OT - Why aren't students protesting over this?

rjsterry

Putting the tuition fees debate to one side, there was a fairly damning report in Tuesday's Guardian about the admissions policies of Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Freedom of Information requests by David Lammy MP have revealed that both universities draw there students overwhelmingly from white upper middle class families in the south of the UK. There are some really shocking statistics (or not if you are of a more cynical bent):

Oxford university admitted just a single British student of Caribbean descent.

Merton College, Oxford has admitted no black students in the last 5 years and only 3 in the last decade.

89% of Oxford's students are from the top three socio-economic groups, with Cambridge having 87.6% of its students from these groups, as compared to 64.5% for UK universities as a whole.

More applications to Oxbridge were accepted from the London Borough of Richmond than the whole of Scotland.

Here is another related article looking at the statistics.

Both universities have already claimed that they do not discriminate on grounds of race, or socio-economic class, but if not, then it would seem that they need to try a lot harder, particularly as they receive a good deal of public money, and almost certainly will be charging the highest tuition fees.

Monkeypump

Not exactly shocking news though, is it?

fnegroni

My wife works for the NHS in the equal opportunities and discrimination department.

She might be able to answer your question with some actual facts which might also apply to Oxbridge.

As far as I understand it, you can't make a conclusion simply based on the statistics of the current student population.

There is a lot more to it.

I am not suggesting there might not be some issues there, far from it, I am just suggesting that the problem has to be analised carefully.

rick_chasey

I did a bit of work for the Cambridge University widening participation team, part of Uni admissions, who are there to sort out exactly that, and my mother also lectures (and thus conducts some of the interviews there).

The work I did there was quite good - they basically go round all the poorly perfoming schools, from primary school upwards, and show them what Cambridge is really like, and compare it to what the kids thought it would be like. ("I thought everyone would wear top hats and smoke pipes" one kid said..)

In short, the kind of person they're looking for obviously has to be smart, and work hard, as well as very academic, but especially, they have to be able to articulate those qualities in a very eloquent and precise way. There are many very able, intelligent, hard working people who could cope with the work at Cambridge, but they may not fit in with the extremely academic environment...

That final demand by its very nature disadvantages people who are not brought up in an environment like that, i.e. often people from poorer background.

I would also suggest that the nature of Cambridge, with an awful lot of very old men (and few old women) who have spent 2 or 3 decades slowly decomposing in the university academic bubble, are unaware of such issues - since in their minds, they are only looking for the candidates who will best suit the Cambridge they know and love.

Of course, this may be different depending on which department you apply to, I can only really vouch for the work the widening particuption team does and the arts side of things (notoriously negleted in Cambridge when it comes to funding for teaching), but the conservative nature (little c) combined with the naieve acedemic ignorance of older generations is one of the biggest contributors.

It's absolutely an issue, but I can see it from both sides a little more.

I personally have issue with the status of some of the negleted departments, which I think do not offer remotely the same qaulity of research or teaching that some of the inspections and reports suggest.

DonDaddyD

rjsterry wrote:

Putting the tuition fees debate to one side, there was a fairly damning report in Tuesday's Guardian about the admissions policies of Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Freedom of Information requests by David Lammy MP have revealed that both universities draw there students overwhelmingly from white upper middle class families in the south of the UK. There are some really shocking statistics (or not if you are of a more cynical bent):

Oxford university admitted just a single British student of Caribbean descent.

Merton College, Oxford has admitted no black students in the last 5 years and only 3 in the last decade.

89% of Oxford's students are from the top three socio-economic groups, with Cambridge having 87.6% of its students from these groups, as compared to 64.5% for UK universities as a whole.

More applications to Oxbridge were accepted from the London Borough of Richmond than the whole of Scotland.

Here is another related article looking at the statistics.

Both universities have already claimed that they do not discriminate on grounds of race, or socio-economic class, but if not, then it would seem that they need to try a lot harder, particularly as they receive a good deal of public money, and almost certainly will be charging the highest tuition fees.


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#1 That sole brotha who went to Oxford must have been lonely. What did he do when he needed chicken, hair oil, a trim and the unquenchable desire to play music loud that takes us from time to time.

#2 He must have cleaned up on the girl front and got nuff white girl poon... apparently we are irresistible to white girls...

#3 There are three top social-groups now? What middle class, upper class and Greg*? *Also known as blue blood and/or toff.

