The short answer to this question is “absolutely not”. The long answer is that universities tutors contextualise candidates’ applications against the kind of secondary school they attend. Consequently, candidates from independent schools will typically average 5-7 A* grades at GCSE. Therefore, an individual student from such a school will be held to the average standard of their peers, as opposed to the average standard of students throughout the country. Private education is no reason to be complacent regarding GCSE grades and university applications as students at selective-entry schools are also held to an exacting standard.