Telling lies about Oxbridge

The Guardian is usually better than this. It advances neither the cause of improving the country's education system nor that of investigative journalism to publish David Lammy's data-mining exercise, in which he put forward his transparent anti-Oxbridge agenda by picking out a handful of superficially unflattering data points from the admissions statistics he apparently had to fight tooth and nail to get. 

Read the article, since I am going to rebut it. As to his first point, that he had to jump through FOI hoops, those statistics are not hidden or even hard to find. They're published on the Oxford University website. They are, so to speak, just lying around. It is shoddy and sensationalist reporting to invent a conspiracy to hide information that has been published openly and in plain view. 

Second, on his scaremongering about race, "just one British black Caribbean student was admitted to Oxford last year". Well, yes, that's true. If you cut the data so finely as to narrow it down to the group "British black Caribbeans" only one was admitted, of 35 who applied. Cut a large dataset down to this level and these are just the sort of things that will jump out - Portugal had a similarly low acceptance rate, getting only one student accepted out of 25. Separately 23 "black African", 3 "black other", 7 "white and black Caribbean" and 7 "white and black African", plus 35 "other mixed" and 9 "other" got in, but the article doesn't mention that. From outside the UK the university also admitted 3 Mauritians, 2 Nigerians and 1 student from Trinidad and Tobago (ethnicity in all cases unknown).

The scary "Oxford admits one black student" headline simply doesn't wash, and playing with the law of small numbers to show that some individual colleges didn't admit any black students is plain statistical illiteracy. There are 38 Oxford colleges. If the 221 "black Caribbean", "black African" and "black other" Oxford applicants had achieved the university's average acceptance rate of 26% there would still have been only 58 to go around. As it stands 25 achieved a place; even spread evenly throughout the colleges, this would have left 13 without a black student. 

It is very easy to attack Oxbridge for being elitist, because it is elitist. The whole point of a meritocracy is to admit only the best. If politicians are concerned about the level of admissions amongst applicants who have gone to state schools, or from outside the south-east, or even from specific ethnic backgrounds, the solution is not to force Oxbridge to indulge in some fatuous social engineering experiment but to provide all of the children of this country with an education that would fit them for higher education. That the government fails to provide such an education in state schools, in the North of England and to ethnic minorities is an utter disgrace; but it is not a disgrace that can be fairly laid at Oxbridge's doors.

Update2: I recommend all readers take a look at the Royal Stats Society publication Significance, where Michael Wallace has analysed the college-level variation between black and white admissions and found it to be well within the expected range, the most interesting and important finding so far in this debate.  

Update1: a response from David Lammy which I received by email and republish here with his consent. It appears unedited and without comment (although some of the formatting may have been lost in the transfer from email to blog, which is my own fault); I will be writing a follow-up post shortly.

...begins

"Have seen your blog, and wanted to reply to clarify a few things:

(1) Getting the data was a struggle – The information that the Guardian uses is not available on the Oxford or Cambridge websites, although the figure of 1 Black Caribbean student admitted to Oxford is, and it is seeing that figure that prompted further investigation into individual colleges.

The original request asked for the number of Black Caribbean applicants and offers made to those applicants from each college at Oxford and Cambridge. As anyone who knows the black community well will tell you, there have been palpable differences in attainment between Black Caribbean and Black African students in the past, so I felt it was important to appreciate the unique position of Black Caribbean students and where they were successful and where they were not within the University to understand why only one received an offer in 2009.

 

Their reluctance to provide this information, and generally being unhelpful with the handling of the requests, lead to me to question other issues, hence the requests made on school type by college (which has allowed me to group by selective v non-selective), social class by college and admissions by LEA (all of which they do not publish openly on either their websites or other publications). You can find copies of all the responses on my website – www.davidlammy.co.uk.

 

2) Black Caribbean data is important – Again, there are palpable differences between Black Caribbean and Black African attainment, so it is important to disaggregate “Black” figures as they often hide where the real under-achievement takes place. The comparisons between Portugal and Mauritius etc. are clearly not valid as we are talking about public universities and their role as national institutions catering (or not, as the case may be) to British students of Black Caribbean origin.

