ENGLAND: Public schools and Oxbridge
My comment: This is certainly true now. Before World War II, it was not true of Ivy League schools, but Stanford was founded
for poor children. It was essentially a pious foundation like William of Wykham's Winchester College. Herbert Hoover, one of
my heroes, was dirt poor, an appropriate description of a future geologist.
Ronald Hilton - 7/6/02
Marga Jann writes: "My daughters both went to Oxford. One is there now and has been re-accepted for a 2yr professional
program in Social Work, and the other just got into Cambridge and the U of Edinburgh for graduate study in law. Our experience
of these schools is that they are entirely performance/merit-based. The applications for admissions do not request information
about parents (unlike US schools), or even siblings. Some of our Oxbridge alumni friends here in Paris have been miffed because
their children were not accepted at these schools. While I am a Swarthmore alum, one of my daughters was NOT accepted there.
I think admissions boards really do try to focus on individual merit rather than family background".
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