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This is extremely unfair framing. Oxford University has been discriminating people from independent schools for a while now. To get in, you need 4 A* from an i

This is extremely unfair framing. Oxford University has been discriminating people from independent schools for a while now. To get in, you need 4 A* from an independent schools, or just 3 As from state schools. That's not "letting in poor people" as you framed it. It's letting in dumber people, worse students. Lots of that is mainly based on classism (against people from middle class), racism (against white people). Oikophobia is a cancer, and Oxford getting worse ratings is the direct result of that.

ceejayoz 1y ago
> It's letting in dumber people, worse students. Is it? Maybe a kid managing to struggle through a shitty school has to work harder than, say, Prince Charles with his private school and dedicated personal tutors.
- happytoexplain 1y ago
  The context is explicitly statistical, so yes, of course - but your point is valuable to keep in mind to avoid subconsciously painting individuals with the same brush as the big picture.
- AlexandrB 1y ago
  Maybe. Unfortunately it's very hard to measure that. Moreover, how hard you have to work doesn't necessarily correlate to how good you are. The reality is elite schools are supposed to filter for "the best and brightest" not "the hardest workers".
  - afavour 1y ago
    > The reality is elite schools are supposed to filter for "the best and brightest" not "the hardest workers". I think the point the OP is making is that getting 4 A*s when you benefit from exemplary schooling and personal tutoring doesn't necessarily make you the best nor the brightest.
  - hilios 1y ago
    >The reality is elite schools are supposed to filter for "the best and brightest" not "the hardest workers". Maybe they are supposed to do this, but let's not act like the filter doesn't quite apply the same way if your parents are rich and or well connected. They're however very effective in filtering out bright kids whose parents can't afford the tuition and aren't lucky enough to get a scholarship.
- gcau 1y ago
  >Maybe a kid managing to struggle through a shitty school has to work harder It sounds like you think admissions should be based on how hard people think they worked relative to others.
  - growse 1y ago
    Maybe they should be based on a range of factors that influence how successful the university thinks the candidate will be as an undergraduate? Not just exam results?
  - ceejayoz 1y ago
    It means I think admissions officers sometimes know there’s more to a human than their raw test scores. They likely also know that a decent result at some schools requires more work than a great result at others. I’ve met smart people who do poorly on exams. I’ve met dumb people who do well on them.
- dukeyukey 1y ago
  We're not talking about individual cases, we're talking about statistical averages.
  - nicoburns 1y ago
    Statistical averages would tell you that you wouldn't have some schools getting 150 pupils into Oxbridge while others only get 2. But has long been the reality.
    - dukeyukey 1y ago
      No, they absolutely might, because schools group a load of students together with similar attributes relevant to academic success (quality of teachers, school funding, wealth of the surrounding area).
  - trial3 1y ago
    Maybe the statistically average kid managing to struggle through a shitty school has to work harder than, say, the statistically average Prince Charles with his private school and dedicated personal tutors.
    - eastbound 1y ago
      This is quite the insult. We could fill the world with Maybes, but the one thing I’ve noticed about people who succeed, is that it’s generally their work that performs, while anticlass-based triage has only made hateful people reach high positions.
    - patanegra 1y ago
      Maybe statistically gifted child is more often than not born to parents who were gifted too. Then, they read more to the child, speak more with him. And maybe either have higher disposable income, or liberty to recommend books, and learn with the child. In the future, it's going to be a nil argument anyway, as world-class AI tutors are going to be available for every child 24/7 for a penny.
- yodsanklai 1y ago
  But does Oxford want the best student or some that had to work harder but ultimately aren't as good? In France, our elite scientific schools recruit students based on anonymous nationwide tests. It turns out most of the recruits come from privileged backgrounds, and I've heard this is more the case today than it was several decades ago. I'd love to see more diversity in these schools, but I prefer to maintain our educational excellence rather than dilute it artificially with worse students. I'm all for paying tutors to poorer but promising student, but they should be admitted against the same criteria as anyone else.
  - patanegra 1y ago
    Clearly, it's because talented people grow to the top (not just economically, they might be cultural elites, like people working in news, academia). Then, they marry people who are on the top. And they pass their genes and habits. It's nothing bad that their kids end up good students again. I think that French system is superior. It gives fair chances to everyone.
    - Ekaros 1y ago
      Honestly I feel like anonymous mass test in general is least worst way. Yes, parents can invest in tutoring and such. But there still needs to be effort and learning to do well on the test.
    - frotaur 1y ago
      This is not 'clear' at all. What is clear is the correlation. You imply that the cause is 'good genes and habit'. An equally, if not more valid cause is that having money makes it much easier to get good condition/tutors etc for preparing for the exams.
      - patanegra 1y ago
        There are studies that show how heritable intelligence is. Very. It is quite common people say, that something is only a correlation and not causation. But if you can point to a common denominator, that has been shown multiple times, to have a massive effect, it's not likely to be just a coincidence. Genes are this common denominator. Society and habits (for example, protestants vs catholics) are another. Things that consistently impact the whole population are not just a random process that picks: "You will be clever, ugly.", "You will be pretty, sporty, but will be dumb." It's always genes, society and habits.
- patanegra 1y ago
  It's always the same argument. If you are world-class talent (someone who gets to Oxford), you should be capable of similar results as kids from independent schools. Like Joe Seddon did (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Seddon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Seddon - growing up with a single parent mom, working as a therapist in NHS). It isn't fair to ask ones to have 4A* and others to have just 3As. Only 1 in 2600 gets 4 A. And 1 in 83 gets 3 As. Making it 31 easier for people from state school is discrimination so bad, it should be illegal.
  - ceejayoz 1y ago
    > Only 1 in 2600 gets 4 A. > And 1 in 83 gets 3 As. And what if that’s not always an indication of which person is smarter?
    - rayiner 1y ago
      But we know that it’s true. That’s why we have been using objective metrics like test scores for millennia, across societies are different as China, India, and Britain.
      - Latty 1y ago
