Irish (really useless and nunnified) state school, Irish uni, then uk uni (both *very* non-oxbridge). I thought about oxbridge briefly, but I would have had to retake exams, and they didn't teach the things I wanted to study.
Oxbridge admissions should be rebiassed to be fair to *people*, not to ideas of what people from state schools, or depressed areas, or women, or whatever are like.
UK state school then FE college then briefly Oxbridge then a gap then really (as in 'graduating from') non-Oxbridge university. Which means I didn't go through the 'how many people in your sixth form are applying' stuff either, since no one had previously applied from our FE college (and AFAIK I was the only one that year or the year after). My school did have a tradition of sending people to Oxbridge so I know that a lot of my classmates ended up at one or the other (something like 20 from our year, far more to Cambridge for geographical reasons - strictly speaking most of my school friends could have lived at home and satisfied Oxford's residential requirements, which rather missed the point of going to university, back in full-grant days).
I kind-of think admissions are ok as they are - I have issues with university application procedures in general but not with Oxbridge per se - I am pretty sure I'd have the same issues with other universities too but I have no experience of interview anywhere else (Brookes accepted me 'unseen', based on previous academic record plus ridiculously low 'recent study' A level offer (a D!) plus local mature student status).
Firstly I think you need to break down state schools more. There's a hell of a lot of variation between failing inner-city mixed comprehensives and well-off selective single-sex ex-grammar schools.
Admissions policies are probably fine as they are, it's attitudes about admissions that gradually need changing. So that people apply for the right reasons, and aren't put off applying because they went to the wrong sort of school. I think the universities can (and do) do a certain amount to help in this area, and the article you posted earlier was a illustration of some of the poor thinking that needs to be overcome.
(Combination is state primary, independent secondary on a scholarship, and now Oxbridge, where I'm working on degree number 2 or 3 (depending on whether you count my BA and MSci as separate)).
The problem with Oxbridge admissions is that you're aiming to separate the best few from a very large group of people who are all, more or less, good enough to do the course: ideally, this would be totally blind to the background of the people being sifted, but it's naive at best to think that schools aren't going to, whilst an Oxbridge education is perceived as being of greater value than going elsewhere, work out how to play whatever system of admission is being used - be it interview technique, exam preparation, or special training in hopping backwards around Trinity Great Court whilst singing the Marseillaise.
You can try to compensate for this - Target Schools, for instance - but I'm not sure this makes the system "fairer" as much as "differently unfair", as there's still some cutoff where your school is 'too good' to be a Target School but not able to coach you the way that the most successful Oxbridge-targetting schools can. Someone, somewhere, is going to get the sharp end of the stick. Even if you set some qualifications standard, and then turn over the admissions to a lottery among qualified candidates, there's still some unfairness - it's easier to get the qualifications at a school with better resources.
The best you can do, I think, is to try and reflect the social balance of applicants - so, given that (at the moment) state schools are comparatively underrepresented (it appears - I'd need to check the stats), there should probably be some bias applied that way. My gut feeling is that this'll just tip the scales towards a small coterie of state schools with experience of preparing candidates for interview, though - so, really, no different from the current situation...
(I'll now read the other comments, which I've avoided so far - sorry if I've reused anyone else's arguments inadvertently.)
I wanted a results page that made the broad distinctions readily visible, rather than losing them among the details of comprehensive vs. grammar vs. FE college, city vs. suburbia vs. rural, etc.
Unfortunately the surrounding context doesn't seem to be fair to people, and there is debate about the extent to which this should be compensated for (and while it's good to say that it should be fixed instead of compensated for, it's a bit late when you're at the interview).
But unfortunately the deficiencies in the system before that point also mean that setting simplistic targets leads (In My Experience) to admitting more people who are aren't suited to the way Cambridge works, and so don't do as well; which is bad for both Cambridge and the people in question, who would've been better off elsewhere.
"should it be compensated for" and "how do we compensate for it" are different questions (and if the answer to the first is "yes" the second might still be "nobody knows"). Granted that's way beyond the detail of the poll, but that's what comments are for...
Statements like "would've been better off elsewhere" are problematic, I think, because they are guesses, not facts (since you can't put the same person through two universities and then see how their life turns out either way).
