Oxford realistic ?

I am discussing a systemic problem, not what you do. I was not referring to a specific university or specific schools, and my 80% was notional, not literal, as ought to have been apparent from the context.
The systemic problem relates to the north-south divide and to general patterns of inequality in the UK. For example, it tends to be the case that more students gain admission to Oxford and Cambridge from the Home Counties than from the whole of the North of England, and the same is true as to other competitive universities.
Many of the entrants to those universities come from affluent areas, often in the south east, or in pockets of prosperity elsewhere. Most of those students didn't go to private schools. But most of them come from reasonably prosperous households and have attended good quality state schools or sixth form colleges which select on entry, or which require parental ability to buy more expensive than the local average houses in the catchment areas of sought-after schools.
To mention just two examples, Hills Road in Cambridge is an Oxbridge machine, and Camden School for Girls in London, a state school, has sometimes outperformed St Pauls' Girls, a well known academic hothouse in the private sector.
The socio-economic profiles of many students at the top ten or twenty universities in the UK tend to reflect moderate to high levels of parental affluence and reasonable life chances from an early age. Poorer students quite often go to universities of lower quality in or near their home towns.
Private schools are divisive. In many cases, private school attendance confers advantage. But if all private schools were closed or nationalised tomorrow, the state system wouldn't suddenly be better funded, and systemic inequality would remain within the state system. Successive governments since 1979 have allowed or encouraged this to happen.
I add that nationalising private schools isn't on anyone's policy list, IIRC, not least because of the large payments which would have to be made to owners of the schools for loss of their businesses. The schools which are genuine charities, owned by trusts and not by limited companies, could possibly, however, be nationalised at lower cost, returning them to the public purposes for which they were founded in the late medieval and early modern periods. Until a few decades ago, some schools existed between the state and private systems, but they became private schools after direct grant was abolished.

Provided you do well in maths and FM at A-level and any admissions tests, I don't think it's completely out of the question. Plus it's at most one option out of five so you don't have anything to lose if you pick your other choices judiciously

I got A*A*A* in Maths, fm and computer science, but got majority 6s at GCSE should I apply to Cambridge after gap year? I got 1 1 in STEP this year and 7.3 in TMUA

Obviously as you meet or exceed all the requirements you would be competitive applying to Cambridge with those achieved grades...I imagine you would most certainly be interviewed (unless you applied to Trinity for some baffling reason) and therefore the key points would really be the interview (to see if you got an offer) and the STEP requirement (not sure if they would expect you to take STEP again this year or accept your previous results).

I think we need a Cambridge Maths FAQ thread. It wouldn’t need to be very long, either; here’s my draft of what it could look like.

Q: Should I apply to Trinity for Maths?
A: Never.

Any thoughts?

So why target what my school is doing to level the playing field???
You over-simplify what you call the 'North-South' divide.
https://amsp.org.uk/about-the-amsp/priority-areas/
They aren't all up North https://amsp.org.uk/about-the-amsp/priority-areas/
Even within other counties there are pockets of huge deprivation and 95% EAL.

I did not "target" your school. My comments are about the system, not school X or school Y. There is poverty all over the UK, in London and the south as well as in the north. There are also pockets of affluence all over the UK. But in broad terms the south east is more affluent than most of the rest of the country. Access to the best universities tends to be concentrated amongst students from areas of affluence.
Thousands of children were dropped into poverty by the chaotic and corrupt administrations which plagued the UK between 2010 and July 2024. It's too early to say whether the new Government can change things for the better. Private schools are just one piece in the jigsaw which makes the UK a country riven by inequality of opportunities and outcomes.
Despite everything, the UK is still a large economy and still, in Global-relative terms, prosperous. It's a disgrace that the UK does not provide to every child an education as good as the one which I recently purchased for my daughter.
I had most of my schooling before 1979. I received a Classical education at a comprehensive school, at no cost to my parents (other than income tax), more of the same at sixth form college (post 1979), and went to Oxford for free. Crikey, the Government even sent me a cheque every term. I managed to spend some of it on books and didn't spend the whole lot in the pub. Those days shall not come again, I fear, but maybe the UK can go part of the way to a better system than it has now.

