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Mark Wagh (1995)

Biography

Mark left KES in 1995 to read Experimental Psychology at Keble College, Oxford. He then played 14 years of professional cricket at both Warwickshire and Nottinghamshire. Rather by accident, he is now a lawyer at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, a law firm in London.

Why I am supporting the AP100 Campaign

I feel like I have been slipping through nets, of one description or another, my whole life. I remember staring out of the window at South Fields, flummoxed by another verbal reasoning question, convinced that there was no chance that I would get through the entrance exam. Somehow I did though, and that one piece of good fortune has ended up shaping my life to date. It is of course impossible to know for sure, but it seems unlikely to me that I would have gone to Oxford without going to KES. The school had an expectation of success and met its own expectations through fantastic teaching and superb facilities. However, that would have completely passed me by, as I could not have gone to the school without the Assisted Places scheme.

The scheme, and others like it, help break the unhealthy dynamic in which a financial advantage is leveraged by exclusive opportunity; a level playing field, where talent and intelligence are more important than pecuniary standing, is an ideal worth aiming for. I wholeheartedly support this campaign: education opens doors, a worthy child should not have the door closed on them simply because their parents don't earn enough money.