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Is Oxford really that biased against state schools?
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made_of_fail
I'm reasonably sure that they do have specific information about your school's GCSE record - I think it was on the OAF.
And it would be appalling if that wasn't the case. They certainly should be aware of the 'context'.
And it would be appalling if that wasn't the case. They certainly should be aware of the 'context'.
Really? Wasn't in my day...
And WHY is it appalling? Sure at the sink school end of the spectrum it's necessary that they know, but that's what the Access scheme is for. Sure the difference between 30 and 50% A-Cs is big, but what about 50-70? Once you get past a certain point there's no need to know.
The quality of an applicant's spelling and grammar is an essential part of the quality of their written communication. This can be assessed from the evidence of the submitted essays and certain pre-interview tests. But you can hardly fault Oxford for selecting in part on these grounds.
I doubt their spag is an issue really: Sure their grammar could be if it affects the comprehensibility of their argument but otherwise I doubt many people mind that much.
My school had to fill out a form saying the no. of students achieving AAA or more in Year 13 and the no. of students qualifying for EMA on the OAF form so perhaps that would give the admissions some context?
Oxford no longer have the Access Scheme, they've instead implemented some changes on the OAF. All applicants are required to state the number of people who have achieved AAA or more in the last year at their school, the percentage of those who receive EMA/free school meals. If I remember correctly, they don't ask the A*-C pass rate for GCSEs but this can easily be added to the reference.
Edit: Yes, as above. Beat me.
Edit: Yes, as above. Beat me.
Really? Wasn't in my day...
And WHY is it appalling? Sure at the sink school end of the spectrum it's necessary that they know, but that's what the Access scheme is for. Sure the difference between 30 and 50% A-Cs is big, but what about 50-70? Once you get past a certain point there's no need to know.
And WHY is it appalling? Sure at the sink school end of the spectrum it's necessary that they know, but that's what the Access scheme is for. Sure the difference between 30 and 50% A-Cs is big, but what about 50-70? Once you get past a certain point there's no need to know.
My GCSEs were fine, but some of the candidates from my school did not have as good grades. Can you say that 2 A*s from an average comprehensive signals the same things about a candidate's ability as 2 A*s from a good fee-paying school?
cerise
Oxford no longer have the Access Scheme, they've instead implemented some changes on the OAF. All applicants are required to state the number of people who have achieved AAA or more in the last year at their school, the percentage of those who receive EMA/free school meals. If I remember correctly, they don't ask the A*-C pass rate for GCSEs but this can easily be added to the reference.
Edit: Yes, as above. Beat me.
Edit: Yes, as above. Beat me.
Access scheme does still exist but has now been moved under the banner of the access and admissions office, along with all the other access initiatives like aimhigher, the uni's own schemes, sutton trust etc etc.
made_of_fail
And why is that?
My GCSEs were fine, but some of the candidates from my school did not have as good grades. Can you say that 2 A*s from an average comprehensive signals the same things about a candidate's ability as 2 A*s from a good fee-paying school?
My GCSEs were fine, but some of the candidates from my school did not have as good grades. Can you say that 2 A*s from an average comprehensive signals the same things about a candidate's ability as 2 A*s from a good fee-paying school?
I think you've misinterpreted what I meant. Made_of_fail, as far as I could see, was saying that it was appalling EVERY school wasn't expected to fill in details on the OAF.
My point was that if the Access scheme exists (which, as far as I was aware it did) and therefore anybody coming from an underperforming school could be identified and their grades taken into account then why should their be a need to differentiate between well performing schools?
Once a school reaches a certain level of achievement then I don't think it impinges much on your academic grades and I don't see why it's necessary to collect extra information about ALL schools. If you have the potential they will give you the place. If you have the potential but your grades are suspiciously low then it's good to know there were mitigating circumstances. But if your grades are normal then there's no reason to know whether they were "the norm" or not.
No, I did not misinterpret you. You've just repeated yourself. We are talking specifically about GCSE results here, and what they indicate about your academic potential, which depends on the school you attend.
And this is the point you need to explain.
Also, it is meaningless to say that securing a place depends on potential, when it is a competitive process. Admissions tutors have to very finely rank the individual candidates, taking into account all the available evidence. Presumably this includes GCSEs.
Once a school reaches a certain level of achievement then I don't think it impinges much on your academic grades
And this is the point you need to explain.
Also, it is meaningless to say that securing a place depends on potential, when it is a competitive process. Admissions tutors have to very finely rank the individual candidates, taking into account all the available evidence. Presumably this includes GCSEs.
Bekaboo
My point was that if the Access scheme exists (which, as far as I was aware it did) and therefore anybody coming from an underperforming school could be identified and their grades taken into account...
My point was that if the Access scheme exists (which, as far as I was aware it did) and therefore anybody coming from an underperforming school could be identified and their grades taken into account...
