What are snubbing and shunning?

Come on then — lets see the admissions tutors respond to katherine! (My impression, katherine, is recent, and completely based on a single Oxford college, and is that that college does make considerable efforts, for what that is worth).

I should have said this — but I can’t tell whether the report is implying criticism of the Universities, or using their “snubbing” to denigrate the academies. What do you think?

Harry- Why might Cambridge have the necessary expertise and resources on hand to run an academy but not Oxford? I really don’t know enough about either place to have any idea about this so would find it interesting to hear. (I’m happy to take your word for it, but am courious as to why this is so.)

Well, Richard J, the issue (or it was in my time) was not so much the proportions of admissions received to students admitted, but the actual admissions from state schools, which were much lower than they should have been, looking at the grades that were actually got. So yes, I’d say the issue was institutional rather than individual. There was a LOT of talk, and not much actual change/improvement.

I help with admissions interviews at Cambridge, so I should be very careful here, but I think that nearly all of these debates miss an important point. Increasing state school representation at Oxbridge is a bit of a red herring if what we care about is education and social justice. Most state-school educated people you meet at Cambridge are like me: they have parents who are teachers (or work in a similar profession) and who were unable/opposed to send their children to private school. However, they rarely come from really deprived backgrounds (there are, of course, exceptions, but this seems a general rule). Therefore, I suspect that increasing the state/private ratio would have little effect on the underlying issues about educational inequality. Incidentally, the low ratio of state school students based on A-level grades (katherine at 6) overlooks a very frustrating issue. Some A-levels seem more difficult than others. State schools tend – I worry for league table reasons – to enter their students for the “easier” A-levels. I know this is a big issue, and someone will shout at me, but there is a serious issue lurking here. Unfortunately, no-one really has any interest in making much political running on this issue.

I agree entirely – it’s been a long and busy month at work, so my English may not be the clearest at present…

Oh, and I don’t think it would necessarily be silly to do so — running an academy physically close to the university would provide an excellent place to base research, to train teachers, and to do actual experimental research, so if the University had the expertise and the will, it could be perfectly sensible.

Harry – that’s not really what’s proposed, though, is it? it’s not going to be the educational studies equivalent of Wytham Wood; it’s going to be a successful example of an academy (successful because at least some parents will see it as a route into Oxford/Cambridge, and so the school will get middle-class students and good results) for the government to put on the mantelpiece.

To be fair, I was always convinced that my admission to Cambridge (didn’t go, actually) was a direct result of the fact that I went to Peers, which was very obviously the kind of school it was.

nasi lemak — yes, I’m sure that’s right. Just saying that it could be worth doing anyway. Though after I wrote that I realised that there is a very good reason not to — the derision heaped on them for sponsoring a failing academy (which they know is the most likely outcome, because it is) will be huge, and the praise scattered on them for running a successful one will be negligible. A no-win situation, it seems to me. So I withdraw my comment!

In response to Nesi Lemak’s question at 13 as to whether some A-levels really are “easier” than others, I should stress that there was a reason why the “easier” was in inverted commas in the original comment!

Certainly, however, two points seem to hold true: first, there is a very strong sense among those who do admissions that certain A-levels are “easier” than others, such that, even when interviewing for humanities or social sciences, all else being equal, history, english, physics would be viewed as a “better” combination than history, english, media studies. Even if this view is mis-guided, it is certainly prevalent (and I would be shocked if it were not also wide-spread at Oxford, and in Russell group universities more generally). It is a great shame that this information is so difficult to get into the public domain.

Second, the terms “harder” and “easier” may be misleading here, because difficulty has many aspects. What really makes an A-level count during the admissions process is that it is viewed as a strong predictor of final class mark. There might, then, be some reason not to treat all A-levels as equal, even if, in some sense, they are all equally hard. Of course, the claim that certain A-levels are good predictors of class mark would be extremely hard to prove, because there are too many confounding variables. However, if Oxbridge colleges are expected to choose candidates on the basis of their expected results, and if some A-levels are better predictors than others, then there seem to be good reasons not to treat the raw statistics about A-level grades versus Oxbridge entry as evidence of systematic discrimination.

To be fair, matters are more complex here, but the complexities work in both directions: admissions tutors regularly admit students from “bad” schools with “bad” A-levels, but they also regularly offer places to bad students who can row, play rugby or sing in a choir because the alumi expect this to happen, and students with those talents tend to be from the private sector.

Sorry – this is all off the topic of academies. Interviews must be getting to me!

