Oxford/Cambridge admit 0 blacks

Hey guys,

I was reading the Guardian the other day when I came across an article that said 21 Oxbridge colleges admitted no black applicants last year, though 500 blacks had the necessary qualifications (just over half of what you would expect given their number as a percentage of the overall population).

I went to a British school before finishing my schooling in America; as a black male, I would never even have applied to Oxford merely because I would have felt totally out of place racially. Add to that the fact that 89% of Oxford dons are upper-middle class, and you have a situation where a black candidate, who is likely to be of the lower classes, would feel even more out of place.

I am proud that American universities are more diverse than that. Studying alongside and meeting people from all corners of the globe has fed my global perspective immensely. Personally, I think Oxbridge is missing out and this will hurt them in the future.

Whatever your views on AA in this country, it would be a travesty if something like that happened here.

I was strongly considering pursuing finance in London, but if their top firms are as diverse as their universities, I would much rather stay in America, are they?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/dec/06/o…

49 Comments
 
monty09if thats how they do biz there... your in luck it is not done like that here

I doubt I would have had any issue getting in based on my credentials.

 
monyet
monty09if thats how they do biz there... your in luck it is not done like that here

I doubt I would have had any issue getting in based on my credentials.

I dont give a shit about your credentials... i am saying if they dont accept any with any credentials..fuck em.

here they do things different.. 1 is not keep you from education cause of your skin color...hell it helps here

 

Nope, this is straight from the Guardian:

"A bleak portrait of racial and social exclusion at Oxford and Cambridge has been shown in official data which shows that more than 20 Oxbridge colleges made no offers to black candidates for undergraduate courses last year and one Oxford college has not admitted a single black student in five years."

@Monty

Sorry, I misread what you were saying. I assumed you were implying that I would not have gotten in here if they implemented a similar system.

 
Best Response
monyetNope, this is straight from the Guardian:

"A bleak portrait of racial and social exclusion at Oxford and Cambridge has been shown in official data which shows that more than 20 Oxbridge colleges made no offers to black candidates for undergraduate courses last year and one Oxford college has not admitted a single black student in five years."

@Monty

Sorry, I misread what you were saying. I assumed you were implying that I would not have gotten in here if they implemented a similar system.

sounds like idiots over there... fuk em and good luck

 

Who cares how many blacks/whites/greens etc. got in. I'm sure it was not Oxbridge's goal to have black-free classes. Thats just how it shakes out sometimes.

It is definitely not a "travesty" in any way, shape, or form.

 

Admission is colour blind (pre-interview). Not many black students got in because 1. Not many apply 2. the ones who do apply tend to go for the already massively oversubscribed courses (Econ, Physics, Medicine etc) which can have acceptance rates as low as 7%.

 
zee4][quote=Omoba De Jonz OAdmission is colour blind

Some British Universities DO have the section where candidates must show their ethnicity/race (asian, black, carribean etc.). Can't remember them though.

OP, choose a US School. The reason is this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11937291[/quote] Yes, students specify their race in the UCAS application for UK universities, but the universities don't see the race until they extend an offer to the candidate.

 

The Guardian is about as liberal elitist as you can get in print media. In other words, they are more than capable of going to a Mosque and saying its an Anti-Semitic place because there are no Jews in attendance.

I would be hesitant to place my faith so quickly in the way they present any social arguments.

As far as American colleges go, you can far more easily make the case that they go in the opposite extreme, i.e. Positive Discrimination...wonder why mainstream media never addresses that issue?

 

Eh...it may not be rascist 'per se' but on the other hand about 50 percent of all incoming students went to a private super-posh boarding school. I would say they get in on the name and pulling connections and the rest get in because their parents pay their way in. Maybe 5 percent get in on any kind of merit.

It's not antiblack as it is antipoor or anti-"anything other than old money and connections".

In my opinion it's a whole load of bollocks.

 

How did they figure out that 500 qualified if only 35 applied?