        Your best argument is "we've done it for a long time, so it can't be wrong"? Quite the contrary: there is a long history of "objective" tests being shown to be deeply flawed and biased towards certain factors (often cultural and class based), we explicitly know it isn't the case that test scores are purely about some innate intelligence characteristic: there is a reason the rich spend a lot of money to raise their children's scores. My secondary school claimed to have the best results for Business Studies A-levels in the country. They achieved this by taking the pre-released case study, writing every possible question they could think of about the study, writing model answers, and telling the students to memorise them. The idea that these scores represent some innate intelligence of the student is obviously nonsense if you interact with the system at all.
        1y ago
- skippyboxedhero 1y ago
  How would you measure this? Before you continue, there are governments in the UK that have created formulas to mathematically measure your level of "struggle"...these happen to, in a massive coincidence, benefit areas that vote for them. The same logic is also being applied within universities to boost grades as managers at universities have quotas to hit from government. This leads to odd situations where a subject like Scottish Law at Edinburgh has no quota for students without appropriate social credit because it is a subject which, unlike other courses at that university, gets largely Scottish students applying so it has to be used to fill quotas. And these students have to be carried to the end of their course because they are there to fulfill a quota. Sounds like a great idea but, as with everything like this, the assumption is that a university administrator or bureaucrat can accurately measure your struggle...they can't, I am sure the wisdom of this approach will dim when you are being operated on by someone who filled a quota at medical school.
TMWNN 1y ago
>To get in, you need 4 A* from an independent schools, or just 3 As from state schools. Or ABB for the incoming president of the Oxford Union, the one who cheered Charlie Kirk's murder a few months after debating him in person. <https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/education/2025/09/oxford-union-president-elect-my-words-were-no-less-insensitive-than-charlie-kirks https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/education/2025/09/oxfo...>
- afavour 1y ago
  It would be wonderful if we could, just once, have a conversation about something happening outside the US without bringing in US culture war talking points.
  - TMWNN 1y ago
    Publicly cheering Kirk's murder is what made Abaraonye notable. I provided a citation for the ABB grades, which is relevant to the comment I replied to.
    - afavour 1y ago
      > I provided a citation for the ABB grades, which is relevant to the comment I replied to. An extremely tenuous connection. Abaraonye (and even less his words on Kirk) had absolutely no relevance to the criteria by which the Times assesses universities, thus had no impact on Oxfords placement, thus has no relevance to the conversation.
      - TMWNN 1y ago
        Patanegra wrote: > To get in, you need 4 A* from an independent schools, or just 3 As from state schools. In reply, I provided a recently prominent example of someone recently admitted to Oxford with lower than 3 A grades on the A-Levels. I only mentioned Kirk's murder as context because, as I keep repeating, the person a) only became prominent because b) he publicly cheered said murder c) after debating Kirk in person. I don't know what else you can ask for here.
cvwright 1y ago
And it’s being reported that the new president of the Oxford Union only had A B B.
growse 1y ago
> It's letting in dumber people, worse students It's a very bold assertion that A level grades are the ultimate arbiter of "dumbness".
- patanegra 1y ago
  When you compare 1:83 vs 1:2600, it is so big difference, it deserves bold statements. In the UK, there's 1.5 million kids playing footbal. 1:83 ~18000 kids play in any professional club. 1:2600 ~580 kids get to play in Premier League, EFL Championship in a season What is Oxford doing is letting kids who play in absolutely any club, if they go to state school, or only those who got to Premier League, if they go to independent school. Again, it's discrimination so bad it should be illegal.
  - growse 1y ago
    Why do you think the school & A level system is perfectly meritocratic when the evidence squarely suggests it's far from it?
  - rcxdude 1y ago
    And yet students at independent schools are twice as likely to get all As than those at state schools. Do you think it's likely that all the smart students happen to have the means to go to the independent schools? Keep in mind the grades are not the main filter for oxbridge: probably the largest is whether the students apply in the first place, and then the latter is the interview, which matters a lot for determining which people with good enough grades are actually good enough to get in.
    - patanegra 1y ago
      Well, isn't it because kids in independent school are in the school from 8am till 6pm, including Saturdays, since the age of 9, and by the age 11 they board, and all their lives revolve around learning? In my sons' prep school, I have seen kids playing musical instruments so good, they could do concerts for a general public. I have seen boys taking GCSEs in Year 6. And 100% of parents are university educated, often high achievers. Don't let me start speaking about Chinese, where kids come from school 6pm, and they often get two more lessons at home (Chinese + music instrument most often). Parents in state schools don't put in even half of the effort on average.
foven 1y ago
The kids at private schools are specifically primed for every part of the application process, including the interview and interview questions in a way that state schools simply cannot. It does not matter how smart you are if your competition is able to practice in a way you cannot.
- nicce 1y ago
  Why the process is not fixed from that part? Redesign in a way that private schools will not get any benefit from the process itself.
  - asib 1y ago
    It is, via the interview. This is why A-level results are a coarse filter, and why they have different standards for state vs private schools; state school kids with 3 A's presumably excel in the interview to the same extent as private school kids with 3 A*'s. It cannot be understated how much of an advantage someone who went to a private school has over someone from a state school, with respect to the entire process (exams/admissions tests/interview prep).
  - NewJazz 1y ago
    What is your specific proposal? Anything you do, the private schools will do their best to adapt.
  - rcxdude 1y ago
    How exactly? the way it's managed at the moment is that the admissions tutors keep an eye on what different schools are doing in terms of prepping their students and keep that in mind when assessing them. Which is exactly what causes the 'bias'. I am significantly more impressed by someone who manages to get good grades with little help than someone who manages to get excellent grades with the most effective teaching of the test that money can buy (having gone to an independent school, I was one of those being 'discriminated' against, but I can well understand that many of my classmates, who primarily good at cramming for the exam and not understanding the material, got very good grades but would not do nearly as well at university. Heck, I got in and struggled way more than I had done before, and more so than many in my year who had worse grades in less good schools) (I would, in general, be in favor of fixing GCSEs and A-levels. They have persistently moved in a direction that rewards memorisation of particular keywords, something which especially rewards teaching the test, as well as getting easier and especially less good at discriminating the top end of ability accurately. But it's still not going to be enough to remove this difference)
joosters 1y ago