No, but there are people like me who started at one and finished at another and can compare the two reasonably well and decide where they were better off... :-)
I am now (well, three or four years ago I was, anyway) a person who would suit the Oxbridge system. At 19 I was not, and on top of a bunch of personal issues hungover from living away from home 17-19, the college system was about the worst situation I could have been in. I really needed a campus-style university, or better still, not to have been in formal education at all at that point. Which is what I opted for.
When I decided to return to education five years later I chose Brookes for geographical/financial convenience. I could have chosen to go down a more rigorous academic route but after one bad experience you can imagine I didn't really want to attempt Oxbridge again. Halfway through my degree I realised I would probably have enjoyed and benefited from Oxbridge that time round, but... c'est la vie. I had no wish to start explaining to admissions tutors why I'd 'stuffed up' first time round, and didn't need to do that with Brookes (no interview). If I ever get around to applying for a doctorate it will be at Brookes but that's because of a potential supervisor with whom I get on splendidly. If she moved I'd reconsider.
Oxbridge admissions should be based on merit, as should any other uni admissions for that matter. Our ability to assess merit may be limited, imperfect, failure-prone - but surely that's a reason to improve it, not get rid of it? It seems to make rather less sense to base admissions on some sort of political correctness quota, IMO, or pretty much anything else.
I said that Oxbridge admissions are fine as they are, and strictly speaking they are.
I do believe that pupils from state schools are unfairly disadvantaged, compared with those from public schools, when it comes to Oxford and Cambridge admissions. However, I think the reason they're less likely to get in is that they are less likely to be well equipped to study there, and in that sense the admissions system is working.
Oxford and Cambridge are about innovative thinking of the very highest order: the kind that nurtures the top 0.01% — and even the top 0.0001% — allowing them to flourish. It is important, both for us as a nation, and for the world in general, that this be the case.
Yes, Oxford or Cambridge might see an applicant who is clearly very intelligent, but has not been schooled well. Unfortunately, it's probably too late; Oxford and Cambridge aren't good environments for "catching up".
The solution has to be to recognise sooner pupils with that kind of potential, and see to it that they get taught properly.
The solution has to be to recognise sooner pupils with that kind of potential, and see to it that they get taught properly. And that's what the 11+ was supposed to do, to flag up children with potential, except that almost everyone in any position to do anything about such children seems to be ideologically opposed to that exam. SATs won't do anything near the job, and are equally flawed in terms of separating those-with-potential from those-tutored-to-pass-this-test. How can schools spot them and do anything about them, without accusations of hothousing, elitism, segregation... how do you spot the late-bloomers? the undiagnosed dyslexics who slack off rather than own up to the problem? ect.ect. chiz chiz.
Having seen how stupid some people who have been-tutored-through-A-levels turn out to be (cannot spell, do not understand texts, fail to grasp key concepts of their subjects) I don't know where the solution lies. But A level results probably have nothing to do with it any more. There are already more candidates with all As than Oxbridge can take. Will they introduce A*s like they did for GCSEs? I am already having nightmares about the prospect of educating smallclanger (do we send him to private school and disadvantage him at university application if things are skewed in favour of state applicants at that stage? do we send him to a state school and take our chances that he is taught anything useful at all*? do we home-educate and hope not to screw it up?) and he's not even six months old yet.
*I didn't learn to write an essay at my first school, because no one ever asked or taught me to. I was nearly 15 and into GCSEs when I switched schools and was hurriedly brought up to speed by my horrified English teacher.
I really wouldn't venture an opinion. I'm sure the culture of Oxbridge admissions has changed radically since my time. Oxford don't have the exam any more for one thing.
I guess part of the problem is that teachers have been screwed about so seriously in the last few years that they're now very angry.
In the past, teachers could generally be relied upon first and foremost to educate people, and only secondarily to coach them in how to pass exams. That's no longer the case, and I suspect the teachers themselves would be unhappy about this, if they weren't so cynical and jaded.
At the moment, universities are left with the unenviable task of trying to work out at interview the extent to which predictions or results are indicative of competence as part of a well-rounded education, and conversely the extent to which they merely show someone's been crammed so hard it bleeds.
