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more and more I am noticing older students on the teams
Seems a little unfair......

Are older people not allowed to be under graduates anymore then?

I still think it is full of the most pretentious tossers whatever age they are.

UANBU - there seem to be more and more post-grads on the teams. I've no problem with mature students, but it does seem unfair to have people studying for Phds.

Do they have PhD students on then?

I don't watch it (Squeaky's right) but whenever I have caught the tail end of it, I've assumed they were undergrads.

It's full of strange students

I'd just like to have a presenter who doesn't sneer at the students when they get things wrong whilst mispronouncing stuff all over the shop himself.

squeaky what's pretentious about being in a quiz team? I much prefer it to all that whinging and bleating on Deal or No Deal (Which btw I don't watch, I used to watch it with my grandmother before she passed away)

OP what about people doing second undergraduate degrees? And the teams from the Open University and Birkbeck are usually mature students doing first degrees.

Or be more impartial. Not so bad tonight as its not Oxford vs Cambridge.

There is a 70yo woman on my course.

Tunip lol - i always think Paxo is FABULOUS at pretenting to be an authority on absolutely every topic

'ha ha ha no no no have't you heard of home baked pube- felted anti establishment mice?'

It always irritates me and whilst i'm sure that the odd older one is an undergraduate - the majority just WILL be postgrads.

I started this tonight because i recognised a 'boy'' i know on one of the teams - he looked one of the younger ones tbh and is definitely post graduate ...

If they think there's an audience for an undergraduate quiz show, presumably they could start one.

There is far more to a university than those junior members who have yet to graduate.

NotnOtter - yyy, except when he didn't know it himself and he sounds terribly impressed with the students because in his mind they must be complete geniuses to know something that he, the mighty Paxo, didn't.

My friend Mike was on the winning team tonight utterly unstealth boast and is an undergrad. I just wish they'd make bloody Oxford and Cambridge only have one team each and give some of the other institutions a look in, instead of letting each college have a team. When I was at uni, myself and "Cowboy Chris" tried to get a team up, and not one other student would join in, was very disappointing and thus I now live vicariously through my trivia friend sighhhhhhh

Pretentious tossers?
Because they are clever? That's a bit petty, squeaky. Some people just like learning stuff, and being on a quiz team can be a lot of fun. It's one of the few programmes that OH and I watch together and try and score points off each other.
Why so angry? What harm does it do to answer a few questions on Greek myths or biochemistry?

brilliant Pom - I'm impressed!

yabu ,big waste of tv if you ask me !

I love it. Rarely get more than a handful of questions right but feel a real sense of achievement with each one. The obscure stuff - particularly about art and music, that they know just baffles me.

I fear that if they merged all the Oxford and Cambridge colleges, it would always be an Oxbridge series win.

oo thanks otter I am always wary of people thinking it's a bit weird because I have lots of friends who are into trivia - we write quizzes, play quizzes, and have heads full of useless facts, but are all from very different backgrounds/ages/countries etc. I get quite proud of some of the "whippersnappers" when they make it to university/get brilliant exam results and so on, but feel silly telling people as they always ask how I know them or if we're related and to say "oh we met on the internet" gets a face!

I know it is weird to see so many Oxbridge colleges on there, but if they allowed Oxford and Cambridge to enter one team each from across the university then there's a strong possibility that one of them would win almost every single series, which would not make very good TV. I say this from having been involved in Oxford quizzing - they would simply enter all the top players in the respective QuizSocs, who spend an awful lot of time practicing just to do University Challenge and similar varsity competitions. Same goes for University of London institutions.

As it is the best quiz players in the universities are distributed across the colleges, which I think it is actually more fair to other unis. In fact it's actually more surprising that collegiate institutions ever win it at all, given that they might have a pool of as few as 350 students to draw on compared to the thousands at a big uni. I think there is a maximum quota for Oxbridge colleges in any one series as well.

I am a bit about postgraduates dominating the competition though. It is not unheard of for people to do a masters simply so they can go on the show. I think after they changed the rules about eligibility it is probably now harder for undergrads to do it in their final year, when they have the best chance of performing well.

Me too Pom.

