<p>Marite is basically right in his (?) explanations of A and O Levels - except that O Levels are now called GCSEs, and you don't <em>technically</em> have to pass them to leave school. You are allowed to leave school the term (I believe) you turn 16. E.g. my birthday's in June, so I could have left school at the end of the summer term. In reality though, if you don't have GCSEs or an equivalent qualification, you're basically screwed.</p>
<p>Public schools ARE private schools, but only the really top private schools are known as 'public schools'. E.g Eton, Winchester, St Paul's, City of London School etc are <em>public schools</em>, but your local run-of-the-mill private school is not. Non-fee paying schools (i.e. anything other than a private school) is called a state school, or a comprehensive school, or a grammar school (comps and grammars are different things - comps are non-selective state schools; grammar schools are selective state schools).</p>
<p>So basically it goes:
Public schools are private schools.
Private schools are private schools.
Comprehensives are state schools.
Grammar schools are state schools. </p>
<p>To make things even worse, we have religous schools (e.g. Catholic, Anglican schools) that are in their own category. Plus some private schools have the phrase 'grammar school' in their name, e.g. Manchester Grammar School is a private school. </p>
<p>That just makes it a whole lot clearer doesn't it? ;)</p>
<p>Laylah, is it true, then, that the selective colleges in the UK (Oxbridge) don't care too much about extra-curricular activities and such? You just have to do very well in your subject of specialization and perhaps, in general, do well academically in all subjects; or at least not mess up in other subjects? I've seen a documentary on the interview process at Oxford, I know a little bit but not much.</p>
<p>I didn't see any "distasteful agenda" represented on Mr. Sacks site, and I recall reading one or two of his articles over the past couple of years. I suspect that anyone with an interest in secondary and higher ed would find his writing and the writing of others on his website to be of interest.</p>
<p>achat: yes, basically that is correct. At interview, you are not asked about your ECs unless they relate to your particular subject. For example, if you're applying for chemistry and you have done research on a particular area of chemistry, you may be asked to explain your findings etc. Similarly, if you're applying for French and you spent the summer working in Paris, you may be asked about your impressions of socio-economic factors in the Parisien job market or something. </p>
<p>You are expected to have very good marks in all subjects you take/took at school, with evidence of excelling in the subjects you are applying for at university. The average grades of Oxbridge entrants have risen over the last few years - it used to be that if you got AAB at A-level that would be enough. Now, almost everyone has at least AAA at A-level. Quite a lot have 4 As. Some have 5. A few have 6+ A grades. It's getting harder and harder to stand out from the crowd on paper, which is why I believe the interview is so important.</p>
<p>"Class Rules: the Fiction of Egalitarian Higher Education" is an article by Peter Sacks in the Chronicle, and my goodness, does he get polemic! The whole article is a very angry class warefare rant. I am not saying I agree or disagree with him, but it would have been nice if he had said in his "author's query" that he had a huge axe to grind, which he was then going to use as a machete! </p>
<p>He hates gifted programs, for example, and sees the whole existence of public education in the US as being based on sorting the "dull stones" from the "bright shiny ones." He is enraged about early decision programs, enraged that some people have money to spend on private schools, enraged about anything and everything that might give anyone's child the <em>slightest</em> advantage over someone else's. Citing a study, he implies that suburban moms want all poor kids in rote-memory type classes, while their own precious darlings must be groomed to take their place among the elite.</p>
<p>He implies that he has uncovered all kinds of sinister, back-door dealings -things I just said, "well, duh!" to. And he imagines we are all either dumb morons, who don't understand that there is no pure meritocracy, OR we are the manipulative powerful ones with money, our whole lives just one scheme to get our undeserving kids to maintain power over other people.</p>
<p>This man has some serious issues! In the best of all possible (imaginary) worlds, maybe everyone would have the exact same amount of money and the exact same opportunities, and no one would dare poke their heads even an inch above anyone else's, but that's a pipe dream. We have to live in the real world.....</p>
