Report exposes Oxbridge entry divide
Four private schools and one sixth-form college send more students to Oxbridge than the bottom 2,000 schools put together, new figures reveal.
Westminster School, Eton College, St Paul’s School and St Paul’s Girls School, which are all private and situated within 23 miles of one another, and Hills Road Sixth Form College, a state school in Cambridge, produced a total of 946 Oxford and Cambridge entrants between 2007 and 2009, according to the Sutton Trust.
In the same period, the bottom 2,000 schools and colleges produced a total of 927 Oxbridge entrants.
The report shows there is a strong link between A-level results and the chances of going to university. However, pupils at some schools with similar exam results had very different rates of pupils going on to higher education.
The report highlights two comprehensives in the north of England which had almost identical A-level results. One sent 57 per cent of pupils to selective universities, but the other sent just 27 per cent.
Sutton Trust chairman Sir Peter Lampl said: “We know these stark inequalities in university progression rates are driven primarily by the exam results in schools, yet the data we are publishing today reveals that university chances can vary dramatically for schools with similar average grades.”
The report said levels of aspiration at the schools as well as interview preparation could account for different success rates.
It said: “Such differences cannot be explained by the ability range, but may be influenced by parental backgrounds, geography, curriculum and information, advice and guidance.”
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Overall, 68.3 per cent of pupils from 2,343 schools and colleges in England were accepted into higher education over the three years.
When it came to the 30 most selective universities, 48.2 per cent of independent school pupils were accepted compared to just 18 per cent of pupils from non-selective state schools.
Schools minister Nick Gibb said: “This report is a damning indictment of Labour’s failure to improve social mobility.
“Despite all their promises, they left hundreds of thousands of children with little to no chance of getting to the best universities.
“We are tackling these inequalities by increasing the number of good schools and targeting funding at the poorest pupils.”
Wendy Piatt, director general of the Russell Group which represents the universities, said the report fails to explain fully why some schools have different degrees of success in sending their students to leading universities.
She said that even well-qualified students from comprehensive schools are less likely to apply to top universities than their peers from independent schools, and emphasised that the universities “cannot offer places to those who do not apply”.
But a spokeswoman for Oxford University told Channel 4 News the report’s methodology was “misleading”.
She said: “The Sutton Trust highlights the uneven distribution of top achievers in schools. Department of Education data shows that 96 per cent of all students getting five A* grades or better at GCSE are clustered in 50 per cent of all the schools in England.
“As a university trying to reach out to younger students, you could visit the top eight schools based on GCSE attainment and find 850 people with five A* grades or better, but you would have to visit the bottom 1,900 schools to get the same number.
She added: “Our priority is to ensure that, in schools where top attainment is rare, the one person who does achieve top grades is not disadvantaged by their relative isolation.”