I have noticed that there are alot more Phd and masters students than they used to be, and I do wonder if the older students are on their second degrees!

It should be first time undergrads only, as 90% of them were back in the early days when second degrees and Phds were a rarity.

What were the changes in the rules about eligibilty Phyllis ?

wow fairphyllis you are a font of knowledge thanks for that

Pom i also know ( he lives locally) a lad on that team tonight!

I refuse to watch it since the time Paxman asked 'who was the English physicist who won the Nobel prize' and the answer given as correct was Rutherford. He's not bloody English- he was born and went to school in New Zealand.
Rant over. As you were.

Bogeyface Well, it's more that the rules are more strictly enforced now I think. As I'm sure you remember, Corpus Oxford were disqualified after winning because one of their team had graduated and was working. He was a final year undergrad who was planning to do a doctorate but didn't get funding so left after he did his finals. Granada (who make the show) have always had a rule that you must be a student for the full duration of filming. Because Granada split the filming over summer and autumn of two academic years, it meant that he was a student in the early rounds, but was working by the time of the finals. The team didn't tell Granada about this and the production team didn't check. And then when it all came out, they got disqualified.

So from what I have heard, they are now making people prove they will be students over the two academic years before filming starts. But that means that if you are a final year student in the year filming starts, you can't take part anymore. Which I think puts undergrads even more at a disadvantage as team members, as there is a world of difference between a 2nd year undergrad and a postgrad who is perhaps in the final stages of their doctorate.

NB There was talk that the filming schedule would be changed so that it would take place over one academic year. This may already have happened - I'm not sure. But would you really as a final year undergrad want to be filming UC probably in the middle of your finals/thesis writing?

Fish it sounds more complex than I'd thought ... Might ask ds to investigate... In the secret hope it spurs him to go on !!

I refuse to watch it since the time Paxman asked 'who was the English physicist who won the Nobel prize' and the answer given as correct was Rutherford. He's not bloody English- he was born and went to school in New Zealand.

I was ranting at the same time! And I'm not even a Kiwi!

Actually they did tell Granada (I knew someone involved) and Granada said that it didn't matter, the previous year's winner, or the one before that had had exactly the same position and no one had minded.

YABU it's university challenge, and university students can be undergraduate or postgraduate.

My University was barred from the series for many years
excellent claim to fame

I don't think there are more postgrads than there ever were - I've been watching it for about 15 years (yes, I have a fun life).

I do like the new-style questions that are not just straight 'knowledge' but also need some working out, like the homophones ones.

This series my ex boyfriend was on, as was a mate I did my undergrad with. Both came across as idiots, unfortunately!

Btw, I am stunned to hear anyone would be stupid enough to pay out 10k or whatever it is to do a Masters, just to go on university challenge. I'm sorry but that sounds like a myth to me given how expensive it is now!

A Oxford team and a Cambridge one would be awesome but colossally unfair on the other unis. I didn't make the cut for my college team...unsurprising as I am terrible at remembering facts!

Yes they definitely limit the number of Oxford colleges that are allowed to take place. The colleges have to do a pre-competition to see which ones get through. And it's not just the cleverest who get through, they like to have ones that look good as well. (I don't mean good looking btw, I mean the right look)

What is the 'right look'?

and if some of those teams represent the right look I'd hate to see the wrong one

haha I know! NOt sure what the right look is, but DH's team of four white public school educated boys wasn't it, they were (totally informally) told. Or perhaps they already had their quota of that look.

Good point tunip.

I think it's quite sweet when you get them sitting there in clothes you know they will cringe at in a few years' time. There's not a huge amount else on TV that lets you be an unashamed geek and most of the teams who win seem to really enjoy it.

'There's not a huge amount else on TV that lets you be an unashamed geek'

Absolutely

I wonder how many of them will graduate to Only Connect....

God I love Only Connect. Once one of the players was wearing what I recognised to be a very popular handknit pattern jumper (Owlet on Ravelry) and I was so excited - I think I gained a MASSIVE bonus of geek points for combining general knowledge AND knitting geekiness.

I refuse to watch it since the time Paxman asked 'who was the English physicist who won the Nobel prize' and the answer given as correct was Rutherford. He's not bloody English- he was born and went to school in New Zealand.

