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Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

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Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#151

Post by notreallyauser »

joosters wrote: post #52
patanegra wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is extremely unfair framing. Oxford University has been discriminating people from independent schools for a while now. To get in, you need 4 A* from an independent schools, or just 3 As from state schools. That's not "letting in poor people" as you framed it. It's letting in dumber people, worse students. Lots of that is mainly based on classism (against people from middle class), racism (against white people).…

Oxbridge have never had to 'let in dumber people'. They are always heavily over-subscribed, and give offers to a small fraction of the people who come for an interview, let alone apply. The whole point of the interview process is to assess not just the applicant's past achievements, but what they might be able to achieve if they got their place at the uni. Part of that is looking at the applicant's background, and kn…

On student evaluations, I wouldn't be surprised of Oxbridge do badly as so many pf the dons were at or near the top of their year at the university, weren't employed for their teaching abilities, and seemed unable to comprehend they were not teaching cohorts entirely full of clones of themselves.

Dumbed down it was not, in my experience. Dumbing down would be a way to up the score on these rankings, though.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#152

Post by vmilner »

notreallyauser wrote: post #122
DC-3 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that this is Hacker News, I think it is worth pointing out that Durham's strong suit traditionally is the humanities. In my opinion a CS degree from Oxford, Cambridge, or ICL is considerably more impressive than one from Durham.

Given this is Hacker News, I think we should definitely encourage all Yes, Minister references.

It's scary how relevant a 1970's/80s comedy show is...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgkUVIj3KWY (Salami tactics)

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#153

Post by yodsanklai »

UK-AL wrote: post #89
yodsanklai wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But does Oxford want the best student or some that had to work harder but ultimately aren't as good? In France, our elite scientific schools recruit students based on anonymous nationwide tests. It turns out most of the recruits come from privileged backgrounds, and I've heard this is more the case today than it was several decades ago. I'd love to see more diversity in these schools, but I prefer to maintain our edu…

When you have well off parents, you can literally be sent to prep schools which drill for these tests.

These tests are pretty advanced maths and physics, not just multiple choice question you can just drill. Also almost all the prep schools are public.

Pretty much all French physics Nobel Prize and Field Medal laureate when to the same top school.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_École_normale_supérieu...

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#154

Post by KaiserPro »

patanegra wrote: post #5
abxyz wrote: post #2

pg thinks this is because of letting in poor people: https://xcancel.com/paulg/status/1969334665375813679

This is extremely unfair framing. Oxford University has been discriminating people from independent schools for a while now. To get in, you need 4 A* from an independent schools, or just 3 As from state schools. That's not "letting in poor people" as you framed it. It's letting in dumber people, worse students. Lots of that is mainly based on classism (against people from middle class), racism (against white people).…

> To get in, you need 4 A* from an independent schools, or just 3 As from state schools.

where does it say that here?

https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses/admiss...

Although I do note that foundation PPE only requires BBB, which given the current crop of people in westminister, it makes sense.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#156

Post by energy123 »

abxyz wrote: post #76
patanegra wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is extremely unfair framing. Oxford University has been discriminating people from independent schools for a while now. To get in, you need 4 A* from an independent schools, or just 3 As from state schools. That's not "letting in poor people" as you framed it. It's letting in dumber people, worse students. Lots of that is mainly based on classism (against people from middle class), racism (against white people).…

It is a very fair read of Paul's take. I attended one of the worst secondary schools in the country. Less than 10% of my year earned the qualifications necessary to go on to university. I know that many of these people, who have gone on to be successful in life, would have excelled at an independent school and would have excelled at university. They were in poverty, not stupid. You cannot compare the achievements of…

Paul is talking his book, he wants it to change to increase the probability that his kids get in. Of course what we get to hear are the "reasons", and this conflict of interest goes unmentioned.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#158

Post by energy123 »

patanegra wrote: post #5
abxyz wrote: post #2

pg thinks this is because of letting in poor people: https://xcancel.com/paulg/status/1969334665375813679

This is extremely unfair framing. Oxford University has been discriminating people from independent schools for a while now. To get in, you need 4 A* from an independent schools, or just 3 As from state schools. That's not "letting in poor people" as you framed it. It's letting in dumber people, worse students. Lots of that is mainly based on classism (against people from middle class), racism (against white people).…

It's interesting to see that conservatives have quietly moved on from the idea that affirmative action should be done on the basis of household wealth instead of ethnicity. At least now we are being honest.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#159

Post by owlbite »

So my experience with moving from a Cambridge undergrad to an Edinburgh postgrad, albeit a couple of decades ago now, was the expectations between the two were nowhere comparable.

Cambridge if you'd not done the homework before the tutorial, you got sent packing for wasting everyone's time, but in Edinburgh it was common for all but the best students to only start the homework at the tutorial (thus wasting their opportunity to ask questions on trivial stuff they could get by reading the course notes.

Equally on exams, the minimum standard at Cambridge was "regurgitate proof from course notes" with the other 2/3rds of the marks for iterating on it with unseen material, whereas the Edinburgh exams the regurgitation would get you 100%.

Unless things have changed significantly (or Edinburgh is that much worth than other redbricks), I'm not sure I trust these rankings in terms of student quality.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#160

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

walthamstow wrote: post #62
geremiiah wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In British English, "middle class" refers to the well off professional classes or merchant traders. In American English, if I understand correctly, everyone who works is considered middle class.

I think I read that US middle class are people who only have to work one job

Yeah having a single full time job but not being part of the executive class is a decent definition. It's much more wide than the UK's usage for sure.
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