I am also in the middle of admissions at a Cambridge college. I have interviewed in a number of colleges over a number of years. Although i wouldn’t be surprised if explicitly dodgy admissions practices occasionally happen – letting in below par rugby players, for example, as opposed to forms of unconscious bias – i have never come across them, and i do not think they are at all common. So no, Harry, i don’t think you are being hopelessly naive.

I agree with the comments in 9 about the class issue underlying admissions – the distinction between state and private school pupils is often woefully misleading. The general problem of class inequality unites Cambridge and Oxford – not “Oxbridge”, whatever that is! – with virtually all of the other Russell group universities. Indeed i suspect that some other elite universities – Durham and St. Andrews spring to mind – have even worse figures than we do. The obsession with Cambrige and Oxford is rather depressing; there are other excellent universities in the UK.

And contra Katherine, very significant resources (human and material) are spent on encouraging applicants from non-traditional backgrounds, and this is growing year on year. To lay the blame primarily on the universities – as the government and the media are fond of doing – serves to deflect attention away from the main problem: the continuing impact of class inequality on educational opportunities across the system.

OK, OK “bad” is too strong a term!

A fairer way to put it would be that students who are marginal cases can be helped significantly by rowing, rugby-playing or singing, arguably sometimes to the detriment of candidates who seem likely to be academically better. I can see good reasons against this, but there are also reasons for it (not only because old college members seem to give money on the basis of such considerations but for reasons of community, etc, etc). It is, however, relevant to the debate over state versus independent school applicants: independent schools tend to scream loudly about social engineering, but conveniently overlook that certain kinds of “social engineering” might, in some cases, work in their favour.
To prevent the Cambridge Evening News hounding me, four caveats: no college would offer a place to a student who was clearly not up to the course on the basis of other talents. I also know of colleges which actively try to avoid taking such issues into consideration. Third, I suspect that this doesn’t happen in any systematic way. Finally, I think this kind of thing is far less widespread than it would have been even ten years ago.

I’m afraid that I too have to be cautious in what I say on this subject, because of institutional role etc. But I would say this: that at my university (like many others) we’ve made real efforts over the last ten years or so to “widen participation” (as the jargon has it). This has earned us the hostility of the conservative press and the private schools’ PR machine and just about zero credit or recognition from government. The numbers haven’t changed much either – and one reason for this is that after ten years of Labour government they’ve made essentially no progress in improving the stock of eligible candidates from state schools for university places. Much more convenient then from Denham to wag the waggy finger at the universities than to examine his own government’s record.

* This is the same Denham, btw, responsible for the shocking ELQ decision which will seriously damage the OU and Birkbeck and deprive thousands of adults of educational opportunities.

On another matter on the thread: universities aren’t just machines for learning, research etc. I’ve got no problem with the idea that it might be reasonable for a university to admit talented rugby players, singers, concert pianists etc., just so long as they are _good enough_ to cope with the academic demands. In my experience, such people tend to be pretty rewarding – they certainly aren’t slackers.

Are people really so shocked by the crew/rugby/choir thing? I do interviews for an American university, and I more-or-less expect that deadly mediocrities who can hurl some sort of ball exceptionally fast will get in. Are things so different in England?

There is actually a literature, I think, on the use of “character” in admissions in North American universities. For whatever reason, the Oxbridge thing at least has been to regard ourselves as a machine for learning, in CB’s phrase, and to select only on academic potential. (And thus to e.g. pride ourselves on trying to assess obnoxious or rude applicants solely on their academic.) I agree with DC above – if anyone mentioned non-academic activities as a reason for admitting someone ahead of an applicant with stronger academic potential, I’d be outraged. I’d be rather negatively surprised if it were suggested as a tiebreaker, even.

“I don’t know the statistics, but in my college it seems as if grammar school students make up most of the state school intake”

Last time I looked (say 5 years ago) they were indeed over represented. And certain ethnic groups had less chance of getting in even with good A levels, and people from non-traditional backgrounds (e.g. colleges), and people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. State school represented less of a disadvantage.

“I’m also shocked (and very surprised) by cambridgefellow’s remark (at 17) that rugby, singing and rowing ability might be taken into account.”

Have you ever heard of the academic subject known as ‘medicine’? There all your worst fears will be confirmed.

In my first week at Oxbridge (at a trendy non-traditional college) I was berated by drunk Etonians for daring to come to Oxbridge, and told by my tutor that ‘it must be so much harder for you being away from home than it is for the others’ (the reference being something about not having boarded at private school apparently). Ah, Oxbridge, heady days.

