Oxbridge state schools no so bad

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Tree
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Re: Oxbridge state schools no so bad

Post by Tree »

Hi dinah yes absolutley agree this is my classics argument i refer to in my first post and certianly skews the figures i think by about 300 or 6% of admissions
solimum
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Re: Oxbridge state schools no so bad

Post by solimum »

I don't think it is sensible to talk of "better top colleges" at Oxford or Cambridge - all are difficult to get in to (!) - the differences are mainly in size, location, architecture and (to some extent) subjects offered, and many undergraduates end up in a college they didn't apply to as there are systems to balance out uneven application rates. A couple of years ago when DS2 was applying I'm sure we found information on state/private application/admission rates by college, as the higher state proportion of his preferred college was one of the factors he/we took into account. Some colleges do have a reputation for ending up with a higher proportion of old Etonians, and the contacts/familiarity involved probably makes that a self-perpetuating cycle

Information on which subjects each Oxford college offers is readily available via

http://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergra ... urces.html

- most colleges offer most subjects, and Classics (for example) is spread across a wide range of types and sizes of college.
Tree
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Re: Oxbridge state schools no so bad

Post by Tree »

v interesting solimum do you know if my assumptions about more indie students studying classics etc is correct ?
Loopyloulou
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Re: Oxbridge state schools no so bad

Post by Loopyloulou »

solimum wrote:I don't think it is sensible to talk of "better top colleges" at Oxford or Cambridge - all are difficult to get in to (!)
Surely you're not suggesting that eg. Homerton Cambridge is an equal to Trinity? Or St Peter's Oxford is an equal to Magdalen? Take a look at the Norrington Table!

I do concede that the scandalous lack of classics teaching in the state sector does provide some small advantage to the independent sector where Oxbridge entrance is concerned.
Loopy
Tree
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Re: Oxbridge state schools no so bad

Post by Tree »

Have been trying to find additional evidence of makeup of independant vs state school academic potential and have some useful statistics from SEN although i am not an expert on this and may not understnd the issues with SEN and independent schools but from the DCSAF website:

Children with SEN and statement: 97% at state school/state special schools and 3% at independent schools (if it was evenly matched the ratio should be the same as the total ratio of state to private schools ie 93:7) so half as many children proportionally with statements go to state schools and for childen with SEN but no statement (approx 18% of population) 99% go to state schools and <1% go to independant schools so 7 times less children proportionally with SEN go to independent schools, so even if you deny any increase in selectivity at independent school intake over state schools (highly contestable in my opinion) this SEN discrepancy would in itself skew the figures to a significant extent.
Tree
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Re: Oxbridge state schools no so bad

Post by Tree »

Hi loupyloulou I've never seen this norrington table there are some marked critisisms of it on wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norrington ... t_Rankings

but it is interesting
Loopyloulou
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Re: Oxbridge state schools no so bad

Post by Loopyloulou »

All league tables are criticised, but all contain an element of truth.

There were identical twins in my class at school. One won a scholarship to Trinity Cambridge. The other won a postmastership to Merton Oxford. Now they were clever (and very well educated too, of course :wink: )
Loopy
Tree
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Re: Oxbridge state schools no so bad

Post by Tree »

All league tables are criticised, but all contain an element of truth.
Vary nicely put loupyloulou :)
Tree
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Re: Oxbridge state schools no so bad

Post by Tree »

Loopyloulou wrote
The Oxbridge intake figures are never broken down by individual college. If they were, it would become clear that the indie proportions getting into the best Oxbridge colleges are much higher again than it appears, with state schools dominating places like St Peter's College, Oxford.
Hi loopy

I have just been analysing your norrington table scores for oxford vs percentage of state school students per collage and there is no correlation (r^2=0.06 an p=0.18) so overall there is no link between the number of state students a collage has with it's norrington score it averages out because collages like pembroke which have 0% state students are 23/30 brasenose 4% 26/30 and st johns who have 65% state are 1/30 for 2009 so it all averages out and there is no significant correlation. Also st peters that you mention has only 11% state pupils but its 25/30
Last edited by Tree on Thu Jun 17, 2010 9:52 am, edited 1 time in total.
ourmaminhavana
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Re: Oxbridge state schools no so bad

Post by ourmaminhavana »

Tree wrote: collages
Sorry, just have picture of our brightest having fun with lots of twigs and bits of sticky paper :wink:
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