#4 What did you expect? With Uni fees rising we'll see a lot more of this type of thing. Of course the naysayers, poor haters and the pre-programmed (some of whom are on this site) will of course deny any social prejudice/racism and claim that everyone has a fair chance of going its just that poorer folks, lower classes and other ethnicities are not intelligent enough to go. It certainly hasn't got anything to do with money or social status/standing dahling....

What was it I said, "You and yours got to go"......

W1

I don't know the ins and outs of admissions at Oxford, Cambridge or Hull, but if all race, wealth (how's that measured anyway) and schooling details are stripped from applications and the make up is still skewed, what would you suggest? Positive discrimination (which, in my mind, is as bad as any other from of discrimination)? Watering down entry criteria for some?

rjsterry

I agree that it is more complicated just the headline figures. I suspect that if you asked any of the admissions tutors, they would swear blind that they only took into account academic factors in selecting students, but something is clearly not working properly.

I can't find the reference online, but the printed version of the article pointed out that Yale has 'talent spotters' for want of a better word, in each state, who search out high achieving potential students from disadvantaged and minority backgrounds (presumably by trawling through school exam results and meeting with head teachers) to make sure that those who are able, but might not have considered it for whatever reason, are offered the chance to go to a top university.

This was contrasted with IIRC eight 'access' days that Oxbridge organised at Eton in one year.

DonDaddyD

W1 wrote:

I don't know the ins and outs of admissions at Oxford, Cambridge or Hull, but if all race, wealth (how's that measured anyway) and schooling details are stripped from applications and the make up is still skewed, what would you suggest? Positive discrimination (which, in my mind, is as bad as any other from of discrimination)? Watering down entry criteria for some?

Wow.

How about just having an enterance criteria that doesn't depend on:

Race
Wealth
Schooling (grades not withstanding)

Jesus.

SpaceBadger

Of course we would also have to know the number of potential students from each of those racial/national/socio-economic groups who applied to Cambridge/Oxford in order for us to judge whether or not it is their selection policy that is skewed.

What if only one British student of Caribbean descent applied?

Not suggesting that this is the case or that these discriminations do not happen of course, just (as others have said much better) there are many other factors to take into account.

rjsterry

@DDD: re #3 http://www.ons.gov.uk/about-statistics/classifications/current/ns-sec/index.html

rjsterry

SpaceBadger wrote:

Of course we would also have to know the number of potential students from each of those racial/national/socio-economic groups who applied to Cambridge/Oxford in order for us to judge whether or not it is their selection policy that is skewed.

What if only one British student of Caribbean descent applied?

Not suggesting that this is the case or that these discriminations do not happen of course, just (as others have said much better) there are many other factors to take into account.

Those figures are in the second article i linked to:

DonDaddyD

SpaceBadger wrote:

Of course we would also have to know the number of potential students from each of those racial/national/socio-economic groups who applied to Cambridge/Oxford in order for us to judge whether or not it is their selection policy that is skewed.

What if only one British student of Caribbean descent applied?

Not suggesting that this is the case or that these discriminations do not happen of course, just (as others have said much better) there are many other factors to take into account.

Actually that may be the case. And it would demonstrate that the problem is more systemic throughout the whole system than just at the top end at the countries best Universities.

For starters: Are ethnic minorities, poor folks etc encourage to apply to Oxford and Cambridge. The answer in my experience would be no. Firstly, there is the assumption that 'they don't enroll people like us' so you'll be throwing one of your options away. Secondly, because of the pomp and ceremony culture there it is less appealing to the working lower/middle classes. Thirdly, there is the whole class war with the poor and working classes frowning on the middle and upper classes. You could have teachers actively telling students that they don't want to go and study with the 'toffs'.

If given the chance would I want to go to Oxford and/or Cambridge. No, not really.

ride_whenever

However you're looking at approximately 8250 white applicants vs. 250 black applicants...

rick_chasey

rjsterry wrote:

SpaceBadger wrote:

Of course we would also have to know the number of potential students from each of those racial/national/socio-economic groups who applied to Cambridge/Oxford in order for us to judge whether or not it is their selection policy that is skewed.

What if only one British student of Caribbean descent applied?

Not suggesting that this is the case or that these discriminations do not happen of course, just (as others have said much better) there are many other factors to take into account.

Those figures are in the second article i linked to:

I believe there are also some stats somewhere suggesting that non-white students tended to apply to the more oversubscribed courses than white students, which ever so slightly mitigates the above stats.

