Classism is a shameful part of life at university | Letters

Letters: Dr Rowan Cerys Tomlinson, Elena Williams and Dr Harpreet S Kohli respond to an article on the experiences of state-school students

Bravo for Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett’s article (To state school alumni starting university, I say this: be proud of your background, 5 October). Finally someone stops tiptoeing around the truth about private schools: that they are not some kind of human right, but a form of segregation that no supposed meritocracy can counter.

When I arrived at the University of Oxford from a state comprehensive 30 years ago, I was met repeatedly with the following assumption: “Hello. Where are you from?” “Brighton”. “Ah, Roedean?”

Such questioners tended to move on when I said: “Er, no, Dorothy Stringer school.” Unlike those whose parents had paid to segregate them from the 93%, I did not have ready-made networks across Oxford’s colleges.

I found it baffling that they were not astonished, as I was, by the quadrangles, cloisters and wooden panelling. And I did not, as many of the students did, arrive with a ready supply of black-tie options. Shamefully, I changed my accent to such a degree that my mum could barely recognise me when I phoned home. It took time to be rightly proud that my parents had not bought my privileged education.

We need to be bolder in making explicit the nefarious effects of the UK’s continued defence of private schooling. Bravo to Labour for finally having added VAT on to fees. This should be a first step in addressing the impact of private schools on our society.

One point we might cheer ourselves with, meanwhile, is that state-school students perform better in their degrees than privately educated students with the same A-level grades. It seems that buying your child an advantage loses its edge once the autonomous work of university study begins.
Dr Rowan Cerys Tomlinson
Oxford

• Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett’s article took me back to when I was interviewed at Oxford University, where applicants had to stay in the college for a few days. I lost count of the times I was asked: “Which school do you go to?”

On the first evening having dinner, one of my fellow applicants asked everyone: “Did you board?” Conversation then turned to how many generations of everyone’s family had attended Oxford and how embarrassing it would be if they weren’t to get in (I was the first in my family to attend university).

I remember going back to my room that night feeling sick and uncomfortable, and that Oxford was not for me. I’ve since wondered whether it was bad luck that I seemed to have the worst kind of stereotypical experience.

Sadly, reading news in recent years about students at Durham, Edinburgh and St Andrews experiencing classism, it doesn’t seem like much has changed. As for me, I ended up at Warwick, which has its fair share of privileged students, but felt far more normal than what I’d witnessed at Oxford.
Elena Williams
Newcastle upon Tyne

• I’m proud to have gone to a state school in Scotland, although at university, again in Scotland, I was aware of the state-private school divide. Of course, the question of “What school did you go to?” in Scotland has other connotations. It is a not-so-discreet way of trying to ascertain your religious affiliation.
Dr Harpreet S Kohli
Glasgow

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