Today I'm angry about.....

[Lord Kangana]

Invest?

Not that I'm coming at it from the same angle as you. Frankly, social mobility is simply a nice by product of our country making the best use of its natural resources, ie people. We keep being told there aren't enough entrepeneurs, inventors, well you name it.

Square.

The.

F*cking.

Circle.

Then.

A society that increasingly leans on nepotism and means will wither and die economically.

[thebish]

Invest?

invest in what? higher teachers pay - shiny schools - new gym equipment - playing fields - more teachers - new crayons....

what investment in particular will lead simply to state schools raising their standards?

[lovethesmellofnapalm]

Essentially what he is talking about is a side issue - reprehensible nevertheless but a side issue.
Education will only become a conduit for social mobility in this country when our best universities are forced by quota to accept a higher percentage of their intake from state schools. Until then they will still allow their own kind in in disproportionate numbers through interview, post code etc. and thus perpetuate the educational division between haves and have nots.
Ah but wont that mean some students with inferior grades getting the places of "higher achieving" students?
yes it will initially but it may also prevent the de facto situation that my students encounter every year when they get turned down for Oxford and Cambridge despite having the necessary grades because they have either not got the social graces or accent or "life experience" to shine at interview or have the wrong post code.

you cant do medicine at University these days unless daddy is a doctor.

affirmative action - but it will never happen while our entire political class is drawn from the same social class.

Wouldn't a simpler and more expeditious approach be to make State Schools raise their standards?

and very many are- apart from the poor bstards (and i used to be one) who teach in "sink" schools where the attempt to teach well and learn well is compromised by the day to day grind of behaviour/league tables/exclusion targets/govt directives.
but raising standards and getting good results still doesnt cut the mustard with Oxbridge.

[Hoboh]

Wouldn't a simpler and more expeditious approach be to make State Schools raise their standards?

care to share the simple formula for doing that??

Make the hoodie scrotes go in the first place for one then flog the sob's to within an ich of their lives if they don't learn, if all else fails send them to hunt Bin Ladens cleaner

[William the White]

Essentially what he is talking about is a side issue - reprehensible nevertheless but a side issue.
Education will only become a conduit for social mobility in this country when our best universities are forced by quota to accept a higher percentage of their intake from state schools. Until then they will still allow their own kind in in disproportionate numbers through interview, post code etc. and thus perpetuate the educational division between haves and have nots.
Ah but wont that mean some students with inferior grades getting the places of "higher achieving" students?
yes it will initially but it may also prevent the de facto situation that my students encounter every year when they get turned down for Oxford and Cambridge despite having the necessary grades because they have either not got the social graces or accent or "life experience" to shine at interview or have the wrong post code.

you cant do medicine at University these days unless daddy is a doctor.

affirmative action - but it will never happen while our entire political class is drawn from the same social class.

A post so perfectly formed I want to give it a kiss on each and every cheek...

[Zulus Thousand of em]

Essentially what he is talking about is a side issue - reprehensible nevertheless but a side issue.
Education will only become a conduit for social mobility in this country when our best universities are forced by quota to accept a higher percentage of their intake from state schools. Until then they will still allow their own kind in in disproportionate numbers through interview, post code etc. and thus perpetuate the educational division between haves and have nots.
Ah but wont that mean some students with inferior grades getting the places of "higher achieving" students?
yes it will initially but it may also prevent the de facto situation that my students encounter every year when they get turned down for Oxford and Cambridge despite having the necessary grades because they have either not got the social graces or accent or "life experience" to shine at interview or have the wrong post code.

you cant do medicine at University these days unless daddy is a doctor.
affirmative action - but it will never happen while our entire political class is drawn from the same social class.

A post so perfectly formed I want to give it a kiss on each and every cheek...

Apart from this assertion, I tend to agree Will.

There are two guys playing cricket at my local cricket club. Both are fairly recently qualified doctors. Neither of them have a daddy for a doctor. Should I tell them that they're not real doctors? It's a dilemma, for sure.