Oxbridge have never had to 'let in dumber people'. They are always heavily over-subscribed, and give offers to a small fraction of the people who come for an interview, let alone apply. The whole point of the interview process is to assess not just the applicant's past achievements, but what they might be able to achieve if they got their place at the uni. Part of that is looking at the applicant's background, and knowing that even if they aren't currently at some elite high-fee school, they might still have the ability and capability to do well. I am all in favor of this style of selection. The dark old days of "this kid's dad went to our college, we should do them a favour and let them in" are long gone, thankfully. Can you point to any kind of evidence that Oxbridge are dumbing down their teaching, or lowering their standards of teaching? I doubt it. Full disclosure: cambridge alumni, from a state school!
- ofa0e 1y ago
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- notreallyauser 1y ago
  On student evaluations, I wouldn't be surprised of Oxbridge do badly as so many pf the dons were at or near the top of their year at the university, weren't employed for their teaching abilities, and seemed unable to comprehend they were not teaching cohorts entirely full of clones of themselves. Dumbed down it was not, in my experience. Dumbing down would be a way to up the score on these rankings, though.
- corimaith 1y ago
  And is this new generation doing paticularly well in solving our problems or advancing the nation over the previous one? I can't see much examples, I do remember going through some of the science projects shown in undergrad showcase but none of them were tackling key bottlenecks or doing something novel.
- jgraham 1y ago
  In addition, the colleges have a lot of data about the people they interview and how well they do during the degree programme. My understanding (based on a discussion with one Natural Sciences admissions tutor at one Cambridge college nearly 20 years ago, so strictly speaking this may not be true in general, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't common) is that during the admissions process, including interviews, applicants are scored so they can be stack-ranked, and the top N given offers. Then, for the students that are accepted, and get the required exam results, the college also records their marks at each stage of their degree. To verify the admissions process is fair, these marks are compared with the original interview ranking, expecting that interview performance is (on average) correlated with later degree performance. I don't know if they go further and build models to suggest the correct offer to give different students based on interview performance, educational background, and other factors, but it seems at least plausible that one could try that kind of thing, and have the data to prove that it was working. Anyway my guess is that of the population of people who would do well if they got in, but don't, the majority are those whose background makes them believe it's "not for the likes of me", and so never apply, rather than people who went to private schools, applied, and didn't get a place. (also a Cambridge alumni from a state school, FWIW),
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lwhi 1y ago
What an appalling point of view. Growing up without privilege is (obviously) markedly more difficult than being provided with the best education money can buy throughout childhood. The students aren't necessarily worse; but they will be unaccustomed to the codified approach that other students from independent schools understand. The system has been built to serve the privileged. While you might feel blame can fairly be placed on differing entry requirements; the truth is more complex. A 'sticking plaster' solution has been lazily applied to address disparity, when in reality, the whole system needs to be reworked. 'Dumber' and 'worse', are not labels that should be used here.
- patanegra 1y ago
  It might come over as appalling, given the whole culture has shifted towards: "Nobody is dumber! Every child deserves a medal." Which isn't true, and never was. I get why we do that with kids in Reception and Year 1. With young adults, like University students, the fact of inequality of potentials of individuals, is just a fact anyone has to live with. I am clever, but I am a fat, average looking guy. So that's what I have to live with. David Beckham is not so smart, but he is sporty and looks great. He uses his innate talents, and I use mines. Nobody is discriminated by being different. The system has been built by those with means. And those with means more often than not are clever, hard-working people. That's how you get successful in the first place. And when you are born with great talents, you will go up too. That was the point of aristocrats being replaced by bourgeois, and now people in tech growing no matter where they are from.
  - lwhi 1y ago
    I understand what you're trying to say, but I think you're making a false equivalence between socio-economic disparity and innate talent. Imagine the same person, cloned. Clone A is born into an economically challenged household; while clone B is born into an upper-middle class household. Now consider whether both clones would achieve the same results at A level. One could expect the child born into the poorer household to experience more challenges, and perhaps achieve worse results as a consequence. In this instance, how would it be appropriate to call clone A thick or less intelligent than clone B?
pimterry 1y ago
Fundamentally Oxbridge entry has never been based on academic results directly as you're implying. You needed near-perfect grades to be considered, but the vast majority of people applying with those grades fail the interviews regardless. The interview is absolutely the primary test here, with the grades just acting as a filter to provide a manageable number of applicants. Widening that filter to allow more disadvantaged students the chance to interview seems perfectly reasonable - given that the interview itself remains equally demanding (and I've seen no suggestion or evidence against this).
lokar 1y ago
I think it’s a mistake to think admissions can ever be some neutral objective process. You are designing a contest, and students compete. You have to try to represent your goals in terms of the contest, this is very lossy. It’s just never going to be very accurate, and in highly selective institutions much of the selection will be random no matter how you structure the contest.
abxyz 1y ago
It is a very fair read of Paul's take. I attended one of the worst secondary schools in the country. Less than 10% of my year earned the qualifications necessary to go on to university. I know that many of these people, who have gone on to be successful in life, would have excelled at an independent school and would have excelled at university. They were in poverty, not stupid. You cannot compare the achievements of a student at an independent school to those of a student at a state school based on grades. State school and independent school are a fundamentally different educational experience. If you think Cambridge and Oxford exist to accept the highest graded students in the country, rather than to accept the students that have the most academic potential, then sure, let's only admit students who have 3 A*s.
- energy123 1y ago
  Paul is talking his book, he wants it to change to increase the probability that his kids get in. Of course what we get to hear are the "reasons", and this conflict of interest goes unmentioned.
- fidotron 1y ago