<p>I only wish I could post my Chronicle of Higher Education essay so that people on this list could read it for themselves. I also wish I could post my last book, Standardized Minds, in its entirety, in order to respond to the implication made my some posters on this list that my arguments aren't grounded with an exhaustive amount of research. My new book will be about social class and the education system. I start with the proposition that we don't talk about class very much in America, and yet social class is perhaps the central organizing principle of the education system. I'm interested in finding people who are willing to engage with me in an open and honest conversation about class in their own lives. I apologize for not directly stating this in my original post, but I'm finding that class and education is a touchy subject and have found that it's often less threatening to people to ease into a conversation about it. Again, I would welcome any and all interested people, replying to me directly at <a href="mailto:psacks@cableone.net">psacks@cableone.net</a>.</p>
<p>Peter, thanks for your second post. I am sorry that you have been met with such hostility -- but I honestly have found the same on this board in the past. When you start discussing issues of class or elitism, you touch a nerve with some parents who may have spent the past dozen years worrying about getting their kids into the "right" schools, choosing summer activities or athletic participation on the basis of college resume-building, and encouraging their already stressed-out 15 year olds to take every available AP class simply to maintain a competitive edge.</p>
<p>I'm not saying that all the parents here feel that way -- but you have to keep in mind that this is a forum that is naturally going to attract parents who are obsessed with the college admissions process and have the goal of getting their kids into top schools. Many are pretty hostile to the suggestion that there is something wrong with the process that they have so wholly committed themselves to.</p>
<p>I have read Standardized Minds - it is a wonderful book and I thank you for writing it. I agree with most of what you say. My kids have attended public high schools with a strong ethnic mix, and they have many friends coming from families with limited means -- and we see very clearly how the test score game works. I honestly think that increased reliance on standardized test scores is one way that supposedly need-blind colleges weight the process to make sure that they don't actually admit too many financially needy students -- since statistically, test scores tend to correlate directly to family income. </p>
<p>I'm the parent of a 16 year old, high school junior -- but no, we don't want to be interviewed and you can't follow our family - my kid has already jumped off the beaten track, and will be applying to colleges with a somewhat unusual high school record, so she wouldn't be at all representative of a typical experience. I suppose that if she gets into her top picks for college, she will be living proof that it is better to stand out with a unique background than to have high test scores .... and if she is rejected, she will be proof to the contrary. </p>
<p>But good luck with your project -- you may have a hard time finding a family to follow, but I'm sure that your book will give others food for thought.</p>
<p>I am in the process of reading Standardized Minds right now and find it very interesting. I do think that the SAT does not predict how well one will do in college. Some naturally bright kids will do very well but many, many students only do well because their parents have money to hire a tutor or pay big bucks for an on-line or classroom prep class. We've all fallen into that teaching to the test that we say we don't want the teachers doing. I'm as guilty as anyone. As much as I dislike that game, my son will need merit aid if he is to go to a good LAC and the good SAT score is the most likely way to get it.</p>
<p>I'm not sure why the tone of this thread is so angry. Frankly, I don't feel so much class consious in real life as I do when I read this bulletin board. I think it's more interesting when there are many different points of view.</p>
<p>Kathy, isn't the idea that your son needs to go to a "good" LAC part of the whole mindset? I don't mean to get down on you at all -- my son went to an elite LAC and his test scores probably helped with financial aid -- he also had a college-sponsored National Merit scholarship, which definitely was test-score driven. So I certainly am not in a position to criticize anyone wanting to go down the same path.</p>
<p>The problem is - after 2 years at the expensive east coast LAC - my son decided to take some time off - and now he's not going back. In the meantime he's gotten a job that he loves, and where he has also done extremely well & was promoted very quickly through the ranks. Most of the people he works with are college grads, some from very elite schools - but hiring is wide open, and promotions are based on job performance -- so my son could have gone to the local community college or state U. for 2 years and be exactly where he is now, without the college loan to pay off. He plans to go back to college, but he will be attending a public university without all of the amenities the LAC supposedly had. Maybe overall there was some value in the learning process at the LAC.... but I think that if I had it to do all over again, knowing what I know now, I might have pushed my son to attend one of the UC campuses he was admitted to rather than to go for the "good" LAC. </p>
