Quite obviously. But I challenge anyone to find stats that suggest the difference is of remotely that degree. And of course, it isn't:
Sutton Trust report on A-level results comparison.
45% of the independent school pupils from schools achieving average 801-850 A-level points each went on to the selective universities, compared with 26% of the comprehensive school pupils .
50% of independent school pupils from schools achieving average 851-900 A-level points per student got places at the selective universities, while only 32% of comprehensive pupils did.
Sorry, but anyone who wants to have a bash at arguing that the selective unis, Oxbridge especially, do not take a significantly higher proportion of independent-school pupils than results would justify might as well cover their ears and shout la-la-la-la-la-la all day.
Obviously I put the riders in that that was only my experience. However, you can't hide from the fact that the rate of applications to the 'top end' universities from private/public schools is far, far higher than the rate of application from state schools.
Those stats you present, are they where the students have applied to the same universities? Do they take into account where students themselves have opted to go for a place in a different (non-top-tier) university on the basis of visits/friends/family (it happens)? I'm not saying there isn't a problem, but I'm saying it's not reasonable to point a finger at any one party without all the facts!
Having said that, I'm quite happy to point my finger at the Labour government and say they should never have had the goal that everyone should go to university. Utterly ridiculous. There are so many jobs where you don't need a university education, and to try to instil the idea that university is what you do after school is, in my opinion, one of the main factors that exacerbated this problem. Couple that with the coalition government (here's looking at you, Cleggy boy, you let us down on that one big time) who've now made it financially even worse for students, and you end up in the mess in which we find ourselves.
Private education establishments are better geared towards applications to prestigious universities, and like it or not, you can't blame them for that - they have fee-paying customers who want the best for their children, as all fit parents do, and a standard measure of success for schools is A/A* grades and applications to top end universities. I don't know how you go about encouraging state schools to do better by their bright students, but I'm all for 'somehow' abolishing the ingrained idea that it's more difficult to get into top universities if you've been to a state school.
If private schools produce more A/A* grades (which they tend to), it's only natural that the top universities will have a higher percentage of these students, because they filter based on grades. The only statistic I could envisage that would show unfair bias towards private school applicants would be the proportion of top-grade, private school students whose applications are successful
versus the proportion of top-grade, state school students whose applications are successful. The applications is the most important point there: those students who are gunning for Oxbridge (and similar) and who play the game the same way the private schools do. I don't know what that statistic is, so I cannot say whether there is genuine bias on the part of universities, hence I only commented on my personal experience, which is that there was no bias towards private school applicants.
There were a LOT of private school applicants compared with state school applicants, though - and that can hardly be the fault of the university! In interviews, the majority of the candidates from private schools tend to do well because they have been trained/mentored/prepared for that. Many admissions staff can see through this, and drill down to the important points, as with any good interviewer, to work out what they think of the person sat before them, and how they'll do. Certainly from my perspective, I would look very unfavourably on a candidate sitting there with the attitude that: a) they've been to state school and have a chip on their shoulder about the (unfortunate) fact that more private school students get in or b) they've been to private school and assume that they have some right to preferential treatment.
It's all a product of the option for private education in this country, ultimately. It would be hypocritical of me to criticise this, given my background, but I certainly don't like even the possibility that bright state school students are less likely to get to a given university than equivalently bright private school students.
FWIW my wife earns more than me, despite my private/Oxford/DPhil background.
Not so clever now, am I?
Roo