  > You cannot compare the achievements of a student at an independent school to those of a student at a state school based on grades. State school and independent school are a fundamentally different educational experience. While I agree with this as a conclusion, I believe you cannot really go there without acknowledging that this has been a deteriorating situation ever since most of the UK abolished the grammar schools. "Comprehensive" education has done nothing except result in the oppression of the very people it claims to be liberating.
  - Latty 1y ago
    As someone who went to a grammar school, they are a terrible idea and comprehensive schools are a better system. Students are not equally capable across all subjects, and their ability changes over time. Grammar schools mean there is no room to give you what you need in subjects you fall behind on, and students who start to struggle or start achieving post-11-plus have to transfer schools to fix it, creating huge friction and basically ensuring they'll miss out on the education they should have. Comprehensives that have a full range of sets to teach at the skill level of the student for each subject are infinitely better for actual education. I was one of the fortunate ones who was pretty generalist and so I didn't suffer too much by it, but I consistently saw people just give up on subjects because they were too far behind and the school had no other options because there were no lower sets.
mytailorisrich 1y ago
There is also the issue of "contextual offers" at most Unis. Offers can be made at a significantly lower level just based on the postcode of the applicant. So someone might get an offer at AAB or ABB purely based on their address while the standard offer is AAA or higher.
notreallyauser 1y ago
Contextual offers are just that -- contextual. Cite your sources if you're claiming all independent schools get one tariff and all state schools get another, because AFAIK that's not how these contextual offers work. Oxford admissions have a heavy interview component: if they think you're really smart, have great potential, and then you'll be of the caliber to get 4 A* no question if you had rich parents and went to a top Public School (but don't, so may not), then -- yeah -- they can make you a lower offer. Their place, their rules. It isn't dumbing down or taking worse students, it's easing out the rich types who will drink/play lacrosse or rugby/bore to at least Blues standard, are pretty bright but have been spoon-fed to get there so will turn out to be dumber and worse students that people whose potential hadn't been fully revealed by 17/18, even if the spoon-fed cohort get better A Level results.
- patanegra 1y ago
  > if they think you're really smart, have great potential, and then you'll be of the caliber to get 4 A* no question if you had rich parents Assumed, they really are 4 A* material. If not, what might happen is, that Oxford might get worse in ratings. Is Oxford getting worse in ratings? > It isn't dumbing down or taking worse students, it's easing out the rich types But those rich types already have 4 A*, or they are close to it. Their kids have spent 10 years boarding, learning 10 hours a day, including Saturdays. And then, they are discriminated, because of hate towards the rich. I guess, what will happen, is that some other universities will pick them up. Kids, who are used to work extremely hard. Kids, who know how to learn. Kids, whose parents and grandparents knew how to apply themselves and who instilled all this in them too. And Oxford will be dethroned. Cream always rises to the top.
matthewmacleod 1y ago
That's not "letting in poor people" as you framed it. It's letting in dumber people, worse students. Lots of that is mainly based on classism (against people from middle class), racism (against white people). This obviously doesn’t follow, and you should feel a decent amount of embarrassment for ignoring the fact that exam grades don’t correlate with “dumbness” or lack thereof. It should be trivially obvious that a student who is perhaps from a less well-off background, attending state school and achieving decent grades, can be equally as talented and deserving of a top-tier education as a better-off, privately-educated student. Access programs go some way towards trying to tackle snowballing generational inequality - which essentially results in a bias away from merit, and towards those able to afford private education. If you want to argue against that, then fine - but at least don’t start with such faulty assumptions.
KaiserPro 1y ago
> To get in, you need 4 A* from an independent schools, or just 3 As from state schools. where does it say that here? https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses/admission-requirements/admission-requirements-table https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses/admiss... Although I do note that foundation PPE only requires BBB, which given the current crop of people in westminister, it makes sense.
energy123 1y ago
It's interesting to see that conservatives have quietly moved on from the idea that affirmative action should be done on the basis of household wealth instead of ethnicity. At least now we are being honest.
- programjames 1y ago
  Alternatively, the gap between the classes for access to educational resources has significantly declined in the past twenty years (due to stuff being posted online).
JetSetWilly 1y ago
And yet those kids from state schools then come out with more firsts than those from independent schools, showing they were not “dumber” at all - they were smarter. Really, oxford and cambridge as well as other top universities can have a simple algorithm. They should bias against those from private schools in terms of admissions criteria until the point at which outcomes (as measured by graduating degree scores) are equal. This wouldn’t happen though because then private schools would drop to 5% of enrolments and there’d be no advantage gained from paying for a private school education. Unthinkable!
rcxdude 1y ago
Keep in mind that the rating here is mostly about the student's opinion of the university, especially in terms of the teaching. And a dirty little secret of oxbridge I feel is that the teaching isn't particularly great. It's not bad, to be clear, and supervisions are something that you don't really get elsewhere, but it's very much a 'chuck people into the very deep end and let them sink-or-swim' approach with the sheer amount of material that they expect you to get through in a pretty short amount of time. The reputation they have is because a) they can afford to be (and are fairly good at) being highly selective in admitting those who can cope with this, b) if you do manage to swim, you've shown a higher level of aptitude for the subject than other universities, and c) because of said selectivity, you'll tend to be around other students who are able to support you. The actual level of support and teaching from the university itself is not as top-class.
physicsguy 1y ago
> It's letting in dumber people, worse students. Is it? That assumes that the grade is a fair differentiator between two students. But we know that that's not true because the gulf between private education and state education is enormous.
eynsham 1y ago
> To get in, you need 4 A* from an independent schools This is not, generally, true. Cambridge tends to have higher offers, and I had a friend offered 5A*+S1 (STEP), but that’s mostly because he buggered up his interview (and he was taking 5 A-levels). The standard offer at Oxford for mathematics is A*A*A, which is exactly what those applying from any public school will be asked to achieve. > or just 3 As from state schools Not for maths. For easy courses like PPE, someone who misses a standard offer of A*AA might be let off by a few grades. People at public schools who miss their offers are much likelier to be a bit thick.