[jimbo]

Essentially what he is talking about is a side issue - reprehensible nevertheless but a side issue.
Education will only become a conduit for social mobility in this country when our best universities are forced by quota to accept a higher percentage of their intake from state schools. Until then they will still allow their own kind in in disproportionate numbers through interview, post code etc. and thus perpetuate the educational division between haves and have nots.
Ah but wont that mean some students with inferior grades getting the places of "higher achieving" students?
yes it will initially but it may also prevent the de facto situation that my students encounter every year when they get turned down for Oxford and Cambridge despite having the necessary grades because they have either not got the social graces or accent or "life experience" to shine at interview or have the wrong post code.

you cant do medicine at University these days unless daddy is a doctor.
affirmative action - but it will never happen while our entire political class is drawn from the same social class.

A post so perfectly formed I want to give it a kiss on each and every cheek...

Apart from this assertion, I tend to agree Will.

There are two guys playing cricket at my local cricket club. Both are fairly recently qualified doctors. Neither of them have a daddy for a doctor. Should I tell them that they're not real doctors? It's a dilemma, for sure.

Seconded. What a bollocks statement. What parents do doesn't come into it one jot when applying for uni. Discounting those people who have worked hard to achieve what they have and get where they are as only being there because of who daddy is is a pretty sad way to look at things.

[lovethesmellofnapalm]

anecdotal this i concede
but when i was trying to get to the bottom of why a student with 4 A grades (good Russell Group graded a-level subjects as well) could not get a place to study medicine at any of her chosen universities the only meaningful response i got- university admission trotted out the usual nebulous " she doesn't have the necessary life experience" sort of guff- was from a Doctor who basically said that a huge advantage when applying to do medicine is a "connection" with the profession either through family or social connections.
i concede however that my remark re daddy was perhaps exagerrated.

i'd argue that a more naive statement however is "what parents do doesn't come into it one jot when applying for uni"

[thebish]

Seconded. What a bollocks statement. What parents do doesn't come into it one jot when applying for uni. Discounting those people who have worked hard to achieve what they have and get where they are as only being there because of who daddy is is a pretty sad way to look at things.

lovesthesmell is obviously employing hyperbole - it IS possible to become a doctor if your parent (daddy???!) is not a doctor - there are two people in my congregation who have recently trained as surgeons and qualified and are now both working in the NHS as surgeons - neither of whom has a parent or grandparent who is/was a doctor or surgeon or indeed anything to do with medicine.

however - there is a very strong case to be made that there is widespread nepotism..

this study http://econpapers.repec.org/article/uwp ... 96-413.htm

concludes:

In this paper we document a statistically significant, marginally greater probability of admittance into (at least one) medical school for children of doctors as compared to children of non-doctors. This fact can plausibly be explained as resulting from nepotism, in various forms, as well as from human capital transfers from first to (would-be) second generation doctors. After controlling for acquired human capital and other attributes of medical school applicants, we cannot reject nepotism as a cause-children of doctors are nearly 14 percent more likely to be admitted into medical school than are comparable nonfollowers.

which - hyperbole aside - was surely the point lovesthesmell was making.

[jimbo]

People who are children of doctors probably are more likely to get in. I'm not disputing that. I'm pretty confident though that it's not due to universities biased selection processes. It's probably more to do with the fact that kids with doctors as parents will get more useful help with their application and interview coaching, and possibly a better link to work experience. Having an idea of questions that are going to be asked is always a help, and parents can help give their kids guidance on how to approach any ethical issues that come up to be discussed. Nowhere on the UCAS form does it ask what parents do, so I don't see how a university 200 miles from where you live will have any clue as to whether you come from a long line of doctors, all they will see is possibly a more polished candidate sitting infront of them at interview.

Oh, and with regards to that girl with 4 As at A level who didn't get an offer, that's common place in medicine. It's ridiculously over subscribed, and pretty much all of the candidates will have a decent set of A levels, a decent amount of work experience, and be decent people. There isn't much to choose between, and I believe that to a certain extent it's random. How else can you cut down 3000 applicants to 250 places? I had similar A Levels to those you mention, and good work experience, and did loads of sport and stuff at school etc etc etc..... and out of my 4 applications I got 2 straight rejections, 1 rejection after interview and just the 1 offer. Stick at it, is all I say. Have a gap year and try again.

[thebish]

People who are children of doctors probably are more likely to get in. I'm not disputing that. I'm pretty confident though that it's not due to universities biased selection processes. It's probably more to do with the fact that kids with doctors as parents will get more useful help with their application and interview coaching, and possibly a better link to work experience.

that's possible - in fact, probable - but that was factored in to the research and there was still a 14% differential - which is statistically significant.