That's probably related to do with the cost of doing an unpopular (read uneconomical) course. At Sheffield where I studied (*annecdotal evidence alert*) we didn't have a single non-white person in our year studying history, wherears engineering was predominantly non-white.

DonDaddyD

ride_whenever wrote:

However you're looking at approximately 8250 white applicants vs. 250 black applicants...

Wouldn't that be proportionate with the population?

That's probably related to do with the cost of doing an unpopular (read uneconomical) course. At Sheffield where I studied (*annecdotal evidence alert*) we didn't have a single non-white person in our year studying history, wherears engineering was predominantly non-white.

I can't accept any of that and would boil it down to your own personal experience. As you said annecdotal.

rick_chasey

DonDaddyD wrote:

ride_whenever wrote:

However you're looking at approximately 8250 white applicants vs. 250 black applicants...

Wouldn't that be proportionate with the population?

That's probably related to do with the cost of doing an unpopular (read uneconomical) course. At Sheffield where I studied (*annecdotal evidence alert*) we didn't have a single non-white person in our year studying history, wherears engineering was predominantly non-white.

I can't accept any of that and would boil it down to your own personal experience. As you said annecdotal.

I think it's reasonably easy to explain. People will not pay to come from across the globe to study history at Sheffield. Many non-European nations will fund their students to study engineering in Sheffield.

Hence the difference the background makeup of the courses.

rick_chasey

Btw, the Oxford explanation:

A spokeswoman for Oxford said: "Black students apply disproportionately for the most oversubscribed subjects, contributing to a lower than average success rate for the group as a whole: 44% of all black applicants apply for Oxford's three most oversubscribed subjects, compared with just 17% of all white applicants. That means nearly half of black applicants are applying for the same three subjects … the three toughest subjects to get places in. Those subjects are economics and management, medicine, and maths.with 7% of white applicants. This goes a very long way towards explaining the group's overall lower success rate."

Mr Plum

My cousin applied to Oxford after achieving 5 A grade A Level results but his application was unsuccessful. After an appeal by one of his lecturers he was reluctantly offered a place but he ended up refusing it because of the nature of the whole appeal process and instead went to Warwick where he got a first class BSc (Hons) degree. I'm sure the initial refusal had nothing to do with the fact that he grew up in a lower-working-class single parent family in Middlesbrough...

rjsterry

Rick Chasey wrote:

I believe there are also some stats somewhere suggesting that non-white students tended to apply to the more oversubscribed courses than white students, which ever so slightly mitigates the above stats.

That's probably related to do with the cost of doing an unpopular (read uneconomical) course. At Sheffield where I studied (*annecdotal evidence alert*) we didn't have a single non-white person in our year studying history, wherears engineering was predominantly non-white.

You are correct (12th paragraph of the first article I linked to), most of the black applicants applied to study the three most oversubscribed subjects: maths, medicine, and management & economics, which is interesting in itself. I've no idea why there is such a tight focus on these subjects.

EDIT: Oh, go there before me.

bigmat

I noticed it at my Uni - plenty of ethnic minority students, but the vast majority weren't English. Oxbridge is at the sharp end I gues, so the stats are probably more extreme there. They are quite shocking though and suggest that access to higher education isn't as fair as it should be. Whether its as a result of admissions policy or a less obvious socio-cultural deterrence to certain people even applying, I couldn't say (I suspect the latter - that was pretty much the case for me!)

lost_in_thought

http://www.significancemagazine.org/det ... 38a455c0,0

Headhuunter

I'm sure we'll see an increasing upper middle class-ification of all universities in England once unlimited tuition fee increases are introduced. Essentially as fees rise only those with relatively wealthy parents who are able to start a "college fund" as parents do in the USA will be able to send their kids to uni. Kids from poorer backgrounds (be they black, white, brown or whatever) will not have access to funds to get themselves through education. Entrance to university (be it Oxford, Cambridge or Wolverhampton) will in future be based on ability to pay rather than (as in the days of grants and paid tuition fees) intellectual ability.

rick_chasey

rjsterry wrote:

You are correct (12th paragraph of the first article I linked to), most of the black applicants applied to study the three most oversubscribed subjects: maths, medicine, and management & economics, which is interesting in itself. I've no idea why there is such a tight focus on these subjects.

Money!

lost_in_thought

Mr Plum wrote:

My cousin applied to Oxford after achieving 5 A grade A Level results but his application was unsuccessful. After an appeal by one of his lecturers he was reluctantly offered a place but he ended up refusing it because of the nature of the whole appeal process and instead went to Warwick where he got a first class BSc (Hons) degree. I'm sure the initial refusal had nothing to do with the fact that he grew up in a lower-working-class single parent family in Middlesbrough...

