February 5, 2025

Rector’s eNews 04: 5 February 2025

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We were absolutely thrilled to learn on Thursday last week of the success of Luke Kaufmann, our Second Prefect of 2024, in securing a place at Cambridge University. Luke will go up to Peterhouse College in September to read History and Politics. He will, doubtless, excel there and, at the same time, be really challenged. Naturally, it is exceptionally difficult to get into Oxford or Cambridge as a result of the vast number of highly intelligent candidates applying, but Luke has demonstrated keen academic interest in a variety of areas such as in his outstanding essay in his B Block year which saw him selected from 37 000 entries to interact with professors from Princeton and dons from Oxford at the John Locke Institute in Oxford. In terms of his aggregate amongst last year’s matrics, Luke ended up in 6th position with 89.14% as opposed to the dux, Patrick Lambert, who achieved 91.86%, but it is often the demonstration of specialized academic focus and interest which is key to success in an Oxbridge application, especially given the fact that we have one year less schooling in South Africa than in the UK. I must hasten to add that Patrick Lambert and the others in the top grouping did not apply to international universities, being more than excited to go to the top universities in this country.

However, I wanted to make it clear that our boys regularly get into the foremost universities in the UK with Exeter, Edinburgh and Durham, all top ten UK universities, being amongst the most common destinations for those Michaelhouse Old Boys who are UK bound.

In terms of Ivy League universities/colleges such as Columbia, UPenn and Princeton, there is generally a focus over and above outstanding academic results on the extent to which a candidate coming from South Africa or Africa is engaged with issues on this continent and has sought to advance the lives of others in a meaningful way. One candidate at another school got 100% for Mathematics and the Sciences, but was initially turned down by Harvard in his quest for entry to a science-orientated degree with the charge that he should go away for a year and make a substantial contribution to South Africa before they would accept him. He did so in undertaking a project which benefited a community in a significant way and was, subsequently, accepted for the following year.

Many US universities/colleges, other than the Ivy League, have a focus on sports such as basketball, athletics, swimming, field hockey (as opposed to ice hockey) and even, latterly, rugby and specialisation in one of these often more than enhances an application or, indeed, leads to a sports scholarship.

About 20 to 25% of our Michaelhouse boys annually apply for international universities directly from school and the vast majority of our boys are successful, especially if they take Further Studies in English, Mathematics and Physics. At the other end of their university experience, they so often emerge with First Class degrees which are testimony to their academic platform at Michaelhouse and success in the IEB examinations as well as their own tenacity and will to succeed.

It has been suggested to me on a few occasions that we might introduce A Levels to run alongside the IEB. You might have expected me, with 17 years of experience leading UK schools, to follow this course. Here are some reasons why we do not do A Levels alongside the IEB:

  • The vast majority of our boys go on to the best South African universities and those who wish to go to the UK or USA get to the top universities anyway.
  • Generally speaking, those doing A levels take 4 AS courses in their first year of A Levels, moving to 3 A Level courses in their second year. This narrows down their subject options for university too early – at age 16.
  • If you run two academic programmes, your teaching strength is diffused.
  • The IEB is a reliable examination: the top pupils achieve the top results and the weaker pupils do less well. Predictability is important in examinations: we want the A student to achieve As and the C student Cs. My experience with A Levels is that the results are less predictable.

To sum up, with minor exceptions relating specifically to Oxford, all doors are generally open to our students throughout the world.

At our assembly on Monday, I spoke to the boys about issues associated with what is internationally known as Safeguarding. I explained to them that this was not the result of anything of which I knew to have recently happened at Michaelhouse but was a general pointer to the fact that there are some older people who sometimes prey on younger people with the younger people being “groomed” for the sexual gratification of the older people. Typical examples could include men trying to coerce teenage girls or young women into relationships, often by showering them with gifts in order to create a dependency on them. I noted that grooming can happen in person or online and it is most often associated with people who are known to be ‘friends of families’ and/or a trusted associate. I explained to the boys that I did not wish them to be paranoic about this but, neither should they be naïve about this phenomenon and that Mr Sibusiso Ncamani, in his role as Deputy Rector: Pastoral, is also our designated Safeguarding Lead and is the person to approach if any of our boys feel uncomfortable at any stage about a situation. We are then in a position to address the matter and resolve issues.

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