.
Some of those are from independant schools, others from state schools. Now, the general assumption would be that independant schools are better than state schools. So it would be more difficult to get those grades at the state school than the private school. Therefore, a university would probably regard the state school student as having done better. Even though, on paper the state school candidate and independant school candidate would appear virtually equal.
A guy I know was rejected from Bristol without interview, simply because there were a lot of canditates with the same AS grades as him, who were from state schools, and he was from an independant school.
A finite liability income-dependent tax would be my preference.
Because the government supporters believe the government that it's a special kind of warm-fuzzy debt that is actually good to have and while it is totally unsustainable for the government to fund and will never have its terms and conditions changed no sir.
Yes, that's right, anyone who actually agrees with it must be stupid. Of course.
Which is probably about right as they are likely to be brighter than the private school student as they managed to get similar grades in a worse environment. However private school students are still much more likely to have better grades and much more likely to have studied the right subjects for the better universities than their state school counterparts.
This has the possibility of making private students worse off than they are now but they will still be better off than state schooled students overall.
Soldato
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I'm not sure how you can legitimately reason that to be honest.
Unsurprisingly, not all private schools are brilliant and not all state schools are rubbish.
Gaming the system in favour of a huge tranche of the population will probably make everything worse than actually improving the system in the first place.
That's exactly what I said, well done. Sheesh I'm not even the one who said anyone put off by the prospect of £27k debt is "retarded".
I thought it was relatively well known that private schools tend to have more support and a generally better teaching environment which therefore enables the kids that attend them to gain better grades?
So if student A went to "dodgy state comprehensive" and still managed to get the same grades as student B who went to "well funded private school" then if they had been given the same support and teaching environment as student B they probably would have managed better grades.
Soldato
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But it's just stacking the deck in a different way. I know many private schools that are terrible, and many state schools that are fantastic. Why shouldn't these be similarly prejudiced?
Stave vs. Private are not a clean brush stroke apart.
It is probably safe to say though that most private schools are better than most state schools. I wouldn't be at all suprised if the admissions people at Cambridge and Oxford were also aware of which state schools were rated at similar levels to private schools.
But surely the fact that the admissions to Oxbridge are so skewed towards private schools suggest that the system is already being gamed in favour of a certain section of the population already?
Soldato
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So we're going to get a new hierarchy like:
<likely to get place>
Gifted pupils at state school
Gifted pupils at private school
'Poor'/ethnic minority with any grades
Average state school
Average private school
<less likely to get place>
Really fair.
Surely you do not have the figures but I would imagine that approximately the same percentage who apply from state get in and the same amount who apply from private get in. It is that just less people apply from state schools.
It depends by what you mean by better, certainly not better for students going into non traditional subjects such as comp science or electrical engineering, most of the independents are a barrier towards though subjects.
Honestly my old private actually has a lower standard of teaching in the subjects that I am doing now and has less support. Trying to find a teacher was blackmagic, here they hold regular support sessions and my grades have improved greatly throughout the year.
I think that is pretty much sums it up, plus private schools are prepared to take action to prevent a minority from disturbing the majority
There should be no targets for universities to take xxx from state education, the universities should be able to decide who fits best (generally via the grades and interview process)
Tbh it's the same at my fee paying school - you aren't forced to work, and many people choose not to. I'm sure there are other state and independent schools where students get pushed a lot more, whether it is by the 'average' parent, or by their teachers. The problem is, you can't just come in with a one-size fits all policy when it comes to independent schools, when many of them are not the stereotypical Etonesque boarding school (although of course some of them are). Admissions tutors should be free to choose who they want, regardless of whether their education was payed for separately to their healthcare.
Would you like too see a certain ethnic group of students with generally pushy parents discriminated against because they are under more pressure to succeed than the average chav? I hope not.
I don't have a problem with admissions tutors deciding on their own whether they think one student is worth more than another because of what school they went to (well OK, if they are biased against independently schooled students then I would, but at least at the moment the government does not actually support such a bias). However, I think the government setting targets that would force Universities into rejecting students they wouldn't have done on the basis that they went to a school which may or may not have been better the school that the 'replacement student' went to is massively unfair. As well as being unfair, I can also see it doing damage to Universities, as being forced to choose students that they would otherwise rejected will surely result in a lower standard of achievement.
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It's a pathetic idea. Universities should be selecting students based on their performance and ability.
However, much more should be done in the earlier stages of education to ensure that the disadvantages that people from poorer backgrounds are saddled with are reduced, so candidates are really on a level playing field.
However, much more should be done in the earlier stages of education to ensure that the disadvantages that people from poorer backgrounds are saddled with are reduced, so candidates are really on a level playing field.