Should Oxford lower their offers for state school pupils?

To summarise, if we want to ensure that we admit the year who will get the highest possible tripos results, we should be giving higher offers to people from private schools.

Since state school pupils statistically do better at Tripos than private school people with equivalent grades, private school people with three low As at A-level will, in all probability, struggle at degree more than a state school pupil with 3 low As. So if we admit private school people with 3 low As it is only fair that we admit state school pupils who may have just missed out on AAA. They are unlikely to struggle any more than the private school people already being admitted.

This thread seems to be all based on the highly flawed assumption that only those who achieve AAA are of suitable potential for Oxford and Cambridge. This is of course rubbish, meaning anyone who failed to achieve those grades are forever doomed to playing second fiddle in later life to those who had a better exam aged 17. These universities should (and do) look for those with the greatest potential for future academic study- and sometimes that includes those who will not, for various circumstances, achieve AAA. The fact that low offers are made by the university suggest they are wiser to this than some of us are giving them credit for, and that the non-AAA brigade are there in greater numbers than you might think. We can't apply one rule to everyone here, and say 'offers should be lower to state schoolers', rather that each should be considered on their merits, and if the tutors believe an AAB student is worthy of entry based on the potential they've shown, then so be it.

This thread seems to be all based on the highly flawed assumption that only those who achieve AAA are of suitable potential for Oxford and Cambridge. This is of course rubbish, meaning anyone who failed to achieve those grades are forever doomed to playing second fiddle in later life to those who had a better exam aged 17. These universities should (and do) look for those with the greatest potential for future academic study- and sometimes that includes those who will not, for various circumstances, achieve AAA. The fact that low offers are made by the university suggest they are wiser to this than some of us are giving them credit for, and that the non-AAA brigade are there in greater numbers than you might think. We can't apply one rule to everyone here, and say 'offers should be lower to state schoolers', rather that each should be considered on their merits, and if the tutors believe an AAB student is worthy of entry based on the potential they've shown, then so be it.

Which is what Oxbridge tutors do. However if they do this and don't get the arbitrary target from the government of state school kids, they're apparently doing it wrong.

As much as you talk about future academic study, this IS university. Students will have already had 14 years of education, and if they haven't bothered to improve by 18, what are the chances that they will significantly in those 3 years? If Oxford and Cambridge are accepting mostly applicants with AAA, then obviously there is a reasoning behind that.

The problem with that approach is that the tariff of AAA isn't just there as a target for people to achieve once they've been made the offer. It's for those thinking of applying to assess which universities they are capable of achieving the target grades for. The LSE have a much higher ratio of applicants to places than Oxford do for the course I applied for (Government and History as opposed to History and Politics, but it's more or less the same difference). Part of this I believe is due to the fact that the LSE have a standard offer for that course of AAB as opposed to AAA, mainly as a means of attracting more applicants through which they can sort. The problem is, if Oxford reduced it's standard offer (or indeed, if they started regularly giving out offers lower than the standard offer) the result would be a spike in admissions, which would place a massive strain on college facilities and tutors who had to interview the increased number of candidates.

I suppose the alternative would be to cull more applicants pre interview through admissions tests. But then that raises the problem of privately educated students gaining more help in preparing for said tests.

I do agree with your essential point however, that someone without AAA might be a perfectly capable candidate (though I lean towards the view that a sufficiently motivated candidate should be able to get AAA regardless) and that a rigid system might exclude them. The problem is that a flexible system in which lower offers were made regularly might harm the university's capacity to interview as many applicants as possible.

You're missing my point. Oxford and Cambridge want to select those who will be most capable of succeeding at Tripos (or whatever bizarre word Oxford have for it). i.e. those who have the potential to be furthest after three years of study. Since they are already (presumably) admitting those who scrape AAA from top public schools, they should also be considering people who narrowly miss out from state schools (as someone from a state school will do as well at degree level as someone from a private school with slightly higher grades). To summarise, if we want to ensure that we admit the year who will get the highest possible tripos results, we should be giving higher offers to people from private schools.

Since state school pupils statistically do better at Tripos than private school people with equivalent grades, private school people with three low As at A-level will, in all probability, struggle at degree more than a state school pupil with 3 low As. So if we admit private school people with 3 low As it is only fair that we admit state school pupils who may have just missed out on AAA. They are unlikely to struggle any more than the private school people already being admitted.

And of course there are going to be people who come to Oxford from public schools and do incredibly well. No-one is saying that public school people are inherently stupid. But if we allow public school pupils who've struggled to get 3As to go to Oxford and struggle through getting a 2.II at the end of it, then it's clearly not the case that it is beyond high AAB state school pupils. From personal experience, the struggling public school people are an actual rather than theoretical group.

What makes you think they're admitting people who are scraping AAA from private (or state for that matter) schools? They reject large numbers of people with AAA from both private and state schools. It's not like they're being forced to take anyone with AAA because they barely have enough applicants.

This is based on the idea that the universities are aiming to admit people with 3 low As. Admitting struggling pupils is a failure in the admissions process, not a policy, and extending that failure is stupid.

But if you are giving standard offers of AAA and some people fail to meet their offer, it seems to me reasonable to assume that there are people who just scrape AAA and get in.

My point is we should be admitting the state school pupils who are currently just failing to meet their offer rather than the private school pupils who are currently just meeting their offer.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the first part of what you say does happen. Students who narrowly miss their offers are assessed in context - I'd imagine the student getting AAB from a failing comprehensive would be more likely to be accepted than the AAB Eton student.

That does appear to be the case. Anecdotally (I know I know), all the people I know who failed to get AAA but still got in were state schoolers.

I disagree with the point abt making a levels harder. This is exactly what’s wrong with the uk university system. Being a brainiac doesn’t mean you will be successful in life. We should be assessing students on multiple levels of critia not just how well they can study for an exam. Students need to offer a wide scope of skills, as exams simply aren’t realistic preparation for the majority of jobs these students will go on to do. For example, banking and law. Going to oxbridge is supposed to open doors, help students make connections and go on to be extremely successful in later life, not become academics and professors. Universities should focus on helping students attain success. That should be the priority. You don’t need to be a bloody expert in the field of economics (which is theoretical and mathematical at uni) to become a successful banker.