The long boat game

[Flosshilde]

Vinteul's 'excellent riposte' - in full, unedited -

Which it is.

[Frances_iom]

..I suppose you could say that the TT Races or the London to Brighton Veteran Car Rally are examples of permissions being given that are not wholly elitist in that way. ..

minor comment - the TT does require previous demonstration of riding skills to enter (gained for example in the MGP) - however not sure I'd call it elitist - more a bloodbath as 1% of competitors die each year + probably another 1% suffer very serious injury.

[french frank]

can of worms time, but for one, because they relentlessly recruit a huge proportion of their students from our rich and elitist public schools at the expense of people from less well off backgrounds.

This is in part a failing of the schools system, but Oxbridge and other "elite" institutions fail to do all they could to combat this corrosive state of affairs.

Hmmm. An analogous (if not identical) example: Would-be professional writers who go through the East Anglia Creative Writing course form a high percentage of respected professional writers. This is because those who want to go there also want to be writers and they are chosen because they have already demonstrated that they are high achievers in a relevant field. Consequently, the mere fact of their having passed through the course is a recommendation to agents and publishers that such writers will make a successful career. But it is a form of elitism.

In terms of politics, those who want at an early age to go into politics may very well choose Oxbridge because of its apparent success rate. Eton has a tradition of providing politicians, including Prime Ministers, which in turn makes pupils think in that direction. And Oxford and Cambridge both have very high entrance requirements. Other universities may have equally high entrance requirements, but students who choose to go there don't necessarily want to be professional politicans. Oxbridge attracts ambitious students (I was surprised to learn on reading the biography of Dennis Potter that students stayed on at school for an extra year in the sixth form in order to get the qualifications needed for Oxbridge..) and they choose particular courses if they want to go into politics.

As for Oxford giving away firsts like confetti, well, if you start off with ambitious high-achievers you're likely to end up with more firsts. One of my younger relations got two A-level passes (a D and an E, if I remember). Since none on the eight universities which had offered him a conditional place was prepared to confirm it he had to scrabble around for one who would take him. I can't imagine the university college which did accept him giving as many firsts as Oxford which requires straight As for most courses.

(My experience of marking final exam papers - for an arts subject (it may be different for maths/science) - was that firsts were not simply a matter of achieving a particular percentage. There were certain criteria which were needed for a first in any given answer. If an answer satisfied those criteria it would be awarded a mark which was agreed to fall within the first class mark. It didn't matter whether the 'lowest mark' for a first was set at 68%, 70%, 72%, 75% &c. It wasn't 'easier' to get 68% than to get 75% because these were not principally numerical scores but recognition of the presence of certain qualities. I imagine most universities would have similar criteria. And each paper would/should be marked by two examiners who would agree the final mark. External examiners are appointed to ensure that all universities reach similar standards.)

[John Skelton]

The protest or whatever it was has certainly got people talking about the Oxbridge Boat Race who would not otherwise be talking about it, which surely offers a way forward for the event - making it more exciting for those of us not educated, as it were, at Cambox, and surely attracting greater sponsorship and media interest; all of which could be used to make Oxcam Colleges even more disgustingly wealthy than they already are.

How about depth charges along the length of the course? Crocodiles and Piranha Fish? Pools of burning oil?

I'd watch .

(Perhaps a warm up event would be an idea, involving several of our Great Public Schools?)

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

a shame if the boat race is seen as the focus of the protest rather than just its locus ..... i do think that this chap is protesting the elitism that creates a political overclass of wealthy well educated well connected young persons who then impose austerity as a national sacrifice that will not touch themselves nor their friends and families and who seem glossily indifferent to the growing unemployment and income and wealth inequalities in Britain ... and let us acknowledge that disrupting the boat race is not going to upset the workers and assorted oiks who will be paying more in taxes and food and utility bills etc ....

in response to the fury that this chap has unleashed i would point out that he has harmed no one, risked himself mostly, and did not plan to harm any one to make his point ....let us have one of him for any hundred braying bankers on the tow path ...

[MrGongGong]

Calum

I demand the right to be dangerous and idiotic (REALLY ) without it being seen as some kind of threat to the fabric of society !

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/laurie-penny-cant-we-tell-a-prank-from-a-terrorist-plot-7627541.html

[amateur51]

Hmmm. An analogous (if not identical) example: Would-be professional writers who go through the East Anglia Creative Writing course form a high percentage of respected professional writers. This is because those who want to go there also want to be writers and they are chosen because they have already demonstrated that they are high achievers in a relevant field. Consequently, the mere fact of their having passed through the course is a recommendation to agents and publishers that such writers will make a successful career. But it is a form of elitism.

In terms of politics, those who want at an early age to go into politics may very well choose Oxbridge because of its apparent success rate. Eton has a tradition of providing politicians, including Prime Ministers, which in turn makes pupils think in that direction. And Oxford and Cambridge both have very high entrance requirements. Other universities may have equally high entrance requirements, but students who choose to go there don't necessarily want to be professional politicans. Oxbridge attracts ambitious students (I was surprised to learn on reading the biography of Dennis Potter that students stayed on at school for an extra year in the sixth form in order to get the qualifications needed for Oxbridge..) and they choose particular courses if they want to go into politics.

As for Oxford giving away firsts like confetti, well, if you start off with ambitious high-achievers you're likely to end up with more firsts. One of my younger relations got two A-level passes (a D and an E, if I remember). Since none on the eight universities which had offered him a conditional place was prepared to confirm it he had to scrabble around for one who would take him. I can't imagine the university college which did accept him giving as many firsts as Oxford which requires straight As for most courses.