<p>My son was lucky - he scored well on the PSAT & SAT without any prep whatsoever. My daughter does not score as well, and has her sights set rather high for college. I don't know whether she will choose to retake tests or get more test prep or not - she's also got to deal with the "new" SAT - about the only part she did really well on with the SAT were the analogies, which of course are the part being dropped. This time around I'm going to back off and let my daughter drive the process, though -- I'll pay for any courses or prep that she wants, but I'm not encouraging it. I'm going to spend a lot more time trying to assemble a good list of less-selective colleges and focus on building excitement for the safeties. (Loren Pope, here we come!)</p>
<p>One of the issues my son encountered at his LAC is that when it came down to it, he really wasn't at home among the many kids from privileged backgrounds. It WAS a class-based thing, and he learned that there was a class that he wasn't part of, didn't relate to, and didn't really want to be part of. So he ended up with only a few very close friends and no real sense of attachment to the school. </p>
<p>Again -- I'm not trying to come down on you - it's just that I think that there is a trap that we fall into when we buy into the notion of college rankings, or aiming for private LACs as opposed to our state universities. Did my son really learn anything at the LAC that was significantly better than he could have gotten at the local CSU? I honestly don't know... I just know that whatever he did learn has no bearing whatsoever on what he is doing with his life right now.</p>
<p>To us, the class-based thing at some of the LACs (and at Yale and Princeton) were just hard to miss. We picked up on them the minute we drove into the parking lots, and picked up on cues almost everywhere we went. It really did bug my d., though she was less able to figure out what was going on than I was. She finally chose the eastcoast LAC with the largest percentage of low-income students (not my idea, and I only discovered that later) - class differences on campus are still apparent, but low-income ones aren't a somewhat hidden minority. </p>
<p>To me, to state the class basis of the elite institutions is to state the obvious, and it is precisely that which makes them elite. There's nothing wrong about that, or right about that, it is just is.</p>
<p>gee, I don't know.... why do we make it sound as if this is news??? I attended an Ivy in the '70's and am grateful to this day for the various gods of financial aid and outside scholarships who made that possible. Were there rich kids? Of Course. Did I have a lot in common with all of them? Of course not, but there were a couple of kids who were my closest friends, and with whom I'm still close, who came from worlds away from mine. I didn't resent it when a gang of them went off to some Island during winter break... I'd been invited, and one close friend had generously offered to pay my air fare, but I was going home to see high school friends and was just fine with that.</p>
<p>The children of the elite have been going to "elite schools" for generations... the news is that people like me started going there a generation ago, a shift that could not have been possible had schools not started relying on the SAT, that great leveler, instead of having a dean at Groton whisper in the Adcom's ear. I'm first generation American and had no test prep...</p>
<p>Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. There are kids who would not be able to find their niche at a school with a lot of affluent kids... but there are dozens of schools in the US that don't make the cut of "tier one" colleges which look and feel like country clubs...Not every rich family can get their kid into an IVY, nor do they all want to, and so there are lots of colleges populated by rich kids where the entitlement oozes from the parking lot to the dorms and back again.</p>
<p>To the OP-- just don't make the mistake of confusing class with income. I also knew kids in college who were on financial aid who were most definitely upper class.... but the fact that your relatives came over on the Mayflower, and some great- great uncle has a "cottage" in Newport, if Dad is a pastor and Mom a social worker, you can be middle income and a member of the elite at the same time-- not every great-grandchild of a wealthy family ends up with a trust fund... or even money for college.</p>
<p>I'm a kid from a working class background at Yale. It certainly is an education seeing how rhe other class lives. However, as hard working achievers, I find we all have more in common than I would have thought. Education and achievement are great equilizers. I had never heard of the fancy prep schools, the Hamptons or the Caribbean islands, but I have now! I'm happy to learn and grow, as I think my friends from different backgrounds are. Should we be intimidated and not compete at the best schools and go on to the best jobs? why should I be more comfortable where there are more poor people?</p>
<p>Mini: Funny, of all of the many times I have been in the parking lot of one of those "elite institutions" there has been no discernible difference in vehicle types from those in the lot of the the state u where I spend much of my time. Would there be a difference in the parking lot of those who actually attend the elite institution vs. those who are just visiting it?
And this "class-based thing"--certainly you don't mean to suggest that people are less desirable to be near based only on whether or not they have money?
