Briz gives private schools upper hand

Uni admits students with lower grades from over 30 private schools it claims “educationally disadvantage” students


Think Bristol’s full of private school kids?  Here’s the catch: some of them don’t even have to be that clever anymore.

Uni has been admitting students with lower grades than the normal entry threshold if they come from a school ranked among the bottom 40% in the UK, The Telegraph has revealed.

Brizzle may have some explaining to do
Photo: panoramio.com

But it’s emerged that out of the list of 1,370 schools put together by uni, over 30 are fee-paying schools that OFSTED have ranked as “outstanding”.

If you’re lucky enough to have attended one of the schools on the magic list, you may be given an offer that is typically one grade lower than the bulk of candidates.

The rationale is that students from these schools may have been put at a disadvantage by the admissions process.

Schools on the list include Sedbergh, a £29k a year boarding school in Cumbria, the 300-year-old day and boarding Warminster School in Wiltshire, and Aldenham School in Elstree, Hertfordshire.

Sedbergh School – what a dump

Equally, the renowned Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester is sitting pretty on the list, along with a whole host of OFSTED-ranked “outstanding” state schools.

Private King Edward’s School in Surrey made the list after results plummeted in 2010

However, with fees of almost £30 000 a year and a baroness for a governor, it’s doesn’t quite seem to be the paradigm of educational disadvantage.

Second year English student Lucia Powell, who did her GCSEs at King Edward’s told The Tab, ” The school do give out a lot of bursaries to students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

“They scrapped A-Levels a couple of years ago, so everyone has to do the IB. I think that’s resulted in everyone doing really badly.”