macrocephalopod

Private schools produce ~25% of students with top grades (33% of acceptances, remember) but this overstates the underlying talent since private schools are much better at coaching to the exam.

Private schools also much more on it with encouraging students to apply. Many good state school students won't apply even if they could get in, because their school doesn't encourage them or because they think Oxbridge "isn't for them"

The underlying problem is that there is this massive binary around whether you did/didn't go to Oxbridge which is completely unjustified. Fundamentally there are way more students who would do well at Oxbridge than there are available places, probably 3-4x as many.

Dominance of Oxbridge in UK public life is self perpetuating because the universities get first pick over the most talented students. The value added by the teaching is minimal (all the Oxbridge academics I know personally happily admit this).

Anyway sorry to everyone who followed me because of quant or crypto stuff and is now getting my opinions on the UK education system, back to normal programming soon

Agree that private school coaching often helps to make applicants look better than they are. However, as someone who attended private school in the US, I can say that more than anything, I learned how to learn. Plus honor code (no lying, cheating or stealing) has stuck with me