ceejayoz 1y ago

> It's letting in dumber people, worse students. Is it? Maybe a kid managing to struggle through a shitty school has to work harder than, say, Prince Charles with his private school and dedicated personal tutors.

happytoexplain 1y ago
The context is explicitly statistical, so yes, of course - but your point is valuable to keep in mind to avoid subconsciously painting individuals with the same brush as the big picture.
AlexandrB 1y ago
Maybe. Unfortunately it's very hard to measure that. Moreover, how hard you have to work doesn't necessarily correlate to how good you are. The reality is elite schools are supposed to filter for "the best and brightest" not "the hardest workers".
- afavour 1y ago
  > The reality is elite schools are supposed to filter for "the best and brightest" not "the hardest workers". I think the point the OP is making is that getting 4 A*s when you benefit from exemplary schooling and personal tutoring doesn't necessarily make you the best nor the brightest.
- hilios 1y ago
  >The reality is elite schools are supposed to filter for "the best and brightest" not "the hardest workers". Maybe they are supposed to do this, but let's not act like the filter doesn't quite apply the same way if your parents are rich and or well connected. They're however very effective in filtering out bright kids whose parents can't afford the tuition and aren't lucky enough to get a scholarship.
gcau 1y ago
>Maybe a kid managing to struggle through a shitty school has to work harder It sounds like you think admissions should be based on how hard people think they worked relative to others.
- growse 1y ago
  Maybe they should be based on a range of factors that influence how successful the university thinks the candidate will be as an undergraduate? Not just exam results?
- ceejayoz 1y ago
  It means I think admissions officers sometimes know there’s more to a human than their raw test scores. They likely also know that a decent result at some schools requires more work than a great result at others. I’ve met smart people who do poorly on exams. I’ve met dumb people who do well on them.
dukeyukey 1y ago
We're not talking about individual cases, we're talking about statistical averages.
- nicoburns 1y ago
  Statistical averages would tell you that you wouldn't have some schools getting 150 pupils into Oxbridge while others only get 2. But has long been the reality.
  - dukeyukey 1y ago
    No, they absolutely might, because schools group a load of students together with similar attributes relevant to academic success (quality of teachers, school funding, wealth of the surrounding area).
- trial3 1y ago
  Maybe the statistically average kid managing to struggle through a shitty school has to work harder than, say, the statistically average Prince Charles with his private school and dedicated personal tutors.
  - eastbound 1y ago
    This is quite the insult. We could fill the world with Maybes, but the one thing I’ve noticed about people who succeed, is that it’s generally their work that performs, while anticlass-based triage has only made hateful people reach high positions.
  - patanegra 1y ago
    Maybe statistically gifted child is more often than not born to parents who were gifted too. Then, they read more to the child, speak more with him. And maybe either have higher disposable income, or liberty to recommend books, and learn with the child. In the future, it's going to be a nil argument anyway, as world-class AI tutors are going to be available for every child 24/7 for a penny.
yodsanklai 1y ago
But does Oxford want the best student or some that had to work harder but ultimately aren't as good? In France, our elite scientific schools recruit students based on anonymous nationwide tests. It turns out most of the recruits come from privileged backgrounds, and I've heard this is more the case today than it was several decades ago. I'd love to see more diversity in these schools, but I prefer to maintain our educational excellence rather than dilute it artificially with worse students. I'm all for paying tutors to poorer but promising student, but they should be admitted against the same criteria as anyone else.
- patanegra 1y ago
  Clearly, it's because talented people grow to the top (not just economically, they might be cultural elites, like people working in news, academia). Then, they marry people who are on the top. And they pass their genes and habits. It's nothing bad that their kids end up good students again. I think that French system is superior. It gives fair chances to everyone.
  - Ekaros 1y ago
    Honestly I feel like anonymous mass test in general is least worst way. Yes, parents can invest in tutoring and such. But there still needs to be effort and learning to do well on the test.
  - frotaur 1y ago
    This is not 'clear' at all. What is clear is the correlation. You imply that the cause is 'good genes and habit'. An equally, if not more valid cause is that having money makes it much easier to get good condition/tutors etc for preparing for the exams.
    - patanegra 1y ago
      There are studies that show how heritable intelligence is. Very. It is quite common people say, that something is only a correlation and not causation. But if you can point to a common denominator, that has been shown multiple times, to have a massive effect, it's not likely to be just a coincidence. Genes are this common denominator. Society and habits (for example, protestants vs catholics) are another. Things that consistently impact the whole population are not just a random process that picks: "You will be clever, ugly.", "You will be pretty, sporty, but will be dumb." It's always genes, society and habits.
patanegra 1y ago
It's always the same argument. If you are world-class talent (someone who gets to Oxford), you should be capable of similar results as kids from independent schools. Like Joe Seddon did (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Seddon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Seddon - growing up with a single parent mom, working as a therapist in NHS). It isn't fair to ask ones to have 4A* and others to have just 3As. Only 1 in 2600 gets 4 A. And 1 in 83 gets 3 As. Making it 31 easier for people from state school is discrimination so bad, it should be illegal.
- ceejayoz 1y ago
  > Only 1 in 2600 gets 4 A. > And 1 in 83 gets 3 As. And what if that’s not always an indication of which person is smarter?
  - rayiner 1y ago
    But we know that it’s true. That’s why we have been using objective metrics like test scores for millennia, across societies are different as China, India, and Britain.
    - Latty 1y ago
      Your best argument is "we've done it for a long time, so it can't be wrong"? Quite the contrary: there is a long history of "objective" tests being shown to be deeply flawed and biased towards certain factors (often cultural and class based), we explicitly know it isn't the case that test scores are purely about some innate intelligence characteristic: there is a reason the rich spend a lot of money to raise their children's scores. My secondary school claimed to have the best results for Business Studies A-levels in the country. They achieved this by taking the pre-released case study, writing every possible question they could think of about the study, writing model answers, and telling the students to memorise them. The idea that these scores represent some innate intelligence of the student is obviously nonsense if you interact with the system at all.
      - 1y ago
skippyboxedhero 1y ago
How would you measure this? Before you continue, there are governments in the UK that have created formulas to mathematically measure your level of "struggle"...these happen to, in a massive coincidence, benefit areas that vote for them. The same logic is also being applied within universities to boost grades as managers at universities have quotas to hit from government. This leads to odd situations where a subject like Scottish Law at Edinburgh has no quota for students without appropriate social credit because it is a subject which, unlike other courses at that university, gets largely Scottish students applying so it has to be used to fill quotas. And these students have to be carried to the end of their course because they are there to fulfill a quota. Sounds like a great idea but, as with everything like this, the assumption is that a university administrator or bureaucrat can accurately measure your struggle...they can't, I am sure the wisdom of this approach will dim when you are being operated on by someone who filled a quota at medical school.