- The supplementary access scheme form doesn't anymore though
- When it did - it was 'unofficial', so the attention paid probably varied by subject/college etc
- Not every applicant from an underperforming school would have been aware of and applied through the access scheme
- Access scheme criteria was a maintained school - not all independent schools do that well at GCSE or A level
Having those contextual questions as uniform in the OAF makes it official (so perhaps subjects/colleges may develop a more research based and uniform policy for using the data?), probably increases the usefullness (by being more reliable - everyone from a school performing below X in Z is picked up) & is probably administratively easier?
Athena
Hence Mark running it and there now being some continuity?
I'm not sure if mark is the overall lead, they ultimately answer to person who's name I forget who's more the admissions side (he was at the thing we went to at the end of Michaelmas). But yes, the theory such that it is is to bring everyone in house to be more coherent and so they can help out with each others events and generally make it all more "official". There was actually an interesting article in the Oxford Alumni magazine I received a couple of weeks ago on it all.
made_of_fail
And this is the point you need to explain.
I think the point is that once a school is up to a sertain standard, it doesn't matter. Let's say, completely hypothetically, my school got about 80% pass at A - C, and Eton got, say, 85%. They don't give a toss about that 5%, because I'd already had a more than adequate opportunity to get good grades - they don't need to know the absolute specifics of schools that are already performing excellently, it's not going to effect (EDIT: it's also not going to affect it) their decision. There is nothing appalling about not knowing the specifics of EVERY school.
made_of_fail
And this is the point you need to explain.
As Mayfly just put it, once a school is achieving a certain number of A-Cs then there is ample opportunity for any one person to achieve their potential. Oxford are rarely interested in the precise number of A*s you got (with a few notable exceptions like Medicine) so it really doesn't matter whether you got 7 or you got 8: provided that you didn't get none.
If they were using the GCSEs to directly compare candidates then it'd be good to know that 4 A*s from Newcastle High didn't equal 4 from Eton.
But actually they tend to only use them to weed out poor applicants, and at that point it's a case of was your school poor enough for it to be mitigating circumstances or wasn't it? Once a school is good enough to provide you with ample opportunity to achieve it doesn't matter how good it is.
it'd be good to know that 4 A*s from Newcastle High didn't equal 4 from Eton.
Obviously people at Eton cant be expected to match the intellectual genii we have here in newcastle.
I think the point is that once a school is up to a sertain standard, it doesn't matter. Let's say, completely hypothetically, my school got about 80% pass at A - C, and Eton got, say, 85%. They don't give a toss about that 5%, because I'd already had a more than adequate opportunity to get good grades - they don't need to know the absolute specifics of schools that are already performing excellently, it's not going to effect (EDIT: it's also not going to affect it) their decision. There is nothing appalling about not knowing the specifics of EVERY school.
As Mayfly just put it, once a school is achieving a certain number of A-Cs then there is ample opportunity for any one person to achieve their potential. Oxford are rarely interested in the precise number of A*s you got (with a few notable exceptions like Medicine) so it really doesn't matter whether you got 7 or you got 8: provided that you didn't get none.
If they were using the GCSEs to directly compare candidates then it'd be good to know that 4 A*s from Newcastle High didn't equal 4 from Eton.
But actually they tend to only use them to weed out poor applicants, and at that point it's a case of was your school poor enough for it to be mitigating circumstances or wasn't it?
If they were using the GCSEs to directly compare candidates then it'd be good to know that 4 A*s from Newcastle High didn't equal 4 from Eton.
But actually they tend to only use them to weed out poor applicants, and at that point it's a case of was your school poor enough for it to be mitigating circumstances or wasn't it?
Once a school is good enough to provide you with ample opportunity to achieve it doesn't matter how good it is.
and by what measure do you determine whether a school provides this 'ample opportunity to achieve'?
That they're not bad enough to apply through the access scheme? Except that the access scheme's existence, on which my original comment hangs, is being questioned so you're really rather asking me to explain a comment made under certain terms when those certain terms no longer apply.
Just looked back at this thread and would like to say that I have got over Oxford. It would have been nice to go and I thought I would have done well there. I think that the reputation of Oxford as the 'best' University, misleads alot of people. There are better universities than Oxford!
And I truley do believe that Oxford like the rest of Britain still runs on a class system, even if they claim they don't. I think it is inescapable in the admission system not to be. But that is my humble oppinion.
I now have 4 As at A level and a huge amount of money in a scholarship to do law somewhere I consider just as good and would prefer to go to
And I truley do believe that Oxford like the rest of Britain still runs on a class system, even if they claim they don't. I think it is inescapable in the admission system not to be. But that is my humble oppinion.
