4 ms·

What part of Europe? Don't most of the Tory leadership in the UK come from the same few schools? What is the status of the grands écoles in France?

by cafard 3y ago

namdnay 3y ago
FWIW, entry to grandes ecoles is correlated far more strongly with parents being teachers than with them being rich.
- jjgreen 3y ago
  I do like that those preparing for entry are taupin, after taupe, mole, due to their lack of exposure to sunlight.
ben_w 3y ago
> few schools Schools, plural? I got the impression that Eton alone was more than half of them?
- arethuza 3y ago
  It might be that thing of using "schools" to refer to tertiary education? In that case both universities have an even higher proportion of PMs... ;-)
arethuza 3y ago
It's hardly surprising that most PMs have gone to Oxbridge - but its interesting to see how many studied PPE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_the_United_Kingdom_by_education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_the...
- afavour 3y ago
  IMO it’s not that surprising: PPE is widely seen as the degree to do if you want to get into politics. So it’s not that people do PPE then find themselves drawn to the political world, it’s the reverse. I studied politics and quickly realised there was a huge divide between those of us who wanted to study a broken system from the outside and those who coveted being one of the jeering boors in the House of Commons. Helped me lose whatever faith I had left in the political system.
- raverbashing 3y ago
  and Eton first (or maybe one of a handful of * public schools) ( * not public as in the US sense but in the UK sense - yes it's backwards)
shakow 3y ago
> What is the status of the grands écoles in France? Grandes Écoles students are correlated with higher social classes, but that's due to socio-cultural background, family discipline, ability to dedicate to 100% to syudying without taking a student job, etc. more than anything else. Admission are purely on anonymous competitive exams, and no amount of money will get you there if you suck at them. Foreign students are something else though.
- brmgb 3y ago
  > Admission are purely on anonymous competitive exams, and no amount of money will get you there if you suck at them. Ah, the typical French delusion that entrance exams make Grandes Ecoles admission somewhat fair. The fact is that most of the students who succeed at these entrance exams and land position in the most successful of Grandes Ecoles come from the same highschools. These highschools all happen to be in Paris or Lyon and due to how the French system works, your family has to live in one of these very affluent and costly neighborhood for you to attend. Amusingly, practices which are mercilessly squashed by the administration in most highschools throughout the country like skill-based sorting of students or going at a faster pace that the official curriculum are tolerated in these few highschools. I let guessing where our elected politicians put their children as an exercise for the reader. As usual in France, there is one rule for the plebeian and another one for the ruling class.
  - shakow 3y ago
    I come out of a top 5 Grande École after having done my classes préparatoires in the highly famous high school of Boulogne s/s Mer and stemming from a family a tad above poverty; so I know a little bit what I'm talking about. As I mentioned, it's highly correlated with students socio-economical status; now at least it's not conditioned on your grandparents stuffing an Ivy League with money, with your parents having time and money to send you on tons of extra-curricular, your family having been at Eton for centuries, or your father being an oligarch and sending you to Switzerland at 18 y.o. You can spit on and scorn us and our system all you want (it's quite in fashion on the Internet, I'm sure you'll get a lot of upvotes for it), but at least it tries; and in my experience, it's the best one with the ex-soviet ones to balance high quality education with meritocracy. > As usual in France, there is one rule for the plebeian and another one for the ruling class. Sure, that's so typically French. It's true that Eton, Princeton and Beijing University frequently display students coming from the most remote and poorer part of their country.

What part of Europe? Don't most of the Tory leadership in the UK come from the same few schools? What is the status of the grands écoles in France?

by cafard 3y ago

What part of Europe? Don't most of the Tory leadership in the UK come from the same few schools? What is the status of the grands écoles in France?

namdnay 3y ago

FWIW, entry to grandes ecoles is correlated far more strongly with parents being teachers than with them being rich.

jjgreen 3y ago
I do like that those preparing for entry are taupin, after taupe, mole, due to their lack of exposure to sunlight.

ben_w 3y ago

> few schools Schools, plural? I got the impression that Eton alone was more than half of them?

arethuza 3y ago
It might be that thing of using "schools" to refer to tertiary education? In that case both universities have an even higher proportion of PMs... ;-)

arethuza 3y ago

It's hardly surprising that most PMs have gone to Oxbridge - but its interesting to see how many studied PPE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_the_United_Kingdom_by_education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_the...

afavour 3y ago
IMO it’s not that surprising: PPE is widely seen as the degree to do if you want to get into politics. So it’s not that people do PPE then find themselves drawn to the political world, it’s the reverse. I studied politics and quickly realised there was a huge divide between those of us who wanted to study a broken system from the outside and those who coveted being one of the jeering boors in the House of Commons. Helped me lose whatever faith I had left in the political system.
raverbashing 3y ago
and Eton first (or maybe one of a handful of * public schools) ( * not public as in the US sense but in the UK sense - yes it's backwards)

shakow 3y ago

> What is the status of the grands écoles in France? Grandes Écoles students are correlated with higher social classes, but that's due to socio-cultural background, family discipline, ability to dedicate to 100% to syudying without taking a student job, etc. more than anything else. Admission are purely on anonymous competitive exams, and no amount of money will get you there if you suck at them. Foreign students are something else though.

brmgb 3y ago
> Admission are purely on anonymous competitive exams, and no amount of money will get you there if you suck at them. Ah, the typical French delusion that entrance exams make Grandes Ecoles admission somewhat fair. The fact is that most of the students who succeed at these entrance exams and land position in the most successful of Grandes Ecoles come from the same highschools. These highschools all happen to be in Paris or Lyon and due to how the French system works, your family has to live in one of these very affluent and costly neighborhood for you to attend. Amusingly, practices which are mercilessly squashed by the administration in most highschools throughout the country like skill-based sorting of students or going at a faster pace that the official curriculum are tolerated in these few highschools. I let guessing where our elected politicians put their children as an exercise for the reader. As usual in France, there is one rule for the plebeian and another one for the ruling class.
- shakow 3y ago
  I come out of a top 5 Grande École after having done my classes préparatoires in the highly famous high school of Boulogne s/s Mer and stemming from a family a tad above poverty; so I know a little bit what I'm talking about. As I mentioned, it's highly correlated with students socio-economical status; now at least it's not conditioned on your grandparents stuffing an Ivy League with money, with your parents having time and money to send you on tons of extra-curricular, your family having been at Eton for centuries, or your father being an oligarch and sending you to Switzerland at 18 y.o. You can spit on and scorn us and our system all you want (it's quite in fashion on the Internet, I'm sure you'll get a lot of upvotes for it), but at least it tries; and in my experience, it's the best one with the ex-soviet ones to balance high quality education with meritocracy. > As usual in France, there is one rule for the plebeian and another one for the ruling class. Sure, that's so typically French. It's true that Eton, Princeton and Beijing University frequently display students coming from the most remote and poorer part of their country.