I think techers have to be given back some freedom, and encouraged to give a good quality education. Then, we have to identify people with extraordinary potential good and early, and make sure they flourish.
If anyone complains that this is elitist, they should be taken aside, and have it politely explained that they can go fuck themselves.
I always thought that it would make most sence to judge people purely on name- and gender-less CVs. Hopefully that would cut the bias. Of course, that will also help hopeless cases like me that interview badly ;). I doubt there is any completely unbiased method that, as you pointed out, doesn't end up admitting people who couldn't handle Cambridge.
Of course, for me, i could either work, or handle Cambridge, but not both. Hence I organised the Joms reunion in my third year. I think I'd have been much happier somewhere else (up until the point where I fail to meet Adrian, of course)
The last statistics I saw showed that Oxbridge admits roughly in proportion to those who apply (i.e. about 50% of their applications are from private-school-educated people, and about 50% of their admissions are private-school-educated; ditto for state schools). So I think it's ok. The issue is to get more applicants.
I was the first person in my school to go to Cambridge in the memory of any teacher there. There were one or two each year who tried for Oxford, and occasionally they got in, but the general ethos of the school was to raise up the many and not obsess over the top few. When I was an undergraduate I did the 'Target Schools' thing and went out to talk to the schools in my area to encourage the bright ones to consider Cambridge ... mostly people thought they weren't clever enough or posh enough.
State schools vary highly, but so do private schools. Where I grew up, the local private school was widely agreed to be for the Tim Nice But Dims of the world - so not the place to send someone if you wanted them to achieve. State schools also change over time - when we first moved to Wiltshire the local secondary had a dreadful reputation but by the time I was attending it four years later, it had got a new headmaster and was greatly improved.
In my experience, attending an adequate state school and being assisted/encouraged by parents (e.g. I was taught to read before entering primary school) is sufficient, and a damn sight cheaper than paying fees.
Nameless and genderless CVs is all very well for the first stage of selection (although they'd also have to miss the name of the school off the CV to avoid revealing gender, and the 'personal statement' would have to be written so as not to give any clues...), but I don't think tutors can really make a fair judgement on whether somebody will be able to deal with and benefit from the tutorial system without interviewing them first.
I read an article about a study (but not the study itself, which is perhaps remiss) which looked into house prices around good state schools; they found that they were indeed more expensive, but not so much so that it would have been a better deal to send kids to a private school instead. Obviously the details are going to depend on how you measure a school, of course, and I can't remember how they did, but it was probably related to exam results....
(When you say "public school" should we assume you're including private schools?)
I went to a private secondary school. I doubt if I'd've even thought of applying to Oxford if I'd gone to the local state school. Most of the people I knew in the state system got a handful of GCSEs, dropped out halfway through A-levels, and got badly-paid jobs instead. One of my ex-boyfriends, who wanted to be a maths teacher, was laughed at by his teachers for harbouring such ridiculous aspirations. He lost motivation, dropped out. Last time I saw him he was working as a cleaner and supplementing his income by shoplifting.
But anyway. Where were we? Oxbridge.
I recognise that it's becoming increasingly unacceptable to "discriminate against" university applicants on the basis of irrelevant things like intellect, but IMNSHO Oxbridge applications should be biased towards people who have the intellectual and personal qualities necessary to benefit from the Oxbridge mode of teaching.
At the end of the day, though, it's never going to be wholly "fair". It's going to be influenced by notoriously subjective things like personal interaction (if you're going to have to work with somebody on a one-to-one basis, this seems only reasonable), and it's going to partly depend on the more or less random chance of who else happens to have applied that year. You can't just draw a purely objective line on a height-chart and say "Everybody over this intellectual stature is guaranteed a ride on the Oxbridge Rollercoaster".
Of course, it's all going to be a moot question in a few years' time because it's rapidly being reduced to the question of who can afford a degree, anywhere. :-(
Given how quickly schools can change, I don't think I could see myself going through the stress and expense of moving just to be near a 'better' school. But this might be based on my experience of growing up going to the village school, and then the default secondary, and not really having any problems. I had enough push from myself and my parents to stretch myself when the schools didn't.
