Economic Background and Education
Feb. 25th, 2010 08:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
leynosFrom a New Statesman article someone linked to:
'"The university admissions system", he writes, "is biased in favour of private education and against the state schools." If students were admitted strictly on A-level grades, the top universities would take in about 30 per cent more poor students than they do and about 30 per cent fewer from the private schools.'
Okay, so why is this the case? Is it that the Universities are, in the case of two applicants with equal grades, using the applicant's school as the deciding factor? Surely the answer then, is simply to make it illegal to use this in the consideration and to have it blanked out on the UCAS form received by the admissions staff. (After all, whether someone went to a state or private school tells you little other than how well off the parents are). Or am I missing something?
'"The university admissions system", he writes, "is biased in favour of private education and against the state schools." If students were admitted strictly on A-level grades, the top universities would take in about 30 per cent more poor students than they do and about 30 per cent fewer from the private schools.'
Okay, so why is this the case? Is it that the Universities are, in the case of two applicants with equal grades, using the applicant's school as the deciding factor? Surely the answer then, is simply to make it illegal to use this in the consideration and to have it blanked out on the UCAS form received by the admissions staff. (After all, whether someone went to a state or private school tells you little other than how well off the parents are). Or am I missing something?
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no subject
Date: 2010-02-26 08:39 am (UTC)"Ooh, I see that you were in the debating society, and played the violin..."
I think that there's an element of self-perpetualism about things. Academia is is packed with private school alumni, who will tend to seek out entrants similar to themselves.
I did get the impression when I went to my Cambridge interview that I was being tested to see if I was "the right sort". Including questions about my parents' economic situation, which unnerved me somewhat.