I have just signed up to help the admissions department of my old college at Oxford to speak at state schools on the hope of encouraging more applicants.
As things stand there are fewer date school kids attending than when I was a pupil. The sad truth is that many working class kids do not feel as though they have a right to attend such universities. With plays such as Posh portraying the grubby side of the Bullingdon Club members, some of whom now run our country, it is not hard to see why. Aside from the huge academic pressures and expectations, there is the social division to navigate. Even at Balliol, a reasonably left and liberal college, there was a divide between many of the privately educated kids and the state school kids.
Part of the problem is giving the state school applicants a better sense of their own entitlement and worth. This can't simply be achieved by a single visit but needs to be about developing an ongoing relationship. I know that private schools spend months prepping their Oxbridge candidates, and they exude a confidence that is infectious. We are naturally drawn to those who present themselves as powerful and ready to meet the world; we turn away from the shy and awkward. I would love their to be a more comprehensive relationship between universities and the state schools and colleges who have perhaps only a couple of students applying but that they had an alumni working with then. In many cases the teachers at their school aren't equipped to sufficiently prep them. Conversely, Westminster and top private schools have extremely coherent preps and teachers who know exactly what Oxbridge tutors are looking for. If we can't scrap private education, we should put a quota on how many students can apply to certain universities.