TMWNN 1y ago

>To get in, you need 4 A* from an independent schools, or just 3 As from state schools. Or ABB for the incoming president of the Oxford Union, the one who cheered Charlie Kirk's murder a few months after debating him in person. <https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/education/2025/09/oxford-union-president-elect-my-words-were-no-less-insensitive-than-charlie-kirks https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/education/2025/09/oxfo...>

afavour 1y ago
It would be wonderful if we could, just once, have a conversation about something happening outside the US without bringing in US culture war talking points.
- TMWNN 1y ago
  Publicly cheering Kirk's murder is what made Abaraonye notable. I provided a citation for the ABB grades, which is relevant to the comment I replied to.
  - afavour 1y ago
    > I provided a citation for the ABB grades, which is relevant to the comment I replied to. An extremely tenuous connection. Abaraonye (and even less his words on Kirk) had absolutely no relevance to the criteria by which the Times assesses universities, thus had no impact on Oxfords placement, thus has no relevance to the conversation.
    - TMWNN 1y ago
      Patanegra wrote: > To get in, you need 4 A* from an independent schools, or just 3 As from state schools. In reply, I provided a recently prominent example of someone recently admitted to Oxford with lower than 3 A grades on the A-Levels. I only mentioned Kirk's murder as context because, as I keep repeating, the person a) only became prominent because b) he publicly cheered said murder c) after debating Kirk in person. I don't know what else you can ask for here.

cvwright 1y ago

And it’s being reported that the new president of the Oxford Union only had A B B.

growse 1y ago

> It's letting in dumber people, worse students It's a very bold assertion that A level grades are the ultimate arbiter of "dumbness".

patanegra 1y ago
When you compare 1:83 vs 1:2600, it is so big difference, it deserves bold statements. In the UK, there's 1.5 million kids playing footbal. 1:83 ~18000 kids play in any professional club. 1:2600 ~580 kids get to play in Premier League, EFL Championship in a season What is Oxford doing is letting kids who play in absolutely any club, if they go to state school, or only those who got to Premier League, if they go to independent school. Again, it's discrimination so bad it should be illegal.
- growse 1y ago
  Why do you think the school & A level system is perfectly meritocratic when the evidence squarely suggests it's far from it?
- rcxdude 1y ago
  And yet students at independent schools are twice as likely to get all As than those at state schools. Do you think it's likely that all the smart students happen to have the means to go to the independent schools? Keep in mind the grades are not the main filter for oxbridge: probably the largest is whether the students apply in the first place, and then the latter is the interview, which matters a lot for determining which people with good enough grades are actually good enough to get in.
  - patanegra 1y ago
    Well, isn't it because kids in independent school are in the school from 8am till 6pm, including Saturdays, since the age of 9, and by the age 11 they board, and all their lives revolve around learning? In my sons' prep school, I have seen kids playing musical instruments so good, they could do concerts for a general public. I have seen boys taking GCSEs in Year 6. And 100% of parents are university educated, often high achievers. Don't let me start speaking about Chinese, where kids come from school 6pm, and they often get two more lessons at home (Chinese + music instrument most often). Parents in state schools don't put in even half of the effort on average.

foven 1y ago

The kids at private schools are specifically primed for every part of the application process, including the interview and interview questions in a way that state schools simply cannot. It does not matter how smart you are if your competition is able to practice in a way you cannot.

nicce 1y ago
Why the process is not fixed from that part? Redesign in a way that private schools will not get any benefit from the process itself.
- asib 1y ago
  It is, via the interview. This is why A-level results are a coarse filter, and why they have different standards for state vs private schools; state school kids with 3 A's presumably excel in the interview to the same extent as private school kids with 3 A*'s. It cannot be understated how much of an advantage someone who went to a private school has over someone from a state school, with respect to the entire process (exams/admissions tests/interview prep).
- NewJazz 1y ago
  What is your specific proposal? Anything you do, the private schools will do their best to adapt.
- rcxdude 1y ago
  How exactly? the way it's managed at the moment is that the admissions tutors keep an eye on what different schools are doing in terms of prepping their students and keep that in mind when assessing them. Which is exactly what causes the 'bias'. I am significantly more impressed by someone who manages to get good grades with little help than someone who manages to get excellent grades with the most effective teaching of the test that money can buy (having gone to an independent school, I was one of those being 'discriminated' against, but I can well understand that many of my classmates, who primarily good at cramming for the exam and not understanding the material, got very good grades but would not do nearly as well at university. Heck, I got in and struggled way more than I had done before, and more so than many in my year who had worse grades in less good schools) (I would, in general, be in favor of fixing GCSEs and A-levels. They have persistently moved in a direction that rewards memorisation of particular keywords, something which especially rewards teaching the test, as well as getting easier and especially less good at discriminating the top end of ability accurately. But it's still not going to be enough to remove this difference)

joosters 1y ago

Oxbridge have never had to 'let in dumber people'. They are always heavily over-subscribed, and give offers to a small fraction of the people who come for an interview, let alone apply. The whole point of the interview process is to assess not just the applicant's past achievements, but what they might be able to achieve if they got their place at the uni. Part of that is looking at the applicant's background, and knowing that even if they aren't currently at some elite high-fee school, they might still have the ability and capability to do well. I am all in favor of this style of selection. The dark old days of "this kid's dad went to our college, we should do them a favour and let them in" are long gone, thankfully. Can you point to any kind of evidence that Oxbridge are dumbing down their teaching, or lowering their standards of teaching? I doubt it. Full disclosure: cambridge alumni, from a state school!