When I had my Oxford interview, late 1990s, one of the dons made quite clear they wouldn’t be asking about anything non-academic in the interview – I can’t quite remember whether he went as far as to say it wasn’t taken into account at all, but I doubt it (after all, I got in).

Having been involved in admissions for three years now, I can say it’s certainly not something we’ve ever looked at. I’m sure there will be plenty of people in the college who can sing/act/kick a football/row/etc and don’t feel it’s my responsibility to boost the numbers. We do, I think, try to take account of different school backgrounds and A level subjects though.

Oh, and someone mentioned photos – students are required to bring a passport photo to their interview. I’m not really sure why, but I think it may be helpful in remembering who was who after interviewing 9:30-6 (or longer).

Ben, if interviews are an important part of the selection process, all kinds of non-academic criteria (visual cues, unacknowledged assumptions about cultural correlations with intelligence etc etc) will impact on the decision. Why does Oxbridge interview? Why not simply rely on the academic performance data?

Answers own question: because simply relying on the data would not select for academic potential but rather would select those who went to the best schools (which they often paid for).

Responds to own question: but why not just weight the data then, giving more weight to performances from “bad” schools?

Reponds to own response: Because then we’d be accused of “social engineering”, people would want to know our exact criteria, there’d be legal challenges and articles in the press. Interviews mean that we can exercise our “judgement” and magically discern “potential”

Comes back: but isn’t that all a bit random and subjective ….?

My own view, fwiw, is that if you really want to widen participation a lottery for all candidates who meet an objective performance threshold would be the way to go. And that threshold would not have to be set too high, either. Of course any such proposal would be howled down by the press and neither ministers nor academics would have the courage to defend it.

Having been on both sides of the interview, I’m well aware that you can take other factors into account. And, indeed, one of the advantages is that we can distinguish a nervous and unprepared state school applicant who can actually think from a highly polished and well-coached private school applicant who can’t.

Of course, interviewers can make mistakes, but I’d prefer to rely on interviews along with A-levels. That’s why I’m distrustful of reports (like at #31) that focus only on grades. These days, many people can get 3 As. The Oxford admissions process requires you to pass both an interview and A levels, and those are separate tests not necessarily meant to simply duplicate each other (i.e. people may pass either one but the fail the other).

I knew that Harry B and Alan Ryan have both come out in favour of lotteries, I didn’t realise you were a supporter too.

I’m not sure my scare quotes were helpful, Stuart, so imagine them dropped. But I’d be amazed if you had any actual evidence to support

“If they are well-constructed, interviews are probably the best way we have of getting at potential that may not be reflected fully in academic performance.”

Studies? Surveys? Comparative data?

“in an interview you can see someone thinking on their feet.”

Or you think you can … Even leaving aside the effect of the overconfidence of interviewers in their own forensic powers, this remark seems to me to highlight the problem. Many (not all) very bright working class applicants will fail to give the right signs of “thinking on their feet” in the totally weird environment of an interview in an Oxbridge College. “Thinking on your feet” is hardly the same as having the capacity for independent study anyway.

Come on, you guys _know_ this.

Chris, no, of course I don’t have the evidence you rightly want on this, and my view is completely skewed by having just devoted the best part of a week of my life to a very intensive interview process. Its hard to think that all that effort might actually be pointless. All I would say by way of mitigation is that I genuinely think the interview process today is not at all like the way you pictured it as being 20 or so years ago – though that is a point about good will and good intentions rather than the ultimate efficacy of the process.

Chris @ 29: things really have changed. I’ve done admissions for a decade in Oxford and Cambridge in five different colleges in three different degrees and never heard a whisper of anything beyond academic potential. (Perhaps the odd worry that extra-curricular activities, if very extensive, might interfere with an applicant’s ability to handle the workload.)

Chris @ 40: there just *aren’t* many working class applicants, I think, so it’s hard to say much about their chances. We obviously don’t have parental occupation data in front of us, but I think that e.g. the applicants from “worse” schools tend to be the offspring of teachers, librarians – people with college degrees. Indeed I think that’s what Harry B described above about his own offer? Class is almost entirely acting (“acting”) prior to admissions rather than in place of it, I think.

Interviews, I think, are terrible (and very demanding of time), albeit carried out with the best of intentions by well-meaning people, usually themselves from middle-class backgrounds. I am not convinced they are worse than the very clear class biases that obtain in e.g. examination results.

