Oxbridge
rebels
Are
Oxford and Cambridge still
the
glittering prizes for students from independent schools?
Victoria Neumark reports
Autumn, and
university entrance is on everybody’s mind. Should you take
a shot and go for Oxford or Cambridge? With Gordon Brown
the first prime minister not to have attended Oxbridge
since 1945, have the rose-tinted glasses fallen from the
eyes of today’s school-leavers?
Certainly the “ivory towers” no longer gleam so brightly
for a small but significant stream of individualists
heading the other way, be it to US universities, business
opportunities or a decided preference for vibrant
nightlife, “a life you can call your own” and “getting away
from all those private-school kids you’ve spent so much
time with”. Young businessman Xan Morgan talks
enthusiastically rather about “lessons I’ve learned from
life” and how “being quite naughty at school and liking the
bright lights, I wanted to be home in London – and Oxford
felt small”.
You can catch
up with some of these rebels on social networking site
Facebook (see box,
optional). There you
will find the We Hate Oxbridge Society, the “I never wanted
to go to Oxbridge anyway” group (21 members), the Oxbridge
Rejects are Cooly-Cool group and “I got rejected from
Oxbridge 2007 but who cares it’s their loss anyway” (19
members).
Who cares indeed? Looking at admission numbers, Oxford
alone gets almost 14,000 applications each year, all from
straight-A students, for 3,500 places- so a few less helps
them out. Currently the colleges favour independent-school
applicants but they are being pressured by the government
to increase the state school intake. This means, says
Martin Stephen of St Paul's, “We are in danger of giving a
place at a top university as a compensation for
disadvantage, when it should be a reward for achievement.”
At the moment that is not happening and top schools such as
Eton, Wycombe Abbey, St Paul’s, St Mary’s Ascot,
Winchester, Westminster and North London Collegiate and the
Royal Grammar School, Guildford, have doubled numbers going
to the oldest universities in the last five years. Their
staff can afford to agree with Tony Little, Master of Eton,
that “While there are always (and always have been)
examples of strange decisions, boys (and the school) see
the admissions process as challenging but fair.”
Others feel less certain. The internet is abuzz with
resentment from rejected candidates and their families, as
numbers going to Oxbridge from such respected schools as
Manchester High, Nottingham High and Radley decline. Says
Pip Marshall of Nottingham, “My own stepdaughter would, on
first analysis, be heavily discriminated against as she is
female, has graduate parents and attends a private school.
What this doesn't state is that her parents are separated,
have retrained several times to keep in average jobs and
she has gone to private school on a scholarship with
herself and the rest of us making sacrifices and buying
second-hand. But are these the type of middle-class,
stereotypical values we all now love to hate?”
Geoff Lucas (secretary general of the headmasters’ and
headmistresses’conference HMC) is confident that “Oxbridge
will maintain absolute standards” – perhaps a coded message
that there is not much to worry about for private-school
parents. As he added wryly, “The more they develop
additional tests on ability and achievement for individual
subjects, the more that will favour the kind of parents who
want the best for their children – who are often the ones
who send their children to an independent school.”
A note of caution here from Anthony Seldon, Master of
Wellington College that it “is the children who are going
to university, not the parent. The job of a good
parent is to help the child identify and achieve what they
themselves want.” “I went to Oxbridge so my children should
do, too,” mentality doesn’t necessarily work.
Laura
Hazlerigg went to Oxford and was keen for daughter Eliza to
follow in her footsteps. At Queen’s Gate school in London,
Eliza was “put in” for an Oxford college – but she skipped
the interview. “We spent three days and nights arguing,”
says Laura, “But it’s her life and she chose what’s right
for her.” At Birmingham, Eliza will study biological
sciences in a top academic environment. Additional bonuses
are an industrial placement, a campus university without
the “cliqueyness” of colleges.
For Oxford and Cambridge do not appeal to all. Some of the
courses seem antiquated, as do dress codes and quaint
rituals. The cities, if beautiful, are small and sleepy
compared to the Manchester, Leeds or Birmingham buzzy
night-life. The high workload (one or two essays a week)
and intensive contact with academic staff repel some.
So is it now “uncool”?
Nicholas Shrimpton, deputy principal of Lady Margaret Hall,
Oxford, reflects. “We still get lots of clever independent
school applicants, and they seem 'cool' to me both at
interview and once they are here. But I suspect that some
(especially boys) who might have applied in the past are
put off by the current exam treadmill of GCSE, AS and A2 in
successive years, and the feeling that you have to have a
'perfect' record at the first two of these (lots of A*s at
GCSE, 3 As at AS) to stand a chance. In this sense the
Oxbridge applicants might seem geeky - they apparently need
to have been impeccably well-behaved and hard-working
between the ages of 15 and 18, and not to have knocked down
a single hurdle.”
Like many, he sees new forms of testing as positive for
both the college and also the applicants. “The return of
Oxford entrance exams, or rather 'aptitude tests', in
History and English this year may help the eccentric, or
naughty, or rebellious, or late-developing candidate get
another chance to demonstrate aptitude and cleverness. I
welcome this because I'd like a few more individualists,
rather than slaves of the system.”
That said
Cambridge University published a list of 20 A-levels which
are “a less effective preparation for our courses.” Don’t
take more than one of these if you want to go to Cambridge.
They include sports science, media studies, theatre
studies, accounting, business studies, design and
technology.?
College
interviews loom in December. The interview process has been
described as “notoriously eccentric,” including questions
like: “Here is a piece of bark, please talk about it”
(biological sciences, Oxford); “Put a monetary value on
this teapot” (philosophy, politics and economics,
Cambridge); and “At what point is a person 'dead'?”
(medicine, Cambridge).
Mike Nicholson,
director of undergraduate admissions at Oxford advises
applicants that they “need to know their subject and be
clear as to their motivation and interest. They should have
enough understanding of relevant material relating to their
academic discipline to be able to talk confidently for ten
minutes each on two or three different aspects, and they
should certainly keep a copy of, and re-read, any work that
they submit. Don't panic, don't feel that you have to know
everything about your subject, and don't feel you need a
dozen new interview outfits to be successful. Just relax,
and be yourself.”
Adds Nicholas Shrimpton: “Be keen.”
For parents who believe that the only glittering prize is
Oxbridge and can convince their offspring likewise, you can
go that extra step and invest in tuition from private
agencies like Gabbitas www.gabbitas.co.uk or Oxbridge
Applications www.oxbridgeapplications.com
. Otherwise,
listen to your child’s choice of Sussex by the sea,
Newcastle for its ale or Leeds for the coolest mix of
people- and realise that any of the Top 20 Russell Group
of universities can point them towards a bright future .
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