I did not "target" your school. My comments are about the system, not school X or school Y. There is poverty all over the UK, in London and the south as well as in the north. There are also pockets of affluence all over the UK. But in broad terms the south east is more affluent than most of the rest of the country. Access to the best universities tends to be concentrated amongst students from areas of affluence.
Thousands of children were dropped into poverty by the chaotic and corrupt administrations which plagued the UK between 2010 and July 2024. It's too early to say whether the new Government can change things for the better. Private schools are just one piece in the jigsaw which makes the UK a country riven by inequality of opportunities and outcomes.
Despite everything, the UK is still a large economy and still, in Global-relative terms, prosperous. It's a disgrace that the UK does not provide to every child an education as good as the one which I recently purchased for my daughter.
I had most of my schooling before 1979. I received a Classical education at a comprehensive school, at no cost to my parents (other than income tax), more of the same at sixth form college (post 1979), and went to Oxford for free. Crikey, the Government even sent me a cheque every term. I managed to spend some of it on books and didn't spend the whole lot in the pub. Those days shall not come again, I fear, but maybe the UK can go part of the way to a better system than it has now.

Read what you posted again ...
post #75 "You appear to overlook the point that your school might be part of the problem, not part of the solution."
I note you ignore most of my points about accessibilty of colleges
Poverty existed LONG before 2010 - three day week in 1970s, all political parties are to blame.

Poverty and inequality have existed throughout history, but social mobility in the UK increased post 1945, thanks in large measure to the policies of the Attlee and Wilson Governments and their adoption by moderate Conservative Governments. By the way, the three day week happened under a Tory Government.
You claimed above that some colleges at Oxford are not accessible at all. This assertion appeared in the context of the discussion to relate to accessibility by state students, and would be untrue. It appears from a later post that by accessibility you were referring to accessibility for people with (I assume) mobility impairments. That's an attempt to move the goal posts. I responded to it above.

Again you are shifting the discussion away from things that dent your case.
'Accessibility' means everything not just qualifications -
You still haven't addressed the main barier to Oxford admission - the whole process which is biased towards fee-paying schools.
Where did I say the three day week was during a Labour Government???!!!

I am shifting nothing. My position has been consistent. You appear to take the position that "the only problem is private schools", but I suggests that this disregards those inequalities which are not attributable to those schools, and which would remain if private schools vanished overnight.
It appears that some selective state schools are equipped to deal the Oxford admissions process. I was lucky, perhaps, because my non-selective Sixth Form college was also so equipped, although at that time state school pupils applied during the fourth term of sixth form and private school pupils did a seventh term. My daughter's private school doesn't operate an Oxbridge machine (not every private school does), so she and her teachers improvised.
Do your criticisms also extend to Cambridge, Durham, Exeter, the big London universities, and other universities which have more than about 7 to 8% privately educated students? Do you have any proposals for how to improve things?

You are deflecting my case AGAIN [your training?!] which is about the bias of the admission system - I focused on Oxford because this is what the thread is about, but yes, Cambridge is just as bad. In fact, for Maths I would say it's worse as those withut support for STEP prepare at a huge disadvantage.
They are missing out on some very bright students who happen to go to a school without th capacity to offer staff time .
No other uni has admission tests so they can't be blamed at all for the proportion of fee-paying school students they attract.

For Law, Oxford is fair as it only asks for AAA which is lower than the other LNAT universities: Cambridge, LSE, UCL, KCL, Bristol, Durham and Glasgow. Furthermore the LNAT admissions test is very hard to be tutored for intensively?!
Also, "PRIME" offers work experience for Year 12/Year 13 students as well as help with the UCAS application including the LNAT admissions test.
Search Firms Results - PRIME (primecommitment.co.uk)

You are deflecting my case AGAIN [your training?!] which is about the bias of the admission system - I focused on Oxford because this is what the thread is about, but yes, Cambridge is just as bad. In fact, for Maths I would say it's worse as those withut support for STEP prepare at a huge disadvantage.
They are missing out on some very bright students who happen to go to a school without th capacity to offer staff time .
No other uni has admission tests so they can't be blamed at all for the proportion of fee-paying school students they attract.