I guess I consider (perhaps arrogantly) that any child of mine would be similarly fine, so long as the school wasn't completely dire. Cambridge doesn't seem to be have any utterly dire schools (such that you hear about them being dreadful in the local paper). But then I'm not planning to be in the child-raising business any time soon, so I haven't paid great attention ;)
If I could change one thing in my life that's probably the most significant one I could pick. A year out then would have been useful but because I'd already had one 16-17 (because of leaving school to go off to a specific course at an out-of-county FE college) I didn't think I could. I should have done.
My first secondary school had an excellent reputation and a wonderful headmaster. He retired during the summer before I started (unexpectedly, ill-health), and the other school in our area was oversubscribed and would not take any children from our village at all, so we were stuck with the new headmaster, who embodied all that was worst about 1980s progressive teaching... I was squashed at every available opportunity by teachers who said I didn't need to learn academic things but should learn to milk goats, paint murals, give up our French lessons to serve coffee to 'the community', watch TV and discuss it instead of reading books and writing essays... after a few years of that you lose any drive you might have had. If we hadn't moved house when I was 14 I really hate to think what would have happened. Luckily most of my brighter classmates went on to a decent sixth-form college (our school had no sixth-form) so I hope they all were hurriedly brought up to speed in the same way I was when I switched schools. Having 'push' is not much help if no one will help you use it in any academic way and your parents can't afford to move you/hire a tutor. I read voraciously and widely (but with no particular focus), and that's the main reason I think I survived that school.
I would hope that smallclanger would be ok in a state school, especially since both his parents could read before they were three. But I don't want to risk a similar terrible experience with school, nor do we want to be 'the pushy parents' that wind up putting the child off learning for ever more. They exist. They're scary.
Cambridge is unlikely to have dire schools. Oxford has really only one or two (but they are seriously dire) - unfortunately we're in the catchment area for one of them so if allocation works against us I'd give serious attention to private/home schooling.
*rolls eyes* Obviously, we're all figments of our own imagination.
Basically I do feel that the "top" state schools are in many ways much closer to public schools in character than they are to your bog standard comprehensive. And that the interesting distinction for me is between schools with a "tradition" of sending pupils to Oxbridge and other schools. It is much harder to draw a simple line between them though, so I guess your categories will have to do.
possibly - although I interviewed at Johns, and screwed up really badly. they dropped me in the pool, and New Hall took me without interview. I'm fine when I'm in a working relationship with people, I just stress so much about making a bad first impression, that I make a really bad first impression. *sigh*
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-22 01:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-22 01:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-22 01:11 pm (UTC)I kind-of think admissions are ok as they are - I have issues with university application procedures in general but not with Oxbridge per se - I am pretty sure I'd have the same issues with other universities too but I have no experience of interview anywhere else (Brookes accepted me 'unseen', based on previous academic record plus ridiculously low 'recent study' A level offer (a D!) plus local mature student status).
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-22 01:16 pm (UTC)Admissions policies are probably fine as they are, it's attitudes about admissions that gradually need changing. So that people apply for the right reasons, and aren't put off applying because they went to the wrong sort of school. I think the universities can (and do) do a certain amount to help in this area, and the article you posted earlier was a illustration of some of the poor thinking that needs to be overcome.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-22 01:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-22 01:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-22 01:33 pm (UTC)The problem with Oxbridge admissions is that you're aiming to separate the best few from a very large group of people who are all, more or less, good enough to do the course: ideally, this would be totally blind to the background of the people being sifted, but it's naive at best to think that schools aren't going to, whilst an Oxbridge education is perceived as being of greater value than going elsewhere, work out how to play whatever system of admission is being used - be it interview technique, exam preparation, or special training in hopping backwards around Trinity Great Court whilst singing the Marseillaise.
You can try to compensate for this - Target Schools, for instance - but I'm not sure this makes the system "fairer" as much as "differently unfair", as there's still some cutoff where your school is 'too good' to be a Target School but not able to coach you the way that the most successful Oxbridge-targetting schools can. Someone, somewhere, is going to get the sharp end of the stick. Even if you set some qualifications standard, and then turn over the admissions to a lottery among qualified candidates, there's still some unfairness - it's easier to get the qualifications at a school with better resources.