ofa0e 1y ago
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notreallyauser 1y ago
On student evaluations, I wouldn't be surprised of Oxbridge do badly as so many pf the dons were at or near the top of their year at the university, weren't employed for their teaching abilities, and seemed unable to comprehend they were not teaching cohorts entirely full of clones of themselves. Dumbed down it was not, in my experience. Dumbing down would be a way to up the score on these rankings, though.
corimaith 1y ago
And is this new generation doing paticularly well in solving our problems or advancing the nation over the previous one? I can't see much examples, I do remember going through some of the science projects shown in undergrad showcase but none of them were tackling key bottlenecks or doing something novel.
jgraham 1y ago
In addition, the colleges have a lot of data about the people they interview and how well they do during the degree programme. My understanding (based on a discussion with one Natural Sciences admissions tutor at one Cambridge college nearly 20 years ago, so strictly speaking this may not be true in general, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't common) is that during the admissions process, including interviews, applicants are scored so they can be stack-ranked, and the top N given offers. Then, for the students that are accepted, and get the required exam results, the college also records their marks at each stage of their degree. To verify the admissions process is fair, these marks are compared with the original interview ranking, expecting that interview performance is (on average) correlated with later degree performance. I don't know if they go further and build models to suggest the correct offer to give different students based on interview performance, educational background, and other factors, but it seems at least plausible that one could try that kind of thing, and have the data to prove that it was working. Anyway my guess is that of the population of people who would do well if they got in, but don't, the majority are those whose background makes them believe it's "not for the likes of me", and so never apply, rather than people who went to private schools, applied, and didn't get a place. (also a Cambridge alumni from a state school, FWIW),

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lwhi 1y ago

What an appalling point of view. Growing up without privilege is (obviously) markedly more difficult than being provided with the best education money can buy throughout childhood. The students aren't necessarily worse; but they will be unaccustomed to the codified approach that other students from independent schools understand. The system has been built to serve the privileged. While you might feel blame can fairly be placed on differing entry requirements; the truth is more complex. A 'sticking plaster' solution has been lazily applied to address disparity, when in reality, the whole system needs to be reworked. 'Dumber' and 'worse', are not labels that should be used here.

patanegra 1y ago
It might come over as appalling, given the whole culture has shifted towards: "Nobody is dumber! Every child deserves a medal." Which isn't true, and never was. I get why we do that with kids in Reception and Year 1. With young adults, like University students, the fact of inequality of potentials of individuals, is just a fact anyone has to live with. I am clever, but I am a fat, average looking guy. So that's what I have to live with. David Beckham is not so smart, but he is sporty and looks great. He uses his innate talents, and I use mines. Nobody is discriminated by being different. The system has been built by those with means. And those with means more often than not are clever, hard-working people. That's how you get successful in the first place. And when you are born with great talents, you will go up too. That was the point of aristocrats being replaced by bourgeois, and now people in tech growing no matter where they are from.
- lwhi 1y ago
  I understand what you're trying to say, but I think you're making a false equivalence between socio-economic disparity and innate talent. Imagine the same person, cloned. Clone A is born into an economically challenged household; while clone B is born into an upper-middle class household. Now consider whether both clones would achieve the same results at A level. One could expect the child born into the poorer household to experience more challenges, and perhaps achieve worse results as a consequence. In this instance, how would it be appropriate to call clone A thick or less intelligent than clone B?

pimterry 1y ago

Fundamentally Oxbridge entry has never been based on academic results directly as you're implying. You needed near-perfect grades to be considered, but the vast majority of people applying with those grades fail the interviews regardless. The interview is absolutely the primary test here, with the grades just acting as a filter to provide a manageable number of applicants. Widening that filter to allow more disadvantaged students the chance to interview seems perfectly reasonable - given that the interview itself remains equally demanding (and I've seen no suggestion or evidence against this).

lokar 1y ago

I think it’s a mistake to think admissions can ever be some neutral objective process. You are designing a contest, and students compete. You have to try to represent your goals in terms of the contest, this is very lossy. It’s just never going to be very accurate, and in highly selective institutions much of the selection will be random no matter how you structure the contest.

abxyz 1y ago

It is a very fair read of Paul's take. I attended one of the worst secondary schools in the country. Less than 10% of my year earned the qualifications necessary to go on to university. I know that many of these people, who have gone on to be successful in life, would have excelled at an independent school and would have excelled at university. They were in poverty, not stupid. You cannot compare the achievements of a student at an independent school to those of a student at a state school based on grades. State school and independent school are a fundamentally different educational experience. If you think Cambridge and Oxford exist to accept the highest graded students in the country, rather than to accept the students that have the most academic potential, then sure, let's only admit students who have 3 A*s.