No, it almost certainly didn't.

You can get all the 'A' grades you like and still not be Oxbridge material, irrespective of where you come from. I can cite several examples of people with plummy accents, from fancy boarding schools who got 4 or 5 As at A level and all A or A* at GCSE and didn't get in.

The difference is that they just accepted it's because they weren't good enough, rather than saying 'oh it must be because I'm northern/black/ginger'.

What was that girl called? Sarah something?

rjsterry

lost_in_thought wrote:

http://www.significancemagazine.org/details/webexclusive/886819/Statistics---not-always-black-and-white.html?sms_ss=twitter&at_xt=4d00a52238a455c0,0

So they've picked a hole in some of David Lammy's use of statistics in HIS article. That's not either of the articles I linked to, and they do also state that there does seem to be something that needs to be investigated, albeit that this has been partly obfuscated by poor use of the statistics.

rick_chasey

lost_in_thought wrote:

You can get all the 'A' grades you like and still not be Oxbridge material, irrespective of where you come from. I can cite several examples of people with plummy accents, from fancy boarding schools who got 4 or 5 As at A level and all A or A* at GCSE and didn't get in.

The difference is that they just accepted it's because they weren't necessarily suited to the Oxbridge way, rather than saying 'oh it must be because I'm northern/black/ginger'.

Corrected for you :P

lost_in_thought

Rick Chasey wrote:

lost_in_thought wrote:

You can get all the 'A' grades you like and still not be Oxbridge material, irrespective of where you come from. I can cite several examples of people with plummy accents, from fancy boarding schools who got 4 or 5 As at A level and all A or A* at GCSE and didn't get in.

The difference is that they just accepted it's because they weren't necessarily suited to the Oxbridge way, rather than saying 'oh it must be because I'm northern/black/ginger'.

Corrected for you :P

rick_chasey

lost_in_thought wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

lost_in_thought wrote:

You can get all the 'A' grades you like and still not be Oxbridge material, irrespective of where you come from. I can cite several examples of people with plummy accents, from fancy boarding schools who got 4 or 5 As at A level and all A or A* at GCSE and didn't get in.

The difference is that they just accepted it's because they weren't necessarily suited to the Oxbridge way, rather than saying 'oh it must be because I'm northern/black/ginger'.

Corrected for you :P

I say it tongue in cheek but it's kinda true. There are easily as many smart hard working people who don't get into Oxbridge as those who do, if not more.

It's just a particular style that they look for.

shm_uk

"OT - Why aren't students protesting over this?"


Because it doesn't cost them financially.

DonDaddyD

Rick Chasey wrote:

DonDaddyD wrote:

ride_whenever wrote:

However you're looking at approximately 8250 white applicants vs. 250 black applicants...

Wouldn't that be proportionate with the population?

That's probably related to do with the cost of doing an unpopular (read uneconomical) course. At Sheffield where I studied (*annecdotal evidence alert*) we didn't have a single non-white person in our year studying history, wherears engineering was predominantly non-white.

I can't accept any of that and would boil it down to your own personal experience. As you said annecdotal.

I think it's reasonably easy to explain. People will not pay to come from across the globe to study history at Sheffield. Many non-European nations will fund their students to study engineering in Sheffield.

Hence the difference the background makeup of the courses.

Fair point.

DonDaddyD

Rick Chasey wrote:

lost_in_thought wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

lost_in_thought wrote:

You can get all the 'A' grades you like and still not be Oxbridge material, irrespective of where you come from. I can cite several examples of people with plummy accents, from fancy boarding schools who got 4 or 5 As at A level and all A or A* at GCSE and didn't get in.

The difference is that they just accepted it's because they weren't necessarily suited to the Oxbridge way, rather than saying 'oh it must be because I'm northern/black/ginger'.

Corrected for you :P

I say it tongue in cheek but it's kinda true. There are easily as many smart hard working people who don't get into Oxbridge as those who do, if not more.

It's just a particular style that they look for.

Isn't that kinda proving rjsterry's point. Whether its 'Oxbridge material' or 'needing to be suited a particular way' the end result is a form of discrimination.

Looking at said form of discrimination in more depth, it is clear that poor people, ethnic minorities and northerners are more likely to be discriminated against by these Universities because they are less likely to fit into their ideal image.

Surely it should be about academic ability and nothing else.