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Positive Discrimination in Admissions: I'm Very Anrgy.

This is disgusting. How can positive discrimination be fairer? Surely any fairness gained would be more than offset by the injustice of awarding places on a basis other than merit! How can someone get away with spinning things so much as to make people believe this is a fairer way of doing things?!

I hate the fact that incompetent politicians are trampling over our education system merely to meet their own self-centered political agendas.

Taken from today's Times:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1261216,00.html

University revamp to end clearing scramble
By Alexandra Blair, Education Correspondent

NO STUDENT will be offered a place at university before they know their A-level grades under a plan that effectively ends clearing and predicted places. Universities are also being given a green light to discriminate positively and encourage more ethnic minorities and working-class students.
The proposals, unveiled today, raise the prospect that state school pupils with the same grades as privately educated school-leavers would be given preferential treatment.The plan could also result in A-level exams being taken earlier or first-year university students starting term later.

Charles Clarke, the Education Secretary, has backed the system of post-qualification applications (PQA) and the recommendations outlined today by Steven Schwartz, Vice-Chancellor of Brunel University. Mr Clarke said he wanted to act “immediately” on the recommendation that students should apply to university after they get qualifications.

Currently the majority of students apply for places on the basis of predicted grades. However while those university offers are binding, more than half of predicted grades turn out to be inaccurate.

Earlier this year it emerged that up to 3,000 state school pupils, or one in ten university entrants, were losing out to fee-paying pupils with worse grades — either because they had been discouraged from applying to top universtites or under-estimated their results.

“It must be fairer and more transparent for students to know their final results before making important choices about where and what to study and this must also aid decision-making by universities,” Mr Clarke said.

One advantage of PQA is that students who achieve higher-than-predicted results will be able to change their choice of university.

Sir Alan Wilson, the director-general for higher education, will take charge of working out how to implement the new system.

Yesterday, John Dunford, General Secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, predicted that the new admissions system could be introduced as early as 2007. “As a headmaster I came across a lot of pupils who missed the boat because of binding offers and being forced to take places they had accepted in spite of doing far better than predicted,” he said.

Another key finding of the Government’s chief adviser on fair admissions, was that “equal examination grades do not necessarily represent equal potential”. Though Professor Schwartz was careful not to recommend an automatic bias towards state-educated pupils, he pointed out that of the 934,000 full-time undergraduates and 521,000 part-time students that there was “evidence of some discrimination against some minority ethnic applicants in pre-1992 universities and colleges.”

As a result he urged universities to take a “holistic view” and regard applicants in a wider context. However he also recommended that admissions tutors should always encourage diversity.

Citing the University of Michigan, which last year successfully defended its practice of positively discriminating in favour of admitting qualified black, Latino and native American students to create a racially diverse class, he said: “If a university has two students with similar marks, it is OK for them to choose in order to become a more diverse place as that has educational benefits.”

He added, “But they can’t do that by biasing the whole system and saying that everyone who comes from a state school should get five points more.” Professor Schwartz said that universities should ultimately favour those students who showed the best potential.

His suggestions were welcomed by Professor Melveena McKendrick, University of Cambridge Pro-Vice-Chancellor, and Dr Geoff Parks, Director of Admissions for the Cambridge Colleges.

"We agree that it is important to contextualise an applicant's achievements - we have been doing this for many years, for example through the Cambridge Special Access Scheme for students whose education may have been disrupted or disadvantaged in some way,” they said.

In a further recommendation to enable universities to ensure fairer admissions and discriminate between the legions of high-grade A level students, Professor Schwartz also backed a universal aptitude test.

Reply 1

NDGAARONDI

16

Looks like we both read the news from Google :tongue:

Except for some reason I put mine in GC.

Thing is with top universities is that not all of the applications are actually as meritous as you say. I've heard of students gaining entrance to Oxbridge on the basis that the admissions tutor knows the prospectus students' parents and like plays golf with them etc.

But how can university admissions be that meritous if international students are granted lower grades on the basis that they can pay anyway? If I'm English and wish to study law at Durham it's AAA if I'm from Japan, for example, it will be ABC.

Although I don't agree with any discrimination at all.

Reply 2

Chubb

2

[QUOTE=muncrunThe proposals, unveiled today, raise the prospect that state school pupils with the same grades as privately educated school-leavers would be given preferential treatment.The plan could also result in A-level exams being taken earlier or first-year university students starting term later.
I agree with you that no discrimination is right and that discrimination is discrimination even if it does has the positive tag before it.

However in the bit I've highlighted above I can see where they are coming from - its the old 'not had access to as good an education but still done nearly as well thereofre must be cleverer' arguement.

I have to say though that these quotas that they are trying to fill with this 'positive' discrimination are stupid; if people from different backgrounds don't feel the same way about wanting to go to university than thats their decision (just as long as they've had the same chance to get in that is).

Reply 3

Onearmedbandit

17

No justice can result in discrimination.

Reply 4

drawmeamonkey

1

if positive discrimination means when theres two students of similar ability, and one is from a well off background, and the other from a poorer background, i don't think its wrong to give the opportunity to the poorer student, as the student from the better off background will probably have many more opportunities available to him/her.

i wouldnt agree with letting a poorer/ethnic student with less ability have a place where theres a more able better off/non ethnic student.

Reply 5

NDGAARONDI

16

But someone from a poorer background equalled someone from a richer background could easily have excelled further than the richer background person if he or she had those privileges, which has been said. That's a point to think of.