energy123 1y ago
Paul is talking his book, he wants it to change to increase the probability that his kids get in. Of course what we get to hear are the "reasons", and this conflict of interest goes unmentioned.
fidotron 1y ago
> You cannot compare the achievements of a student at an independent school to those of a student at a state school based on grades. State school and independent school are a fundamentally different educational experience. While I agree with this as a conclusion, I believe you cannot really go there without acknowledging that this has been a deteriorating situation ever since most of the UK abolished the grammar schools. "Comprehensive" education has done nothing except result in the oppression of the very people it claims to be liberating.
- Latty 1y ago
  As someone who went to a grammar school, they are a terrible idea and comprehensive schools are a better system. Students are not equally capable across all subjects, and their ability changes over time. Grammar schools mean there is no room to give you what you need in subjects you fall behind on, and students who start to struggle or start achieving post-11-plus have to transfer schools to fix it, creating huge friction and basically ensuring they'll miss out on the education they should have. Comprehensives that have a full range of sets to teach at the skill level of the student for each subject are infinitely better for actual education. I was one of the fortunate ones who was pretty generalist and so I didn't suffer too much by it, but I consistently saw people just give up on subjects because they were too far behind and the school had no other options because there were no lower sets.

mytailorisrich 1y ago

There is also the issue of "contextual offers" at most Unis. Offers can be made at a significantly lower level just based on the postcode of the applicant. So someone might get an offer at AAB or ABB purely based on their address while the standard offer is AAA or higher.

notreallyauser 1y ago

Contextual offers are just that -- contextual. Cite your sources if you're claiming all independent schools get one tariff and all state schools get another, because AFAIK that's not how these contextual offers work. Oxford admissions have a heavy interview component: if they think you're really smart, have great potential, and then you'll be of the caliber to get 4 A* no question if you had rich parents and went to a top Public School (but don't, so may not), then -- yeah -- they can make you a lower offer. Their place, their rules. It isn't dumbing down or taking worse students, it's easing out the rich types who will drink/play lacrosse or rugby/bore to at least Blues standard, are pretty bright but have been spoon-fed to get there so will turn out to be dumber and worse students that people whose potential hadn't been fully revealed by 17/18, even if the spoon-fed cohort get better A Level results.

patanegra 1y ago
> if they think you're really smart, have great potential, and then you'll be of the caliber to get 4 A* no question if you had rich parents Assumed, they really are 4 A* material. If not, what might happen is, that Oxford might get worse in ratings. Is Oxford getting worse in ratings? > It isn't dumbing down or taking worse students, it's easing out the rich types But those rich types already have 4 A*, or they are close to it. Their kids have spent 10 years boarding, learning 10 hours a day, including Saturdays. And then, they are discriminated, because of hate towards the rich. I guess, what will happen, is that some other universities will pick them up. Kids, who are used to work extremely hard. Kids, who know how to learn. Kids, whose parents and grandparents knew how to apply themselves and who instilled all this in them too. And Oxford will be dethroned. Cream always rises to the top.

matthewmacleod 1y ago

That's not "letting in poor people" as you framed it. It's letting in dumber people, worse students. Lots of that is mainly based on classism (against people from middle class), racism (against white people). This obviously doesn’t follow, and you should feel a decent amount of embarrassment for ignoring the fact that exam grades don’t correlate with “dumbness” or lack thereof. It should be trivially obvious that a student who is perhaps from a less well-off background, attending state school and achieving decent grades, can be equally as talented and deserving of a top-tier education as a better-off, privately-educated student. Access programs go some way towards trying to tackle snowballing generational inequality - which essentially results in a bias away from merit, and towards those able to afford private education. If you want to argue against that, then fine - but at least don’t start with such faulty assumptions.

KaiserPro 1y ago

> To get in, you need 4 A* from an independent schools, or just 3 As from state schools. where does it say that here? https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses/admission-requirements/admission-requirements-table https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses/admiss... Although I do note that foundation PPE only requires BBB, which given the current crop of people in westminister, it makes sense.

energy123 1y ago

It's interesting to see that conservatives have quietly moved on from the idea that affirmative action should be done on the basis of household wealth instead of ethnicity. At least now we are being honest.

programjames 1y ago
Alternatively, the gap between the classes for access to educational resources has significantly declined in the past twenty years (due to stuff being posted online).

JetSetWilly 1y ago

And yet those kids from state schools then come out with more firsts than those from independent schools, showing they were not “dumber” at all - they were smarter. Really, oxford and cambridge as well as other top universities can have a simple algorithm. They should bias against those from private schools in terms of admissions criteria until the point at which outcomes (as measured by graduating degree scores) are equal. This wouldn’t happen though because then private schools would drop to 5% of enrolments and there’d be no advantage gained from paying for a private school education. Unthinkable!

rcxdude 1y ago

Keep in mind that the rating here is mostly about the student's opinion of the university, especially in terms of the teaching. And a dirty little secret of oxbridge I feel is that the teaching isn't particularly great. It's not bad, to be clear, and supervisions are something that you don't really get elsewhere, but it's very much a 'chuck people into the very deep end and let them sink-or-swim' approach with the sheer amount of material that they expect you to get through in a pretty short amount of time. The reputation they have is because a) they can afford to be (and are fairly good at) being highly selective in admitting those who can cope with this, b) if you do manage to swim, you've shown a higher level of aptitude for the subject than other universities, and c) because of said selectivity, you'll tend to be around other students who are able to support you. The actual level of support and teaching from the university itself is not as top-class.

physicsguy 1y ago

> It's letting in dumber people, worse students. Is it? That assumes that the grade is a fair differentiator between two students. But we know that that's not true because the gulf between private education and state education is enormous.

eynsham 1y ago

> To get in, you need 4 A* from an independent schools This is not, generally, true. Cambridge tends to have higher offers, and I had a friend offered 5A*+S1 (STEP), but that’s mostly because he buggered up his interview (and he was taking 5 A-levels). The standard offer at Oxford for mathematics is A*A*A, which is exactly what those applying from any public school will be asked to achieve. > or just 3 As from state schools Not for maths. For easy courses like PPE, someone who misses a standard offer of A*AA might be let off by a few grades. People at public schools who miss their offers are much likelier to be a bit thick.