Cues everywhere...like what? Clothes? For all you know a student may care nothing about clothes but wears whatever his mother gives him for his birthday, which may happen to be polo shirts.<br>
Please, enough flogging of Williams and Princeton and Yale (were there others? Brown?) and how 'bout you stick to the good things about Smith so that when I know someone who might be interested I can send her on over.</p>
<p>Is it really hostility? I tend to see it as a mere rejection of the author's positions. Describing the fabric of this board as obsessed with admissions does not diminish the fact that it is also comprises educated parents who can form a factual opinion. </p>
<p>As far as I am concerned, it did not take me very long to find reasons to reject the OP's analyses. I read the "poster child" story of the author's website and could only shake my head in disbelief. The story -"The Naval Academy and Me" by Daniel Wurangian is prominently displayed on the site. I assume that Peter Sacks wanted potential readers to endorse his view that the Naval Academy misjudged poor Daniel by rejecting him because of poor test scores. Well, how could they possibly misjude someone who did not score above 470 on the Math SAT, in three trials I might add. Does Mr. Sacks really believe that we should spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to educate a person who barely scores at a 5th grade math level, and later possibly trust the same person with equipment worth tens of millions? Does Mr Sacks really understand how deficient in math AND reasoning abilities one has to be to NOT score above 500? Pretending that the candidate deserves an acceptance in one the toughest schools in the country is plainly ludicrous. This is a not case of meritocracy going haywire, it is simply a case of lacking merits.</p>
<p>While the places at elite schools are hard to come by, there are 4,000 colleges with a wide range of selectivity In the United States. In fact, there is a place for almost anyone. However, only a fraction of the students who earn competitive grades and excellent test scores end up gaining acceptance at elite schools such as the Naval Academy. Is it unjust to gratify excellence over mediocrity? As long as a great number of students of all classes continue to demonstrate an uncanny ability to ace whatever standardized test is thrown at them, the hollow chants of class injustice will keep on falling on deaf ears. And so should Peter Sacks misguided message!</p>
<p>The class-based thing (that turns up at Smith about as often as it does elsewhere) has to do with everything from summer vacations, winter breaks, campus jobs, clothing labels, foreign travel, whether one has a car on campus at all, types of car, whether one can afford to go anywhere over breaks, ability to (think one can) afford medical school or law school, family's ability to afford medical care, and earning money for one's family back home. And I don't find anything wrong with it -- I certainly don't blame kids for their family backgrounds (or even hold them accountable for it) I wouldn't do it with poor kids and I certainly wouldn't do it with rich ones. </p>
<p>And I also think that having "elite" (as in financially elite) students on campus is a positive, not a negative, as it opens up vistas that otherwise one might never otherwise have imagined. I know it did for me at Williams, and is one of the many things I am grateful to them for, and will be forever. I never would have even imagined living or studying in England, going to Iran (where my richest Williams friends was from) or a whole host of things if it wasn't for the people I met there who navigated the world with ease. I don't "think" it is more desirable to be around folks who have money; rather I think that is how the world acts, and it is what gives elite "things" (doesn't have to be schools) their panache. (I think Thorsten Veblen is correct, but it isn't something I made up, or even think is right or wrong: it just is.)</p>
<p>I think it is a good thing when there is a critical mass of folks of all race, ethnicities, and social classes so that no one feels out of place, everyone feels challenged, and everyone can learn from each other (including the race, ethncities, and classes we come from, and how that has impacted the ways we look at the world.). That's my ideal: what's yours?</p>
<p>"Class" is an interesting concept for someone who spends a good deal of her time among homeschooling families. </p>
<p>Many homeschooling parents have chosen jobs with very modest monetary incomes (e.g., writers, ministers, part-time nurses, musicians, artists, midwives, home-based businesses, karate teachers, yoga teachers, tax preparers, part-time home health workers) because they allow more time, flexibility, and/or energy to spend with one's children.</p>
<p>And yet often these same parents have very high "psychic incomes." No! I'm not saying that homeschhool parents earn their livings as psychics (though perhaps some do, for all I know. I don't happen to know any of those!) "Psychic income" is a term coined by economists to capture ALL the rewards--both tangible and intangible, monetary and otherwise--of life. Someone who leaves a 6-figure Wall Street job to raise sheep or run a country inn or teach in the inner city might well have a "higher psychic income" than before.</p>
<p>So, many homeschooling parents have very modest monetary income, but high psychic income (in part because the rewards of spending time with one's kids are so great). Many of these parents also have very high levels of education. So classifying them into a "class" is rather difficult. They don't fit neatly anywhere into the taxonomy that social scientists like to impose.</p>
<p>Unless I'm reading this wrong, it is highly educated people here making the class distinctions. The women who went to Williams whose daughter chose Smith for the higher number of poor kids, and so on. To me, I see deep division and insecurity based on income.</p>
<p>It is one thing to disagree with someone - it's another to go on the attack with a full-fledged rant about everything the person purportedly stands for. Just because you don't like what the man says doesn't mean others disagree or would be unwilling to work with him. I'm not familiar with Peter Sacks web site; I've read his book and I do agree with what it says. I don't want to argue the point -- but I see a lot of anger in some of the responses to this thread, and that seems to me like a hostile response. </p>
<p>Whether Mr. Sacks' thesis about social class and the educational system holds weight or not - I don't know. (I don't even know what his thesis for his forthcoming book is). He'd like to interview some people about that - that's why he came here.</p>