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North-south divide remains

Admissions statistics for Oxford’s 2010 entry show a huge regional bias towards London and the South East.

Despite extensive spending on outreach schemes and summer schools, a total of 40% of accepted students came from schools in London and other South Eastern areas, in comparison to 1.9% from the North East, 1.6% from Scotland and just 0.9% from Northern Ireland.

However, similarly to last year, the under-representation of these three regions is a reflection of the number of applications received.

Only 1.5% of the 17,144 applications received for October 2010 came from teenagers in the North East. There is less than a 1% difference between the percentage of successful applications in the region and those in London and the South East.

A spokesperson for the university said, “Most British universities will see a very strong bias in student numbers towards local students from the area or region, and Oxford manages to attract students from around the UK and also from around the globe.”

Some undergraduates from the North East agreed that teenagers in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the North East choose to apply to universities closer to home for reasons of cost and convenience, with a number of able applicants being attracted to prestigious universities such as Durham and Edinburgh.  Welsh students who go to university in Wales pay only a third of what univeristy in England costs.

However, many held the view that academically able pupils in these regions may choose not to apply to Oxbridge purposely.

Dave Fairburn, an English student from a comprehensive school near Hull, remarked that, “there appears to be a difference in culture” between secondary schools in different parts of the country.

“Not just at my school, but in many throughout the area, there was a lack of ambition. The very culture…is different to the one I’ve found at Oxford.”

Lewis Wingfield, who was educated in Newcastle, added that in his experience “there is a perception, especially among state school pupils, that because there aren’t many people from the North East at Oxford, Oxford musn’t want them or must discriminate against them.

“There’s a big inverse snobbery thing – people talk about ‘posh southern snobs’ and feel they would be talked down to and disrespected for their accent.”

However, through its access and outreach work, Oxford reaches 76% of schools which offer post-16 provision.

In addition, since 2008, the university gives applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds an increased chance of invitation to interview. Tutors now look at the average results achieved by the candidate’s school, and whether they have spent time in care or attended an access summer school. Any student with sufficient A Level predictions who meets at least three of these criteria will be interviewed.

Yet the 2010 statistics show that a difference in application progression between the state and independent sectors still exists across the UK.

342 of the 12,333 UK candidates withdrew their application at some stage during the process. 209 of these were from the state sector, whereas only 118 came from independent schools.

Even in London, an area with the second greatest proportion of acceptances, students from the two sectors describe very different perceptions of Oxbridge.

One state school student said, “Many, myself included, for a lengthy period of time considered Oxford to be full of Tarquins swanning about croquet lawns and felt they could never relate.”

However, an undergraduate from an independent school remarked, “I think that the year was split into two – those that thought Oxbridge was where they would be in a few years and those that knew they wouldn’t be, but respected their intellect.”

But despite these divisions, Oxford appears to have achieved its aim of admitting the most able students. A total of 88% of applicants sitting three A levels in June 2010 exceeded the standard offer of AAA, with 40% of these gaining three A* grades. Only 12% of those accepted achieved AAA or below.

The news comes after it was announced in January that Oxford will introduce the A* grade in many MPLS courses.

A spokesperson for the university said, “It is now clear that many students in the sciences who take A levels get the A* grade, and that it would be reasonable to ask for an A* in many science and maths courses.”

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