 

As Oxford would not provide the data for Permanent Private Halls, the figures available concern 31 Colleges, of which 11 did not admit a single Black student (that is Black African, Black Caribbean or Black ‘Other’). I agree, this figure should not be an all encompassing theorem on racial discrimination at the university, that is why you will not find it in my article. However, what is interesting, and what is statistically significant, is that there are Colleges that admit significantly fewer Black students than others, even when faced with the same levels of applications.

 

Why is it that 25 of 84 Black applicants received offers from Keble College but just  5 of 64 Black applicants received offers from Jesus College over the same 11 year period? Why is it that at Robinson College Cambridge, Black applicants have only had a quarter of the success rate of their white applicants over 7 years when at St. Catharine’s Black applicants are marginally more successful? It is impossible with the data that has been collected to truly isolate race factors from economics (which is in part why I have collected data on socio-economic factors and geography), but the variations between colleges in their admissions statistics is a pertinent point and Oxbridge should be doing more to find out why such variations exist (after all, admissions are decentralised to course directors at each college - shouldn’t there be a method for them to be accountable as to who they admit?).

 

3) Schools cannot be the only factor - I agree that there are problems with some schools, but students who don't apply cannot be blamed entirely on schools. Surely Oxbridge have a duty to reach out to groups that are not currently applying? If so, why are 21% of their access events held in independent schools? Harvard and Yale do this much better than Oxford and Cambridge.  Both employ officers in regions of every State whose sole job is to maintain a dialogue with under-represented groups, their schools and obviously the students within them.  Yes, Harvard and Yale are private institutions, which Oxford and Cambridge are not. Surely the fact that Oxbridge receives public subsidy means that there should be tougher requirements on them to reach out to under-represented groups than would be the case with Harvard and Yale?"

...ends

(Disclosure: I studied at Brasenose College, Oxford from 1994-1997) (yes, the same one as David Cameron, but not at the same time and I've never met him)

(Picture from Ron Hann on Geograph)

Comments

[James MacAonghus]

The Guardian should have done more rigorous statistical analysis on this. It does seem like maybe Black and Asians are under-represented, but at these low levels that may be just a statistical anomaly. In any case to have proper analysis, they need to look through the data on how students get to the application process in the first place, what they apply to etc. The conclusion might still be the same, but at least it would be more robust.

And as you suggest, but the Guardian is unlikely to agree, allowance needs to be made for intentional elitism - you can't compare Oxbridge to UK universities as a whole when the latter includes the University of West Ruislip.

[seamusmccauley]

James- indeed. I would have liked to see the Guardian dig into the substance of these claims and see whether they stood up to a proper kicking of the tyres, not just repeated David Lammy's one-sided agenda.

[Anon]

Compare the data you link to http://www.ox.ac.uk/about_the_university/facts_and_figures/undergraduate_admissions_statistics/ethnic_origin.html
and the wikipedia page on Ethnic groups in the UK
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_the_United_Kingdom

Oxford has has a high ratio of non-white applications to white applicants than the general UK population, and even {all groups with the word 'black'} are in a smaller proportion, it's still roughly equivalent to the proportion in the UK.

All which suprised me!

[Anon again]

Damn and hellfire, that comment from me has so many typos that it's nearly unreadable - sorry all. Just add a few words as you see fit when reading and you can spin it anyway you want!

[uksceptic]

"If the 221 "black Caribbean", "black African" and "black other" Oxford applicants had achieved the university's average acceptance rate of 26% there would still have been only 58 to go around. As it stands 25 achieved a place"

I'm not defending the sensationalism in the Guardian article but doesn't that statistic alone kind of prove their point. Black applicants achieved well below the university's average acceptance rate.

[Nishma]

There's a reason black people don't apply to Oxbridge - and that matches with the fact that women are continually biased against in Oxbridge marking too.