I now have 4 As at A level and a huge amount of money in a scholarship to do law somewhere I consider just as good and would prefer to go to
I now have 4 As at A level and a huge amount of money in a scholarship to do law somewhere I consider just as good and would prefer to go to
I think that the reputation of Oxford as the 'best' University, misleads alot of people. There are better universities than Oxford!...And I truley do believe that Oxford...still runs on a class system
I think it is time for many of those who constantly moan about 'bias' and other such nonsense to put down their violins and face up to the fact that some of you were simply not cut out to be Oxford scholars. You either failed to bridge the gap between the inadequacies of a wholly state organised education as compared to private schooling, gave a poor interview which was most probably painful for all parties concerned, or did not impress in your written application or exam. You were not kept back by a malignant cabal which conspired to keep you out because of the administrative structure of your school, or the way you speak, or your confusion as to which way to pass the port at high table. It was a case of losing out to applicants who had probably invested their time more efficiently in activities which pushed them towards further education at the top institutions in the country, over and above the provisions of normal schooling.
The abstract inequalities which people assign to places like Oxford and Cambridge are never some kind of objective assessment on the part of the complainer, weeded out after much strenuous research and concentrated thought. Most often, they are the rumblings of misguided class bitterness, the fumbling last refuge of an applicant who cannot concede that perhaps they simply did not make the grade when faced with an institution which does not subscribe to an ideology of watering down admissions standards in order to conform to a 'prizes for all' society.
I also have no truck with arguments which run along the lines of 'the course is better at x or y, ergo z-bridge, despite its reputation, was actually not worth my effort in applying'. Firstly, this spurious argument seems to be a bromide for making oneself feel better about not getting in. Perfectly natural, but rather pathetic. Secondly, there is no such thing as an objective measure of how 'good' a course is, considering that the university experience is almost wholly centred around the will to work of the individual. If anything, the value of an academic course can be found in the relationship between expectation and performance; Oxford and Cambridge will work you harder, expose you to a higher quality of academic experience, and expect more of you than any other establishment, if this is what you want. But arguing in terms of 'better' or 'worse' is a road to nowhere.
While some current students may complain about inequality or bias in their institution, I can assure you that they were singing a very different tune during the applications process. Any support for such positions from renegade Oxbridge students is at the very least gross hypocrisy from people who a year ago were sitting in classrooms misty-eyed at the thought of weaving through streets, surrounded by spires and the clamour of bells.
I would suggest to anybody applying to these places to realise very quickly that while they may have been big fish in a little pond in secondary school or sixth form, the Oxbridge pond is vast and is full of very many big fish. Unless you confront reality and realise that you must push yourself very hard to earn a place, you deserve to wallow in the self-pity or unfounded allegation which is the prize for those who failed to fulfil their potential. perhaps those in private schools have had a head start in terms of academic exposure and teacher quality - but such is life. Fight it.
Rant over. Go read a book.
The abstract inequalities which people assign to places like Oxford and Cambridge are never some kind of objective assessment on the part of the complainer, weeded out after much strenuous research and concentrated thought. Most often, they are the rumblings of misguided class bitterness, the fumbling last refuge of an applicant who cannot concede that perhaps they simply did not make the grade when faced with an institution which does not subscribe to an ideology of watering down admissions standards in order to conform to a 'prizes for all' society.
I also have no truck with arguments which run along the lines of 'the course is better at x or y, ergo z-bridge, despite its reputation, was actually not worth my effort in applying'. Firstly, this spurious argument seems to be a bromide for making oneself feel better about not getting in. Perfectly natural, but rather pathetic. Secondly, there is no such thing as an objective measure of how 'good' a course is, considering that the university experience is almost wholly centred around the will to work of the individual. If anything, the value of an academic course can be found in the relationship between expectation and performance; Oxford and Cambridge will work you harder, expose you to a higher quality of academic experience, and expect more of you than any other establishment, if this is what you want. But arguing in terms of 'better' or 'worse' is a road to nowhere.
While some current students may complain about inequality or bias in their institution, I can assure you that they were singing a very different tune during the applications process. Any support for such positions from renegade Oxbridge students is at the very least gross hypocrisy from people who a year ago were sitting in classrooms misty-eyed at the thought of weaving through streets, surrounded by spires and the clamour of bells.
I would suggest to anybody applying to these places to realise very quickly that while they may have been big fish in a little pond in secondary school or sixth form, the Oxbridge pond is vast and is full of very many big fish. Unless you confront reality and realise that you must push yourself very hard to earn a place, you deserve to wallow in the self-pity or unfounded allegation which is the prize for those who failed to fulfil their potential. perhaps those in private schools have had a head start in terms of academic exposure and teacher quality - but such is life. Fight it.
Rant over. Go read a book.
just to point out that i think it's dangerous to think that people who didn't get into oxford simply aren't good enough.
there are more good candidates than places, it's a tough place to get into, and some excellent candidates may have had a bad day or they may just not have been what the tutors were looking for. the tutors are human and they try to pick who they think are the best candidates. different people have different criteria. some people are successful reapplying, many people go on to do well at other universities. oxford is a university, a good one, but not the be all and end all
there are more good candidates than places, it's a tough place to get into, and some excellent candidates may have had a bad day or they may just not have been what the tutors were looking for. the tutors are human and they try to pick who they think are the best candidates. different people have different criteria. some people are successful reapplying, many people go on to do well at other universities. oxford is a university, a good one, but not the be all and end all
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