Also, GB has a 2% black population, while US has 13%, so of course US will have more blacks everywhere.

Also, if this trend extends to the population at large , it would explain under-representation of blacks in graduate programs, since most of the time a person would need to have established a network of sorts to be able to sustain the effort of increasing one's employability and earning potential. "It should be noted that, judging on the basis of prison population, a substantial minority (about 35%) of black criminals in the UK are not British citizens but foreign nationals."

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_British?wasRedirected=

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that racism doesn't exist, but it is not so all-encompassing and blatant that you shouldn't even try (provides you meet the criteria)

More is good, all is better
 
ArgonautHow did they figure out that 500 qualified if only 35 applied?

That figure is based on academic standing, their grades in A-levels etc. As a proportion of the population (which would nullify your argument vis-a-vis America, Blacks should have over 200 spots at these institutions. Also as a percentage of the population, you would expect around 900 blacks to have achieved the scores that the 500 did. So then say only 100 blacks should be admitted (which would fall right in line with Oxford's ~25% acceptance rate, they are still doing a piss poor job at getting them.

Most Ivy League schools have around 8% African Americans on their campuses, which is below their percentage of the population, but very adequate; I would suggest that too many more would deteriorate quality as most blacks simply have not had the opportunity to grow up on two inches of ivory and achieve like their non-black counterparts have. But to say that not a single black candidate in all of the UK was qualified is just ridiculous. Something deeper must be going on here, why did so few blacks apply? Oxford could learn a lot from the ivy league. How could you have 8000 spots between Oxbridge and not have a single black person among them? That's just ridiculous.

 
monyet
ArgonautHow did they figure out that 500 qualified if only 35 applied?

That figure is based on academic standing, their grades in A-levels etc. As a proportion of the population (which would nullify your argument vis-a-vis America, Blacks should have over 200 spots at these institutions. Also as a percentage of the population, you would expect around 900 blacks to have achieved the scores that the 500 did. So then say only 100 blacks should be admitted (which would fall right in line with Oxford's ~25% acceptance rate, they are still doing a piss poor job at getting them.

Most Ivy League schools have around 8% African Americans on their campuses, which is below their percentage of the population, but very adequate; I would suggest that too many more would deteriorate quality as most blacks simply have not had the opportunity to grow up on two inches of ivory and achieve like their non-black counterparts have. But to say that not a single black candidate in all of the UK was qualified is just ridiculous. Something deeper must be going on here, why did so few blacks apply? Oxford could learn a lot from the ivy league. How could you have 8000 spots between Oxbridge and not have a single black person among them? That's just ridiculous.

http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/rankings/full_time_mba_profiles/ox…

How do you figure that the number admitted should be 100? 2% of 350 (a fair representation) would be 7.

More is good, all is better
 

The article states "Twenty one colleges in Oxford and Cambridge admitted no black students". It's worth noting that there are 69 colleges in both unis combined and I'm sure the other colleges admitted black candidates or the Guardian would have included them in their obviously biased sample.

 

According to a quick Google search, there are 38 colleges in Oxford. So if "Twenty-one Oxbridge colleges took no black students last year" as the headline suggests, they clearly let some blacks in. I don't know anything about the UK and its education system due to being in the USA my whole life, but to me it looks like the OP grossly misinterpreted the article.

 

Regardless, you would not expect a full third of the colleges not to have taken any black students. I wonder if there's a way for us to find out the exact number of blacks at Oxbridge now. That would go a long way to clearing things up. It does seems that there has been quite a bit of cherry picking, the situation may not be as bad as I assume.

 

Moreover, scouting scores of people who never applied and qualifying them and then presenting it as a harrowing statistic is one of those thing that mark twain meant when he said "there are lies, damn lies, and statistics"

Someone with an agenda decided to dramatize the situation by pulling "data" out of thin air, and people like you are just eating it up. "first they draw the curve, then they plot the points"

More is good, all is better
 

i was talking about the collective number of blacks in each undergraduate class. As in all the blacks in each college combined.