Oxbridge does not only let in the "best"- it lets in only those who it believes will fit into the image it wants to create as the "best".

And yes, I studied at Oxford last year - and it wasn't about academic merit or brilliance - it was all about creating this false personna on how everyone was supposedly going to rule the world in the future.

[IanVisits]

I'm not defending the sensationalism in the Guardian article but doesn't that statistic alone kind of prove their point. Black applicants achieved well below the university's average acceptance rate.

The statistic simply shows that fewer than average secured access to a university that is known to have tougher academic standards than other Universities.

Whether that is because of bias by the decision makers, or because secondary education is failing to educate a section of society to the required standard is not proven by the statistics.

All the statistics do is raise the question - they do not provide an answer.

[James MacAonghus]

uksceptic, at these low levels that may be perfectly within significance levels; or at least not so far off that it doesn't merit a news story, especially if you think of the other issues around schooling, geography, parents, incomes, etc

I don't know enough statistics to give an answer though.

[Sophia Collins]

You make some good, and fair, points about the misuse of stats here. But I can't agree with your conclusion about Oxford being a meritocracy and the problem being simply down to poor education in the state system and in some parts of the country.

Students at private schools who send many students to Oxbridge have many subtle advantages in the selection process. For a start, they are coached and advised by teachers who often attended Oxbridge themselves, who know the selection procedures, and perhaps the admissions staff.

This being the case, it's not a meritocracy, where the over-representation of private school students simply reflects that they are BETTER. I'd argue those students have had more help, so it's not surprising they have more success in applying. Some (very bright and able) students are facing far more of a challenge.

As the Guardian article admits, one issue is that black applicants are overwhelmingly applying for the most over-subscribed courses. Perhaps better advice from their schools would avoid this. Perhaps their schools don't have the same knowledge of what courses you're likely to get into as staff at Eton and Westminster are able to give.

I don't think it's good enough for Oxford to shrug its shoulders and say 'it's not our fault, guv'. It would be fairly straightforward for them to offer advice on which courses are most over-subscribed, and perhaps mentoring on the application process.

Oxford puts a considerable amount of effort into 'outreach', but it's not clear that its resources are deployed where they would be most useful.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/oxford-targets-britains-top-private-schools-2134200.html

[William Prestlake]

First of all, why is David Lammy publishing this article? Surely his time would be better spent getting the people he cares so much about to learn to read and write so that they can apply to Oxford and then get a place on their own merits?

The education system in the UK has been completely destroyed by violent socialists, who believe that education is a right and not a good. This is the key idea behind their bankrupt ideology.

These people are not able to run schools, are not able to create them, or anything else for that matter. Their only power is to destroy, and they have been very successful at doing just that.

Their infantile race bating does nothing but damage the self image of the very people they are trying to 'help' but of course, their aim is not to help anyone, but to create a constituency that will consistently vote for them.

People like Katherine Birbalsingh:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/author/katharinebirbalsingh/

Afte having spent years as a deluded socialist can finally see what these people are really like, and now of course, she is being attacked for 'being used' by 'blacks'. These people are their own worst enemies, and with friends like David Lammy on their side they will never and should never get anywhere.

Oxford and Cambridge and all the other Universities should remove all quotas and should not collect any statistics on 'race'. They should act only as places where merit gets you a place. The act of collecting stats plays into the hands of racists and socialists and frankly, enough is enough.

And just in case you are shocked at the fact that education is not a right, you need to read this book:

http://mises.org/rothbard/newlibertywhole.asp

Learn what rights are, what they are not and why education, healthcare, food and the internet are not rights, but goods.

[Louise]

Yes, I think that the Guardian article used the statistics to suit it's message. I do, however think it has a valid point; Oxbridge is elitist. For me, it's less to do with race and more of a 'it's who you know, not what you know' situation. Not for everybody, but for a large proportion of their intake. This has to change. If they want to become a private university who can take whoever they please, let them. But no more money from us. If you want public funds in your coffers then you must pick fairly, not because someone's father is a golf buddy.

