What social class do you consider yourself to be?

Oxbridge do take on working class people - because the government says it has to. But in the end of the day, higher classes would have better education, so much better grades. Can't blame a university for taking on the best possible grades. My college don't let me take enough A-levels to even get close to the average UCAS tariff for Oxford and Cambridge.
Although, the fact they have to take on some working class could both be good and bad, due to positive discrimination... I'm still convinced I only got an offer from LSE because I'm from a working class family. (both parents did not attend more than 3 months of sixth form, and have worked in retail majority of life).

Actually, I know this isn't entirely related to this thread, but would you be more impressed by:
A) Pupil with A*A*AA, where average for their college is A*A*A*A* or
B) Pupil with AAA, where average for their college is ABB?

I'm curious as to whether universities might take that stuff into account, and if you guys would

This is why I asked about what sorts of class definitions we are using. Although of course these cultural aspects are very much related to economic aspects.

How could a builder earn 100K? M'yes, I agree that it may be that our class system is this way, I obviously don't like it.

student

student

That's interesting, because I think people can be working class and earn more than that and be upper middle and earn less. It has to do with culture, job, education and outlook/upbringing, not just earnings. That's also true in many other countries.

Okay, can you 'classify' me? My father is a physician, my mother has a PhD and is in management, and they earn more than that. Class is a very complex concept, and the fact that my parents emigrated to the UK (20 odd years ago) further muddies the water. In my opinion, immigrants don't fit neatly into the class system.

What social class do you consider yourself to be and why?

A minimum of £100,000-120,000 joint income in my opinion.

I am upper-middle class in the UK, I was partially private schooled (in France) and then state schooled because my mother is an arse, but yes upper-middle.

What do you mean joint? it is £100,000+ per person to be considered upper-middle class, £100,000 joint is roughly an average middle class household income is it not?

To be fair, in that bit of the discussion you picked up on, midnightice was talking with me about the tendancy of the upper universities to select from the upper middle classes (statistics support this - and the effect is intensifying) and then midnightice mentioned that they attend a 'poor state school' - as Oxbridge overwhelmingly selects from a limited number of the high end state schools for its state entrants, perhaps this is what was being referred to? Not the actual behaviour around class or indifference to it once at your college. My point was that even across state and fee-paying school entrants, the tendancy is to select from the higher income groups - this effect is clear across all of the top universities, but the reasons are evidently to do with school achievement, predictions of schools, upbringing, family culture, etc and not necessarily (although they might partly be) due to bias at the university end.

There was a very good thread on this topic not long ago where we looked at the statistics for state school entry over the last 50 years and although it has risen again in recent times, it has been higher in the past for both Oxford and Cambridge.

I don't think it's fair to accuse people who want to debate this of seeking to 'put off' would-be applicants. On the contrary, more people from all social backgrounds and ethnicities should apply to the better universities and try to maximise their chances. That doesn't mean we can't discuss the realities of the class system and how it projects onto university selection.