Allison @ 33: there are all kinds of dodgy product that get sold, aren’t there? I think this is one of them. None of these firms produce much evidence that their advice improves the chances of applicants (from what I’ve heard their advice doesn’t seem worth paying for), but they sometimes do things like offer a refund if the client doesn’t get an Oxbridge offer. Which means that as long as a decent number of applicants buy their advice, and some of them get in, the firm does OK regardless of how good that advice is. I would like to see universities do more to try to provide good advice for free.

Look, quotas, it’s the only solution.

PS my comments about admissions and applications are now 13/14 years out of date – so if they are genuinely now inaccurate, then I’m very glad. However, I do remember that a lot of things were being said to be done then too, but it didn’t seem to be making much discernible difference. Individual efforts weren’t adding up to institutional change.

But for every individual trying to make things different there is one who is barely going through the motions. AAt the very first supervision I went to, the tutor went round the room asking people where they came from geographically, and then named the major private school in that area and asking to be remembered to so-and-so teacher. He went conspicuously quiet when I said “Teesside” and ignored me entirely thereafter. I hope to god that he had nothing to do with admissions at his college.

And it is avery relevant point that has been made about admissions from state schools absolutely not necessarily meaning admissions from working class backgrounds. I’ll wield my class credentials by saying I was from a crappy (Middlesbrough) comprehensive school, not a grammar school, and then spoil it entirely by ‘fessing up that my parents were university educated teachers and I have several generations of Cambridge attendees amongst my forebears (I wore a 100 year old hood to my graduation for goodness sake) – and I still felt lower class than most of my college companions who went to grammars or private schools.

It’s reassuring to think that things have changed here, but also slightly depressing to consider that few kids with no university-attending-family-history are succeeding even now.
My own experience was very disheartening – but this was about 15 years ago, and I like to think / hope that things have changed. I’m from a non-university-attending, council estate, poor comprehensive school background, and my Oxbridge interview went pretty badly – to put it simply, I’d never even met anyone anything like the tweedy old guy I found in front of me, he didn’t seem to know what to make of me either, and we had a very unsuccessful attempt at a conversation that was full of the kind of awkward moments that come from sharing utterly different milieux (is that the plural?), language and experiences. I felt that any potential I did have remained pretty much ‘unexposed’ by the process. I hope this doesn’t happen any more, but what DO you interviewers do with the kind of awkward, unconfident fish-out-of-water working-class types you must still see from time to time? Or are some interviewers just better at this than others?

There’s also the fact that you don’t need to be coached for interviews if you have the sort of upbringing in which you frequently meet people like the people interviewing you in you social circle, and feel at ease with such people because you are used to having conversations with them about grown up matters. You could use the interview differently — to figure out the social background of the interviewee (hard to fake) and use that as a consideration. Do you use them that way. My sense (and people who know the literature on interviewing tell me this is true, but I don’t have direct knowledge of it) is that interviewing candidates is one of those activities in which people overestimate their own effectiveness (like driving). From the outside it looks as if the Oxbridge interviews are at best a massive waste of time. (The Cambridge college to which I was admitted did so without an interview). I do remember someone a long time ago (who will remain nameless) telling me that he found interviews a good way of finding out which students (the pompous self-important ones) to avoid as tutees).

Harry – I think my initial response is that it would be against the rules of the current system to dig into the social backgrounds of students, or to use same as an explicit consideration, and that we wouldn’t be able to defend doing so. It’s ok to compare the academic achievements of an applicant to their educational background, but not to pursue anything that looks like diversity as a goal. (The provision in the near future of “first generation” information from UCAS is going to be very interesting in this regard, but I think it’s unlikely to be seen as politically possible to advantage first-generation applicants in any non-minimal way.)

I’d also point out that Oxford colleges strongly resist centralised admissions – this is a major hurdle to providing equality of access.

the interviews that I have just had were indeed very structured, and almost entirely avoided calling upon applicants’ prior knowledge. but i still didn’t find them entirely satisfactory as a selection procedure. without wanting to give proper credit to the intelligence of oxford tutors, it seems to me that the more confident and assured – but not necessarily more intelligent – candidate still has an edge in this kind of situation.

nevertheless, people should remember that it is only one aspect of the application, or so we were told. all the paper parts of the application are still being considered; they’re not just a preliminary hurdle to pass over in order to get an interview. although it varies by subject, oxford does, in addition to interviews, gather extra information about candidates from tests and written work. all of this one hopes would allow them to make a more accurate judgement about who is the *best* candidate.

i would at least have to say that it is a better than the system used by almost all other universities, where the only factor is the quality of your ucas form. extremely competitive unis like LSE then have to differentiate between excellent candidates on the basis of the most trivial differences in their personal statements or references. well, that or just ip dip doo :/