 

You said oxford.

Also: CLASS PROFILE Full-time students in newest entering class (2009-2010) that are: Female: 23 % International: 94 % Married: 29 % Students from following regions: Africa: 5 % Asia: 12 % Eastern Europe and Central Asia: 28 % Latin America and the Caribbean: 2 % Middle East: 3 % North America: 30 % Oceania: 6 % Western Europe: 14 % Dual citizenship: 10 %

More is good, all is better
 

http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/rankings/full_time_mba_profiles/ca…

CLASS PROFILE Full-time students in newest entering class (2009-2010) that are: Female: 26 % International: 94 % Married: 34 % Students from following regions: Africa: 2 % Asia: 37 % Eastern Europe and Central Asia: 8 % Latin America and the Caribbean: 7 % Middle East: 5 % North America: 16 % Oceania: 5 % Western Europe: 20 % Percentage of U.S. students in newest entering class that are: African American: 10 % (1.6% of total) Asian American: 25 % Hispanic or Latino American: 5 % White (Non-Hispanic): 60 % Mean months of work experience of newest entering class: 77 Median months of work experience of newest entering class: 72 Middle 80% range of work experience of newest entering class in months: From: 46 To: 116 Median age of entering class: 30 Mean age of entering class: 30

More is good, all is better
 

I've been following this thread and have to give props to Argonaut for taking a sensationally written article and effectively debunking it. I've been trying to make a habit of looking at the underlying data whenever I see something sensational like this and this is proof as to why it is a good habit to be in.

+1 to Argonaut!

 

Argonaut, you referencing MBA data which is irrelevant to the current argument. We are talking about undergraduate data, not MBA data. I highly doubt that Oxford undergraduate program is 94% international or 23 % female ... But, as has been said, it seems that the number of blacks at Oxford / Cambridge is higher than the article implies, but it is probably still very very low. If anyone has hard figure, please present them.

 

Monyet, if you want to be taken seriously, you need to get into a habit of supporting the statements you make, instead of challenging other to prove the contrary.

Otherwise, I am convinced you have 3 vaginas until you prove me wrong.

Anthony, thanks :)

More is good, all is better
 
ArgonautMonyet, if you want to be taken seriously, you need to get into a habit of supporting the statements you make, instead of challenging other to prove the contrary.

Otherwise, I am convinced you have 3 vaginas until you prove me wrong.

Anthony, thanks :)

Lol, I can't even be mad, that was classic.

I already said that I read the article wrong, I was just asking people for the real data if they had it. I am obviously looking for it as well, but it is hard to come by.

 

I think the overall lesson is that newspapers are in the business of selling newspapers, not in telling the truth or an accurate story.

 

I'm pretty sure the Guardian is free....in which case the Guardian is just being the rag that it usually is.

"Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, for knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA."
 
Gekko21I'm pretty sure the Guardian is free....in which case the Guardian is just being the rag that it usually is.

More provocative it is = the more people pick it up and increase 'circulation' = them being able to charge more for advertising

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses - Henry Ford
 

maybe non of the black applicants were qualified this year? Perhaps they only admitted kids from top private schools and many black applicants didn't have the $$$ from their family to attend these schools? I don't think England is a racist country, I just think Oxford doesn't really focus on color or diversity... They're focused on choosing those will lead England in the future, which probably means people who are naturally smart AND who attended top schools since they were 5.

 

Yeah, England is not racist. Class -ist maybe, but not racist. Besides, unless race is disclosed on an application I think it would be very hard to tell someones race. The UK is not like the USA. Blacks over there do not have the "ethnic" names like they do in the former colonies.

 

If you ask me, not having any race listed on an application is the way to go.

"Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, for knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA."
 

Read a little deeper into this. The Guardian was referring to "Black-Carribean students". It excluded Black-British, and Black-African students from the sample. What a load of rubbish.

 

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