Unless the thread starter is a toff :biggrin:

Reply 6

drawmeamonkey

1

i think poorer students have enough things against them already, so anything that might assist them to get into HE is a good thing.

Reply 7

A0307

7

Where there is the possibility that the students background could directly affect their education (poorer families, bad state schools etc.) I agree with some 'lee-way' being given to disadvantaged candidates as they may be equally good or better than a more privileged candidate, but just unable to acheive the same grades while still at school due to circumstances. However considering other factors such as race is a step too far. I fail to see how the colour of a persons skin can possibly affect their achievement at school and so should have no effect whatsoever.

Reply 8

LittleMinx

1

NDGAARONDI

But someone from a poorer background equalled someone from a richer background could easily have excelled further than the richer background person if he or she had those privileges, which has been said. That's a point to think of.

Unless the thread starter is a toff :biggrin:

I agree entirely.

Someone who attends a private school (arguable) gets a better education and therefore better opportunity to gain better grades at A level. If necessary, their parents can also hire a private tutor to help with particular problem areas. Take someone in this situation who gained AAA at A-level. Say there was one place left and two applicants to choose from, this public school pupil or another from a bad comprehensive school who also got AAA. In my opinion, the more deserving candidate is the comprehensive school pupil. They had much less encouragement and resources and still managed to achieve top grades. I think this shows a passion for your subject and a strong motivation that should be rewarded.

Reply 9

Syntax

13

^Agreed.

And as for race, recently there was that research that showed the black boys were underachieving horribly, even the middle class ones performed more poorly than other working class ethnic minorities

Reply 10

material breach

12

LittleMinx

I agree entirely.

Someone who attends a private school (arguable) gets a better education and therefore better opportunity to gain better grades at A level. If necessary, their parents can also hire a private tutor to help with particular problem areas. Take someone in this situation who gained AAA at A-level. Say there was one place left and two applicants to choose from, this public school pupil or another from a bad comprehensive school who also got AAA. In my opinion, the more deserving candidate is the comprehensive school pupil. They had much less encouragement and resources and still managed to achieve top grades. I think this shows a passion for your subject and a strong motivation that should be rewarded.

agreed but what if the private school child got AAA and the state school child got AAB? How far can what you have said be stretched?

Reply 11

NDGAARONDI

16

Incomplete

agreed but what if the private school child got AAA and the state school child got AAB? How far can what you have said be stretched?

Use of percentiles or other stastical method within their schools respectively and compare the two?

Reply 12

LittleMinx

1

Incomplete

agreed but what if the private school child got AAA and the state school child got AAB? How far can what you have said be stretched?

More emphasis would be placed on the interview then. And some statistical way of working it out. The question is, would the AAB candidate have got AAA if they'd had the same privilages as the private school child?

Reply 13

Catswhiskers

And what about the different types of state schools? Grammar Schools, Beacon Schools, Comprehensives - all state, but all offering hugely different types of education to hugely different types of children. Are Universities seriously going to have the time to find out whether a pupil is coming from a wealthy or deprived background?

Reply 14

LittleMinx

1

Catswhiskers

And what about the different types of state schools? Grammar Schools, Beacon Schools, Comprehensives - all state, but all offering hugely different types of education to hugely different types of children. Are Universities seriously going to have the time to find out whether a pupil is coming from a wealthy or deprived background?

they should do.

Reply 15

young_free

1

Positive discrimination may not be fair- but how else do you get around the fact that if there wasn't any, negative discrimination would be incredibly widespread? More so than it is now.

Reply 16

Unregistered

I went to an open day at Manchester last week and in the English department lecture someone asked the admissions tutor what he thought of positive discrimination in favour of those from comprehensives. He said that as he was retiring and didn't have to be politically correct any more, he could say that he agreed with it wholeheartedly. In his opinion, if your parents pay all that money for private education, they are effectively buying you better grades. Why not level the playing field?

When I went for my Oxford interview last year, I didn't meet a single other person who had been to a comprehensive. Their figures are so twisted. State school applicants include people from grammar schools and people who have been to a private school and then a state sixth form. That's not fair either. If they are going to introduce this positive discrimination, it should only be for people from comprehensives, and not all state schools.

Reply 17

sashh

LittleMinx

More emphasis would be placed on the interview then. And some statistical way of working it out. The question is, would the AAB candidate have got AAA if they'd had the same privilages as the private school child?

No the question is "which of these students has the potential to succeed at degree level?"

Thats why universities will accept some applicants with no A Levels. These are usually, but not always, mature students and do succeed.

Reply 18

sashh

asdasdagaga

If we pay more money, I think we deserve to get better grades :mad:

yes lets abolish exams and instead just auction GCSE's and A Levels on E Bay, that would be fair.

Reply 19

Mysticmin

10

Positive discrimitaion isn't fair, I agree with the idea that with grades such as AAB, the student from the poorer performing school should be taken (note that some private schools aren't worth the money you pay, and that some state schools acheive really good results, it all depends on the catchment area).

However if you have two candidates with straight As, what can you do? Both students couldn't have acheived more. Either they make the a levels harder (which I'm all for), or they bring UMS scores into account.

As for ethnic minority discrimination, I'm not sure, I supposed if it was the situation like I illustrated in my first paragraph, then that would be ok. But you need to take other factors from their background into account.

Positive Discrimination in Admissions: I'm Very Anrgy.

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