State-school students on top
NEW RESEARCH published by UCAS suggests that comprehensive schools produce more top university students than they had been credited with. Figures from Cambridge show that two-fifths of its students are from comprehensive schools, not a quarter as previously thought.
In the past there has been no clear distinction made in the admissions figures between students from selective grammar schools and non-selective comprehensives which still retain the name "grammar." The new, more accurate breakdown contradicts the commonly cited criticism that comprehensive schools fail to produce Oxbridge students.
The figures show that state-school pupils are making up an increasing share of university students in general, with comprehensive school students particularly improving, constituting as they do one-third of all those in higher education. Those state-school students who do enter university are entering it with increasingly better grades: The number of comprehensive and grammar school students entering university with 26 points or better increased by 7 percent for men and 15 percent for women.
Interestingly, the new figures also show that highly qualified state- school pupils are much less likely to apply to Oxford or Cambridge than their independent school counterparts. Half of the independent school students achieving three As at A-level ended up at Oxbridge compared with less than a third of those with the same grades from state schools. It is not clear whether there is a link between this and the fact that state-school pupils are statistically less likely to be accepted to Cambridge: 35 percent of private-school applicants were successful compared with 27 percent of state-school applications.
The Oxford University admissions office was far more reticent than its Cambridge counterpart in giving data on applications and comprehensive school students. The only statistic they were prepared to give was that 46.1 percent of Oxford students were from "maintained" schools as opposed to 43.7 percent from the independent sector, statistics almost identical with the new Cambridge figures. The remainder is comprised of Sixth Form College or foreign students. The office refused to give any information about how many of the state-school students were from comprehensives on the basis that they had "not received the new definitions from UCAS yet." A spokeswoman added that she thought the new definitions would make "a big difference" to the statistics.
Meanwhile new statistics from the Higher Education Statistics Agency reconfirm common conceptions of Oxbridge with the revelation that "upper or middle class" students account for 79 percent of Cambridge entrants in 1997. Moreover, this group constituted only 75 percent of applications, confirming the common assumption that it is easier for students from privileged backgrounds to be accepted.
28th Oct 1999