Oxford realistic ?

Last summer. Aesthetics are subjective, but I can't see Exeter as architecturally comparable to Oxford or Cambridge.
I think that Exeter is a good university. It was one of the five I applied to zillions of years ago.
A school friend who is an Exeter alumna and in touch with her university tells me that she is concerned by social stratification related to the price differentials applied to the university's accommodation. When she was at Exeter, everyone paid the same for rooms, and there was a lot of social mixing, but now students are separated by the depths of their or their parents' pockets. This might now be an issue at several universities.
Colleges at Oxford and Cambridge tend to chuck everyone in together, posh and not posh, which is better for social mixing. I had only met one person who'd been to a private school when I started at Wadham, which at that time was about 55/45 State/private. My privately educated daughter hasn't met many people from state schools (except me and her other relatives), but she will do so when she starts at St Peter's next month. Some of them will be on the same staircase as her, not in another building on the other side of town.
thegeek888 may be happy to hear that my Exeter alumna friend (who was not posh when she went there to read history but is mega posh now, and engages in philanthropy), made millions in retail. He may be less happy to hear that she did that by working very hard and not by dreaming.

Oxford college choice differentiates people - some colleges have far more fee-paying students and Oxford needs to do FAR more. Some colleges are not accessible at all for example and MH support needs to improve massively.
Didn't your daughter meet normal people outside school e.g sport, music?
I disagree re Exeter's campus -

Which colleges aren't accessible at all? Every college has a mixture of state and private students, and their accommodation doesn't depend on the depth of their pockets. The overall mix is now about 70 /30 ish State/private.
"Normal people"? Are people who attend private schools abnormal? Do they have three heads? I shared a room at Wadham with someone from a private school. Only one head visible. I am not in a position to judge whether my daughter's cousins are "normal", but they went to state schools. My daughter's sport is shooting at targets with a rifle, and she met people from various schools when on the GB team for her age group, although rifle shooting is a sport more common in private schools than in state ones.
I am not sure what more Oxford can do, given the inequalities built into UK society and reinforced by four decades of Neoliberal chaos. Some problems need to be addressed by governments, and can't be solved by one or two universities. Socio/economic inequality starts at birth. In an ideal UK, there would be no private schools, and no selective schools of any kind, but the UK is far from an ideal place. I was lucky to go to a comprehensive school back when they really were comprehensive, before selection at age eleven crept back in by various means in many areas.
Oxford has raised ethnic minority membership of the university to above the relative population level in the age group 18-25. How to improve the life chances of working class children is a big problem, but, as I said, it's too big a problem for any university to solve.
You may perhaps be unfamiliar with the access programs run by the university and by some colleges, for example Wadham and LMH. Wadham's new undergraduate building, paid for by a Hong Kong entrepreneur and a Wadham Rhodes Scholar who became a tech billionaire, has a dedicated access facility to support aspirants from disadvantaged backgrounds.

70% is disgusting frankly ... far more needs to be done.
I'm a teacher so of course I know of the access stuff - it's not enough.
Does Balliol have accessible rooms - the dining room is up a flight of steps. The rooms I stayed in did not have toilets or showers that wheelchair users could use. Somerville? Lots of stairs ..

How is 70% ‘disgusting’? The share of pupils getting A*A*A or better at A level who are at state schools is 76%. Doubtless there’s always more to be done but 70% is very close to that number — hardly what I’d call ‘disgusting’.

It is bad as it really has stalled since 2019 - no reason why 80% shouldn't be from state that I can see. The whole application process needs an overhaul.

Well as I’ve said, 80% would actually be a higher state-educated share than amongst high achieving pupils as a whole. The argument that some try to make that the current admissions policy discriminates against private school applicants is definitely ridiculous — rather it’s been a needed levelling of the playing field — but consciously trying to hit a target of 80% state school offers almost certainly would require that discrimination.

Why anon?
Why would 80% require manipulation? About 18% go to fee-apying sixth form so this seems about right.

Because, to repeat myself, pupils at private schools get higher grades on average. This is not exactly surprising seeing as they’re more selective (especially at sixth form level where there are more scholarships available etc.)

Enough state school students get the grades to get in - Oxbridge don't do enough/ They could take people who drop a grade by one mark couldn't they?

70% is disgusting frankly ... far more needs to be done.
I'm a teacher so of course I know of the access stuff - it's not enough.
Does Balliol have accessible rooms - the dining room is up a flight of steps. The rooms I stayed in did not have toilets or showers that wheelchair users could use. Somerville? Lots of stairs ..

30% or more of Exeter University students went to private schools. Is Exeter disgusting? One of the articles below puts the 2023 figure at 60%, but that must be an exaggeration. The trend appears to be upwards at Exeter and Durham, but downward at Oxford and Cambridge.
https://exepose.com/2021/02/22/finished-class-privilege-exeters-private-school-proportion-growing/
https://exepose.com/2023/04/24/does-exeter-university-have-a-class-problem/
Anyway, what do you suggest should be done? Complaining about a problem doesn't solve it.

Exeter don't have entrance tests or formal interviews though do they? The whole Oxbridge entrance system favours fee-paying schools who can give prep to students.
I teach at a state school that does give this support and that how we get bright students in - many state schools don't have this luxury.

You appear to overlook the point that your school might be part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Exeter is on a trajectory to have more private school students. That doesn't seem to bother you, for some reason. I suspect that if Oxford got to the point where it admitted just one token Etonian every year, with everyone else going from schools like yours, you'd still find something to criticise. Meanwhile, students at tough schools in Hartlepool contine to get a raw deal.
I wait to see if Starme's Labour can undo the damage inflicted on education and social mobility by Joseph, Adonis, Gove, and other ideologues over the last forty plus years.

I have no idea what you do with your spare time, and I blame you for nothing. This discussion isn't about you.
Selective schooling divides the population at about age eleven, and adds another and arguably even more significant element to the social division which private schools foster. When a university says "80% of our students went to state schools", it may omit to mention that most of that 80% went to selective schools in affluent areas.
I cant see that abolishing fee-paying schools would increase state funding for education. Removing the charitable status of private schools (which is not justified in many cases but is justified in some), and making them subject to VAT would raise some funds, although not a vast amount in context. I think that Labour should go ahead with that policy, which has been talked of for decades, but doing so won't wave a magic wand.
I would prefer that all schools should be free at the point of use and non-selective, but I doubt that will happen any time soon.

You accused my school of being part of the problem so YOU dragged me into this ..
Grammar schools are not a uniform bunch of schools - some are very selective some only select the top third.
Since there are only about 160 Grammars I cannot see where your 80% comes from. Prove your statement!
Fee-paying schools divide far more than these 160 do ... they also try to seduce teachers from state schools by offering £20 000+ perks