*Fewer* state school students.

I concur

As do I...

It's all very well saying that responsibility lies with the government to increase the number of state school kids taking science A-leves, but College are hardly doing their bit. Granted, there are schemes to encourage science teaching in state schools. However, calling for the cost of top-up fees to increase, as well as openly acknowledging the desire to decrease the proportion of home students, is hardly going to foster a positive image of College, or of university science in generally.

splendid news. you only have to go to the union on a wednesday evening to see that there's too much riffraff at Imperial.

Surely the college should take people who:

a) Want to go to Imperial.

b) Who meet the academic standard.

If someone is good enough they will get into Imperial.

That's the point. People taking A Levels at state schools are taking media studies and not the sciences, meaning less meet the academic standard so numbers will fall.

However if there's a decision between taking an overseas student and taking a home student, the overseas one makes College money, the home one costs it quite a bit.

What subjects kids at school take is hardly Imperial's fault.

I blame the schools.

And Imperial blames the government...

Actually, overseas students are given a higher entry requirement than home students, i.e. a student from Hong Kong will probably be expected to get 3 to 4 As at A Level, whilst we will take home students with 2 A's and 1 B. Funny that.

Does Imperial take home students with AAB? I though the standard offer in most departments was AAA

An offer is often a lot lower, mine was BBB - although my department does say that despite its low offers the average acheived is somewhere between AAB and AAA.

I think though that whilst the lack of state school pupils taking sciences (and doing well in them if they do take them) is a problem, the decreasing state school admissions are more to do with state school pupils simply not being able to afford to study in London (or their parents not being prepared to fund them to do so) and so not applying to Imperial in the first place.

From my school only 2 others went to London (both to do medicine) the others went to cheaper places to live or stayed athome.

Firstly, Dan L you're quite clearly a knob. Anyway, who cares if they take lower numbers from state schools? Why does anyone important even keep track of that sort of thing? If you get the grades then you get in, if you can't, bugger off elsewhere. All this social engineering is ridiculous.

Firstly Richard, haven't you just called Dan a knob and the agreed with him. Maybe you're interpreting his meaning differently from me but...

Secondly the number of state school students matter because I for one don't want to live in a society where people with money get to do well and people without it get to sod off and work in McDonalds.

I do however think that the focus should be on the schools. State school students shouldn't get let in if they aren't as capable. But going to a state school shouldn't disadvantage someone who is perfectly capable of getting into a top university with the correct teaching

Steve J: Well said. Figures published this week show that, after Oxbridge, Imperial admits the lowest % of state school students compared to any other UK university. There are dozens of reasons that may explain why this is happening (e.g. home students are shunning science, science is poorly taught in state schools, tuition fees, etc) and reversing this trend will acquire addressing these issues, and many more. This is not going to be easy, but we should at least try.

Steve J thanks for pointing that out.

Indeed Richard has agreed with everything I have said, so I am slightly suprised at his comment, like you were.

Applicants school background should not be considered, Imperial should just take people who meet the standard. That is not to say Imperial should not promote Science and Technical subjects at schools....

aagh... sorry about that. I think my rebuke was supposed to be directed in 'Lord Jenkins Esq's direction'!

But that aside, it had nothing to do with his view on the state school issue, merely his comments about 'riff-raff' at the union on Wednesday nights. I'm one of that rabble.

Steve J... I still disagree about the State school figures mattering but we essentially agree so we may as well agree to disagree.

And to the administrators.. The writer's names really ought to go to at bottom of their comment!! (In my humble opinion)

Richard - we have a new version of Live! launching in a couple of weeks, which is in testing at the moment. It makes the relationship between message and name a bit clearer.

Anyone who wants to give it a try early should drop me an email.