[jimbo]

If I get time I'll read the full article later, but there's some shockers in that abstract that mean you can't read too much into it.

1. It was written in 1989. 20 years ago. I don't know what uni applications were like the year I was born, but the whole UCAS form and the anonimity that goes with them were definitely not around. Also back in 1989, medicine was a much more closed shop. That's a given.

2. What is '(at least one) medical school'? Does that mean they have looked at just one medical school and drawn up wild conclusions about the whole selection process? If so, which medical school?

3. What are these human captial transfers? That should be clarified otherwise it could mean anything.

There's a few holes. Hopefully with this being just an abstract they will be addressed in the full article if I get round to reading it later.

[thebish]

If I get time I'll read the full article later, but there's some shockers in that abstract that mean you can't read too much into it.

1. It was written in 1989. 20 years ago. I don't know what uni applications were like the year I was born, but the whole UCAS form and the anonimity that goes with them were definitely not around. Also back in 1989, medicine was a much more closed shop. That's a given.

2. What is '(at least one) medical school'? Does that mean they have looked at just one medical school and drawn up wild conclusions about the whole selection process? If so, which medical school?

3. What are these human captial transfers? That should be clarified otherwise it could mean anything.

There's a few holes. Hopefully with this being just an abstract they will be addressed in the full article if I get round to reading it later.

I haven't read the research - that is simply the abstract/bare-bones-summary. I just looked for summat that wasn't merely hearsay or "my mate didn't get in and he's well clever!" That's all!

[thebish]

Emails that end "Sent from my BlackBerry smartphone from Virgin Media" or "sent from my i-phone"

I don't want to know!!

if I write a letter - I don't add "written with my bic pen on Basildon Bond paper"

if I phone you - I don't say at the end "spoken into the lounge phone on the BT network with the telly muted"

stop it! at once!


(sent from my Dell pc in the study whilst naked and eating a sandwich)

[Bruce Rioja]

Emails that end "Sent from my BlackBerry smartphone from Virgin Media" or "sent from my i-phone"

I don't want to know!!

if I write a letter - I don't add "written with my bic pen on Basildon Bond paper"

if I phone you - I don't say at the end "spoken into the lounge phone on the BT network with the telly muted"

stop it! at once!


(sent from my Dell pc in the study whilst naked and eating a sandwich)

Why does it annoy you?

[thebish]

Emails that end "Sent from my BlackBerry smartphone from Virgin Media" or "sent from my i-phone"

I don't want to know!!

if I write a letter - I don't add "written with my bic pen on Basildon Bond paper"

if I phone you - I don't say at the end "spoken into the lounge phone on the BT network with the telly muted"

stop it! at once!


(sent from my Dell pc in the study whilst naked and eating a sandwich)

Why does it annoy you?

because it sounds like "aren't I clever and sophisticated sending email on the move with my wanky swanky phone."

[Lofthouse Lower]

I think you need to get out more

[thebish]

bereaved siblings who sit down with you for an hour and a half to plan the funeral service - yes, a whole hour and a half - and tell you in great detail what an awful man their dad was from start to finish, with no redeeming features at all, whilst at the same time arguing with one another - and then, as you are leaving, say "..but we don't want anything bad said about him - can you say some nice things?"

[CrazyHorse]

Emails that end "Sent from my BlackBerry smartphone from Virgin Media" or "sent from my i-phone"

I don't want to know!!

if I write a letter - I don't add "written with my bic pen on Basildon Bond paper"

if I phone you - I don't say at the end "spoken into the lounge phone on the BT network with the telly muted"

stop it! at once!


(sent from my Dell pc in the study whilst naked and eating a sandwich)

What was on the sandwich?

[thebish]

Emails that end "Sent from my BlackBerry smartphone from Virgin Media" or "sent from my i-phone"

I don't want to know!!

if I write a letter - I don't add "written with my bic pen on Basildon Bond paper"

if I phone you - I don't say at the end "spoken into the lounge phone on the BT network with the telly muted"

stop it! at once!

(sent from my Dell pc in the study whilst naked and eating a sandwich)

What was on the sandwich?

horsemeat, I think......