The best you can do, I think, is to try and reflect the social balance of applicants - so, given that (at the moment) state schools are comparatively underrepresented (it appears - I'd need to check the stats), there should probably be some bias applied that way. My gut feeling is that this'll just tip the scales towards a small coterie of state schools with experience of preparing candidates for interview, though - so, really, no different from the current situation...
(I'll now read the other comments, which I've avoided so far - sorry if I've reused anyone else's arguments inadvertently.)
Surely if it's selective it's not "ex-" grammar?
Date: 2004-01-22 01:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-22 01:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-22 01:52 pm (UTC)But unfortunately the deficiencies in the system before that point also mean that setting simplistic targets leads (In My Experience) to admitting more people who are aren't suited to the way Cambridge works, and so don't do as well; which is bad for both Cambridge and the people in question, who would've been better off elsewhere.
It's a fundamentally complex problem.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-22 02:04 pm (UTC)"should it be compensated for" and "how do we compensate for it" are different questions (and if the answer to the first is "yes" the second might still be "nobody knows"). Granted that's way beyond the detail of the poll, but that's what comments are for...
Statements like "would've been better off elsewhere" are problematic, I think, because they are guesses, not facts (since you can't put the same person through two universities and then see how their life turns out either way).
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-22 02:15 pm (UTC)I am now (well, three or four years ago I was, anyway) a person who would suit the Oxbridge system. At 19 I was not, and on top of a bunch of personal issues hungover from living away from home 17-19, the college system was about the worst situation I could have been in. I really needed a campus-style university, or better still, not to have been in formal education at all at that point. Which is what I opted for.
When I decided to return to education five years later I chose Brookes for geographical/financial convenience. I could have chosen to go down a more rigorous academic route but after one bad experience you can imagine I didn't really want to attempt Oxbridge again. Halfway through my degree I realised I would probably have enjoyed and benefited from Oxbridge that time round, but... c'est la vie. I had no wish to start explaining to admissions tutors why I'd 'stuffed up' first time round, and didn't need to do that with Brookes (no interview). If I ever get around to applying for a doctorate it will be at Brookes but that's because of a potential supervisor with whom I get on splendidly. If she moved I'd reconsider.
Merit
Date: 2004-01-22 03:33 pm (UTC)Re: Merit
Date: 2004-01-22 03:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-22 03:56 pm (UTC)I do believe that pupils from state schools are unfairly disadvantaged, compared with those from public schools, when it comes to Oxford and Cambridge admissions. However, I think the reason they're less likely to get in is that they are less likely to be well equipped to study there, and in that sense the admissions system is working.
Oxford and Cambridge are about innovative thinking of the very highest order: the kind that nurtures the top 0.01% — and even the top 0.0001% — allowing them to flourish. It is important, both for us as a nation, and for the world in general, that this be the case.
Yes, Oxford or Cambridge might see an applicant who is clearly very intelligent, but has not been schooled well. Unfortunately, it's probably too late; Oxford and Cambridge aren't good environments for "catching up".
The solution has to be to recognise sooner pupils with that kind of potential, and see to it that they get taught properly.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-22 04:11 pm (UTC)And that's what the 11+ was supposed to do, to flag up children with potential, except that almost everyone in any position to do anything about such children seems to be ideologically opposed to that exam. SATs won't do anything near the job, and are equally flawed in terms of separating those-with-potential from those-tutored-to-pass-this-test. How can schools spot them and do anything about them, without accusations of hothousing, elitism, segregation... how do you spot the late-bloomers? the undiagnosed dyslexics who slack off rather than own up to the problem? ect.ect. chiz chiz.
Having seen how stupid some people who have been-tutored-through-A-levels turn out to be (cannot spell, do not understand texts, fail to grasp key concepts of their subjects) I don't know where the solution lies. But A level results probably have nothing to do with it any more. There are already more candidates with all As than Oxbridge can take. Will they introduce A*s like they did for GCSEs? I am already having nightmares about the prospect of educating
*I didn't learn to write an essay at my first school, because no one ever asked or taught me to. I was nearly 15 and into GCSEs when I switched schools and was hurriedly brought up to speed by my horrified English teacher.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-22 04:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-22 04:52 pm (UTC)In the past, teachers could generally be relied upon first and foremost to educate people, and only secondarily to coach them in how to pass exams. That's no longer the case, and I suspect the teachers themselves would be unhappy about this, if they weren't so cynical and jaded.