[Floopy]

"If the 221 "black Caribbean", "black African" and "black other" Oxford applicants had achieved the university's average acceptance rate of 26% there would still have been only 58 to go around. As it stands 25 achieved a place"

What the stats don't tell us is how many students were offered a place and then failed to make their grades.

[James MacAonghus]

I wonder why this issue has been one of the most discussed on virtual economics; are we jumping to defend a beloved institution? Are we that rare breed of people who don't want elitism forcefully diluted in any way?

And are there any black commenters? If there are, that makes virtualeconomics massively biased in favour of black people and under-representative of white people.

And what become of her new straw hat that should have come to me?

[roym]

a friend of mine is a teacher at a well placed private school for oxbridge candidates. he constantly rails about their "connections" with admissions tutors.

re FOI, perhaps Lammy wanted individual college data, which doesnt appear to be provided in the link here. Also i suspect the key phrase is "Black British" so comparisons with portugal and mauritius are misleading.

[uksceptic]

IanVisits - I understood the comparison was made against the University's own admission percentage not the national average. So I think my point stands on this count. And yes statistics raise the question, thats kind of my point.

James MacAonghus - You're completely right I hadn't considered that the small numbers involved might mean this is statistically insignificant.

A lot of people now coming on here saying that Oxbridge is elitist but so far the evidence has been anecdotal. It stands to reason that they would have more students from privileged backgrounds because of the better education that background brings. What would point to elitism would be a comparison of the acceptance percentages for various backgrounds that also accounts for academic ability; In other words if I come from a poor background but have the same qualifications as someone from a privileged background do I have the same chance of getting in?

That would be an interesting set of data to examine.

[pk]

If you take 2 pupils, one from a state school and one from a private school with equal results, the one from the state school is probably smarter. Private schools have all the advantages which means a state school kid achieving the same results is smarter because they did it without those advantages. If a lot of the academics at oxford/cambridge are graduates themselves, they will never understand this. Hunger matters more.

The educated elite are a disappointment because they don't have that hunger. They go on to jobs taking slices of billion dollar deals as lawyers and financiers when they themselves should be making those deals. They just don't have that same drive in the right direction. To get to and through Oxbridge as a state school student, you need individual drive and it's individual drive that builds businesses. That's the difference and that is why Oxbridge should take in more state school students and give them that added confidence.

[Matatatatat]

isn't the problem more about that the percentage of BME and state school applicants offered a place is much lower than white and private school applicants? All of those applicants will have a comparable academic record - A's at A-Level, good GCSEs etc. So you can't blame the different levels of place offers on problems with 'state education' (you can blame the different numbers of applicants on that if you like).

In my view, the key to this is the state vs private school divide, rather than race. If Oxbridge was proportionate in offering places to state and private school students (93% vs 7% - it's actually more like 60% v 40%), the atmosphere within the universities would change so as to make it more welcoming for state school students - the racial mix would follow that.

[Roland]

Not only are the 2009 statistics available from the front page of the University website (although the page referenced in the post was last edited on 7 December, so one can't tell whether it was put up today in response to this story), a minute's Google searching (e.g. "university of oxford undergraduate admissions statistics 2003") reveals equivalent statistics all the way back to 1990:

http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/global/wwwoxacuk/localsites/gazette/documents/statisticalinformation/

also from the University website, and which has been there since at least 29 April 2010.

[SJ]

@IanVisits:

See www.parliament.uk/briefingpapers/commons/lib/research/.../snsg-00616.pdf, specifically section 1.2, paragraph 2. It offers some such evidence.

[Tom]

James MacAonghus: the difference is statistically significant. You can do a rough calculation for it online easily enough, using something like http://www.graphpad.com/quickcalcs/contingency1.cfm. Putting in figures for black applicants rejected (194) and accepted (27), and white applicants rejected (6062) and accepted (2316), it gives a P-value of less than 0.0001. A P-value of less than 0.05 is usually considered statistically significant.