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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Johan" data-source="post: 13688" data-attributes="member: 3202">Hi everyone - I'm the guy who collected the data. Gill had messaged me about this thread and I meant to post here ages ago but didn't get round to it (lots of things going on irl).<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">I think that it's clear - both from the comments from [USER=2672]@Jessica Booker[/USER] on here and from a couple of comments I got on TSR - that 'Assumption 3' is completely outlandish. Looking back, I'm not sure as to why I thought it was appropriate for me to include it. I've removed it from the relevant spreadsheet. I would (however) be interested in seeing the data behind this claim: "there’s usually a high representation of people who don’t disclose from minorities rather than the elite."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">To respond to a question [USER=3141]@Gill M[/USER] made - the data is collected by law firms because they're required to. They're not going to openly lie about anything in it. So the 'full figures' sheet should be accurate enough if you want to rely on that alone.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The point about excluding 'no replies' and internationals is a fair one (again, not sure why I didn't think of it at the time) - I'll create a new sheet for it.</li> </ul>As for the points Jessica made - I see where she's coming from, but I do still think that a large proportion of non-UK educated individuals are privately-educated, and that their private education is meaningful insofar as it's a good measure of their social class.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">From what I've seen, most non-UK trainees at law firms studied law in the UK as undergrads, and most non-UK undergrads at reputable UK universities come from a few countries that do have a private-state divide that is similar to that of the UK, insofar as it involves (think Malaysia, HK, India, Pakistan, Australia, but also places like Italy, France, Greece, etc). There are tonnes of countries with a small private sector (such as the Nordic countries), but they're not the ones sending undergrads to the UK en masse. So one could probably adjust the private school assumption downwards (to, say, 50% or 70%), but putting it at zero and ignoring this trend entirely is going too far.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">I recently saw a survey about the most commonly-occurring schools among law students at 'top' universities in the UK, and the most common non-UK schools have all been 'top' private schools (think Raffles/Hwa Chong in Singapore, the Lahore Grammar Schools in Pakistan, the UWCs, etc.). If these are the people who are generally getting jobs in law firms, the 'private school = middle class' assumption stands. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A lot of the points raised by Jessica in response to Assumption 2 are very odd. Expats, employees of multinationals, embassy staff that have a sufficiently high rank to get government subsidies for their kids' private education, etc. all tend to be middle class and above. The overwhelming majority enjoy professional and managerial jobs and salaries that are, if you adjust for local purchasing power, equivalent to or higher than those of their colleagues in the UK. So, again, the ability to afford 'private school' is indicative of one's parental class to a degree.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The mere act of studying in the UK as a foreign student requires considerable social and financial capital. I'm not just making the point in relation to the tuition fees (there's some data out by Wonkhe as to how non-UK students tend to enrol at higher-ranking institutions - these institutions tend to charge the highest tuition fees). It's also a matter of being able to afford university up front (no loans, no eligibility for needs-based bursaries), afford life in cities that may be more expensive than where you came from, afford plane tickets, etc. Besides, the mere aspiration to study abroad often trickles down from family who also studied abroad and/or know people who have sent their kids abroad.</li> </ul>Of course, nothing in here should put anyone off from applying (including you, Gill!). The raw data and a less heavily weighted Assumption 2 both show that the majority of law firms' intakes come from UK state schools. There's also a concerted effort to bring the figure down further.</blockquote>

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