At the moment, universities are left with the unenviable task of trying to work out at interview the extent to which predictions or results are indicative of competence as part of a well-rounded education, and conversely the extent to which they merely show someone's been crammed so hard it bleeds.
I think techers have to be given back some freedom, and encouraged to give a good quality education. Then, we have to identify people with extraordinary potential good and early, and make sure they flourish.
If anyone complains that this is elitist, they should be taken aside, and have it politely explained that they can go fuck themselves.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-22 06:19 pm (UTC)Of course, for me, i could either work, or handle Cambridge, but not both. Hence I organised the Joms reunion in my third year. I think I'd have been much happier somewhere else (up until the point where I fail to meet Adrian, of course)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-23 01:45 am (UTC)I was the first person in my school to go to Cambridge in the memory of any teacher there. There were one or two each year who tried for Oxford, and occasionally they got in, but the general ethos of the school was to raise up the many and not obsess over the top few. When I was an undergraduate I did the 'Target Schools' thing and went out to talk to the schools in my area to encourage the bright ones to consider Cambridge ... mostly people thought they weren't clever enough or posh enough.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-23 01:50 am (UTC)In my experience, attending an adequate state school and being assisted/encouraged by parents (e.g. I was taught to read before entering primary school) is sufficient, and a damn sight cheaper than paying fees.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-23 02:34 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-23 02:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-23 02:44 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-23 02:53 am (UTC)I went to a private secondary school. I doubt if I'd've even thought of applying to Oxford if I'd gone to the local state school. Most of the people I knew in the state system got a handful of GCSEs, dropped out halfway through A-levels, and got badly-paid jobs instead. One of my ex-boyfriends, who wanted to be a maths teacher, was laughed at by his teachers for harbouring such ridiculous aspirations. He lost motivation, dropped out. Last time I saw him he was working as a cleaner and supplementing his income by shoplifting.
But anyway. Where were we? Oxbridge.
I recognise that it's becoming increasingly unacceptable to "discriminate against" university applicants on the basis of irrelevant things like intellect, but IMNSHO Oxbridge applications should be biased towards people who have the intellectual and personal qualities necessary to benefit from the Oxbridge mode of teaching.
At the end of the day, though, it's never going to be wholly "fair". It's going to be influenced by notoriously subjective things like personal interaction (if you're going to have to work with somebody on a one-to-one basis, this seems only reasonable), and it's going to partly depend on the more or less random chance of who else happens to have applied that year. You can't just draw a purely objective line on a height-chart and say "Everybody over this intellectual stature is guaranteed a ride on the Oxbridge Rollercoaster".
Of course, it's all going to be a moot question in a few years' time because it's rapidly being reduced to the question of who can afford a degree, anywhere. :-(
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-23 03:38 am (UTC)I guess I consider (perhaps arrogantly) that any child of mine would be similarly fine, so long as the school wasn't completely dire. Cambridge doesn't seem to be have any utterly dire schools (such that you hear about them being dreadful in the local paper). But then I'm not planning to be in the child-raising business any time soon, so I haven't paid great attention ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-23 04:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-23 04:58 am (UTC)I would hope that
Cambridge is unlikely to have dire schools. Oxford has really only one or two (but they are seriously dire) - unfortunately we're in the catchment area for one of them so if allocation works against us I'd give serious attention to private/home schooling.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-23 11:40 am (UTC)(When you say "public school" should we assume you're including private schools?)
Date: 2004-01-23 11:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-24 04:59 am (UTC)Basically I do feel that the "top" state schools are in many ways much closer to public schools in character than they are to your bog standard comprehensive. And that the interesting distinction for me is between schools with a "tradition" of sending pupils to Oxbridge and other schools. It is much harder to draw a simple line between them though, so I guess your categories will have to do.
Re: (When you say "public school" should we assume you're including private schools?)
Date: 2004-01-24 12:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-25 10:56 am (UTC)