(My experience of marking final exam papers - for an arts subject (it may be different for maths/science) - was that firsts were not simply a matter of achieving a particular percentage. There were certain criteria which were needed for a first in any given answer. If an answer satisfied those criteria it would be awarded a mark which was agreed to fall within the first class mark. It didn't matter whether the 'lowest mark' for a first was set at 68%, 70%, 72%, 75% &c. It wasn't 'easier' to get 68% than to get 75% because these were not principally numerical scores but recognition of the presence of certain qualities. I imagine most universities would have similar criteria. And each paper would/should be marked by two examiners who would agree the final mark. External examiners are appointed to ensure that all universities reach similar standards.)

Interesting issues and experiences, french frank covered also in Alan Bennett's play 'The History Boys'

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

oh and talking of disruption for political purposes let us recollect Mr F Maude's contribution to the genre a week or so ago

[Vile Consort]

FF has identified a possible alternative explanation for why so many Oxbridge alumni end up in highly paid jobs and in government, the civil service, etc. That is:

1. There is a lot of competition to get into those jobs, so the employers are able to pick the best people.

2. There is also a lot of competition to get into Oxbridge, so they, too, can pick the best of the applicants.

3. Both sets of institutions are seen as desirable places to be, so the best people tend to apply.

4. Not surprisingly, both sets of institutions end up with the same people.

We do have to differentiate between correlation and causation, don't we?

[John Skelton]

Or the people doing the picking pick people like themselves, people who went to the same schools then universities as themselves, people who look like themselves, sound like themselves, smell like themselves, think like themselves, know people who the people doing the picking know, etc.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jul/08/university-admissions-study-oxbridge-divide

(The so-called Russell Group university where I was an undergraduate thirty years ago isn't much better, admitting 62.4% of students from state schools. My - London - comprehensive school saw it as a possibility for me, but Oxford or Cambridge as on another planet. That might not be true now. Or it might be as true now and the university I attended is thought of in the way 'Oxbridge' was then. I'm certain it's not as simple as the 'best' people end up at certain universities and then in certain jobs, running the country: in many cases enabling factors, economic circumstance, schools being set up to get their students into those universities are determining. The skewed effects of people whose experience of life is so privileged and specific to a particular and self-replicating Class 'running the country' are painfully obvious, IMO).

[Edit In 2010 nearly a quarter of Oxford admissions were educated at a comprehensive school. http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/...-school-intake. I don't see why Oxford - or other so-called Russell Group universities - can't accurately be described as elitist in a negative sense, I'm afraid].

[Vile Consort]

Why on earth did your school see Oxbridge as being on another planet?

Of course Oxford and Cambridge are going to end up full of public school pupils if state schools actively steer pupils away from them, either by overt advice, which sounds to be the situation in your case, or by poor advice about subject choice at A level, which the Guardian article focuses on.

Why do we tolerate state schools serving their pupils so badly?

[Mary Chambers]

Why on earth did your school see Oxbridge as being on another planet?

Of course Oxford and Cambridge are going to end up full of public school pupils if state schools actively steer pupils away from them, either by overt advice, which sounds to be the situation in your case, or by poor advice about subject choice at A level, which the Guardian article focuses on.

Why do we tolerate state schools serving their pupils so badly?

Quite.

I'm glad to say that my sons' state comprehensive school encouraged applications to Oxbridge. One of my sons applied (Cambridge) and got in - this was about twenty years ago. He learnt to row, and was in the college eight, though never Boat Race standard. It was very hard work!

Other people from his year at school also got places, some from totally uneducated backgounds. Oxbridge is not exclusive at all - you can go if you have the brains and don't have a chip on your shoulder.

[John Skelton]

Why on earth did your school see Oxbridge as being on another planet?

Because that's how it seemed to them, I suppose. There wasn't any history of pupils going to Oxford or Cambridge, there wasn't the possibility of teaching for an entrance exam, and the school had contacts with sympathetic admissions tutors in London. I didn't miss out and probably only suggested it at the time out of mischief . I'd consider my undergraduate university to be elitist in a negative sense, too.

While I don't doubt that there are problems to do with advice in the state system, I'm also sure that there are self-perpetuating networks; and a cursory glance at the facilities and assistance available for pupils in the private system shows that the state system and its pupils are at an institutional disadvantage. That applies for admissions to music colleges, of course. Many comprehensives are very good schools indeed. Ultimately the problem is one of Class and its institutions and inequalities, IMO.

(The Boat Race protestor, of course, was educated at a private school in Australia and then at the LSE. Not exactly an education in disadvantage).

[John Skelton]

Quite.you can go if you have the brains and don't have a chip on your shoulder.

if that's a reference to my jocular remark earlier about me and the chip on my shoulder I promise you I don't have one (a chip, that is. I have two shoulders) . Of course people from comprehensive schools go to Oxford and Cambridge. But more from private / public schools go - and in terms of % of the population, the presence of private / public school pupils at Oxford and Cambridge is grossly disproportionate.

That's all true, isn't it?

[MrGongGong]

While I don't doubt that there are problems to do with advice in the state system,

I would say that this is a gross understatement. I think there are huge problems with advice in ALL sectors of secondary education. Many teachers have little experience of how higher education is NOW rather than when they went. In music there is a tendency for pupils to be poorly advised to apply to music college when they really would be better off going to university and vice versa. Given that one of the reasons for going to university is to hang out with people more intelligent than yourself it doesn't serve you well to be the brightest student at your institution not does it serve you well to struggle for three years.