don_quixote
Trent End
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/1999/apr/24/guardianletters
here, bizarrely commented on by future masterchef star john torode
here, bizarrely commented on by future masterchef star john torode
over-representation of some schools' pupils at Oxbridge
The very best public schools and state schools are highly competitive - you would need to be 11+ standard or (far) above to get in. The top students at these schools have scholarships which may pay a large proportion or the entirety of their fees (in other words, you can be poor and a student at Eton).
Many of the ppl I knew at Oxford or Cambridge paid little or nothing for their elite secondary education: smarts got them into a top public or state grammar school, before then gaining them admittance into university. It is the not-so-talented children's parents who will pay through the nose to send them through the private system as, in their parents' eyes, they stand to lose the most by missing out. These students make up the majority of a public school's cohort, but not necessarily the majority of those that they send to the top universities.
It is no wonder that a minority of schools dominate when these schools act precisely as Oxbridge does but at a preliminary stage: exacting entry standards selecting a choice crop of pupils for an education that, being academically demanding, plays to their strengths. They also profit from a virtuous circle: their success attracts a widening pool of applicants, whose increasing talent brings ever more glory come A-Level time.
That said, prep schools offer far more support to children gunning for public school scholarships than state primaries do! (Though many schools use reasoning tests for entry, which are quite resistant to training).
have i ever mentioned how much i hate private education
the foregoing is intended as a precis of that cnut's argument, not a statement of a position that I hold, or am remotely interested in defending).
Very academically-focused pupils are generally correct in their perception that the kind of education offered by the state secondary system isn't well-suited to their needs or abilities. The question is, whose needs and abilities are properly addressed by that system? And are its inadequacies with respect to the academically-inclined specifically due to its being not specially tailored to them, or simply facets of a larger problem experienced in different ways by everyone who remains within it?
That said, intelligence is their uppermost consideration as it is far more desirable to have an intellectually adaptable (intelligent) working class student than a hot-housed, dim middle-class one. After all, they have to teach them and teaching able students is more fun.
Intelligence is obv strongly correlated with academic success.
And you are more likely to be able to afford them if you are more intelligent, as intelligence enables you to get more of what people generally want - money, for instance.
Yes, but idiots would obviously comprise a smaller proportion of these people than they would of unsuccessful, poor, uneducated people. (I'm talking about the UK here)
I would guess that a standard comp would be geared towards the middle ground, with both the very able and least able losing out due to provision being, inevitably, targeted at the average pupil.*
I appreciate that for everyone outside this particular circle of privilege a reasonable reaction might be "who cares?", but if you want to understand why the Oxbridge set tend to think that something other than their social privilege sets them apart, you might want to consider what - if anything - sets them apart from others with the same kinds of social privilege. It may for example be an advantage to be slightly maverick (relative, let me underline again, to one's peers in an already socially/academically selective educational setting) and slightly less comfortably-off, if this makes one appear alert, ambitious and eager to get on.
So, according to this logic, Prince Harry's and Paris Hilton's access to £££ means they are more intelligent than a poor person by definition?
No - they could well be less intelligent than the average poor person but, given two random people - one rich and one poor - the rich one is more likely to be intelligent.
No - they could well be less intelligent than the average poor person but, given two random people - one rich and one poor - the rich one is more likely to be intelligent.
I love your use of 'obviously' here- do you have any evidence to back this up?
Absolute nonsense.
Exactly what is this judgment based on?