Is that definitely right? He was knighted and then elevated to the peerage here, which he couldn't have been if he didn't have British nationality. Is it possible that he was a British national despite having been born and raised abroad? Or sought and was granted it in later life (in which case UC wouldn't technically have been incorrect, though possibly a bit tactless)?

I want to see Scumbag College back on UC.

The undergraduate thing doesn't annoy me as much as Paxo's blatant Oxbridge bias.

He should just have done with it and ask for the colour of the JCR door at Brasenose etc as a starter for ten.

brown

When I was little I wanted to be on University Challenge but only if I could sit on the top deck. I was in my 20s before I understood the concept of split-screen TV.

That's probably one of the many reasons I never went to university.

Not in The Young Ones.

Whereas my uni got barred for throwing paper darts
off screen upper left
on screen lower right!
aeronatics has always been a strong subject there!

It still throws me to this day when they do a cutaway shot and you realise the two teams are side-by-side and not on a double-decker bus.

Rutherford was born before NZ independence, when it was a british colony. He was indeed British, and the answer was correct. He was a Baron, one has to be British!

I was actually at university before I realized how they were sitting in real life.

This is one of the many reasons I've never been on it.

I think calling Paxman's blatant bias is part of the appeal of watching. And randomly choosing which side to support on the basis of how un-wankerishly they manage to say their names. I like the double-barreled ones.

tunip a friend of mine got to the finals in university challenge and went on to be in a series winning Only Connect team

<bows down in awe of Winkly's friend's geekiness brilliance>

we're not worthy :-)

Yes, I see your point, Paraniodandriod. So by the same definition would, for example, Thomas Jefferson be called British as he was born when Virginia was a colony of Britain?

However, I thought it tactless and arrogant to pronounce Lord Rutherford British without acknowledging his country of birth. Particularly as he studied in nz to post-graduate level. It's not like he buggered off after primary school.

I suppose the difference there is that Rutherford almost certainly considered himself to be British, and personally I think its a little tactless and arrogant to post-humously redefine as being born in a country that didn't technically exist at the time he lived there.

I do think that University Challenge should be just undergrads and while we are at it it should only be undergrads in The Boat Race as well.

Bringing in some Masters or Doctoral student on some rowing scholarship for one year and then rowing The Boat Race and into the Olympics the following year means it is not really about the students at the Universities at all. Its just about who can bring in the biggest Olympians.

national identity tends to precede political independence.

I would be very surprised if people from New Zealand identified themselves only as British until, what, 1947. Didn't work that way with any other colonies.

He was a long time before 1947 though, and had English parents, moved to England, and was knighted and became a baron. Not sure you can really decide now from a modern perspective that he was a Kiwi. Its highly unlikely he thought of himself in such terms.
Anyway, the answer in the quiz was correct is the point.

Well, interestingly, Rutherford's coat of arms includes a kiwi and a maori warrior which would suggest he considered himself a New Zealander. As well as going back to be married there to another New Zealander. And regularly going back to visit family.

I think it should be just for post-grads.... who wants to know what people who don't know anything yet know?

Is confused, sitting down now.

And though the answer to the quiz might be technically correct, it was inaccurate and not to the high standard that UC likes to give the impression of having.

How can it be both correct and inaccurate, habloodyha? He was legally British, and as no-one here knew him and his views on empire and independence and identity, the legal situation has to be the one which determines whether or not UC was right.

Leaving aside questions of tact, obviously.

limited I thought that too!

Love UC. Restores one's faith in education. Feels really great when one can pull the occasional answer out of a dusty drawer at the back of the brain

If its correct its not inaccurate. It's only your feelings on the matter that give you that odd perspective. Rutherford was a British citizen, a British peer, an was buried in Westminster near other British scientists. He was British, and the answer is entirely correct.

But was the question 'English' or 'British'? Rutherford was unarguably British but arguably not English.

Anyway, can't stand Paxo on UC. Have you ever caught him being sneery with a student who's given the wrong answer, and something about what he says betrays that he knows bloody nowt about it himself?

Apparently it's not that unusual for students to dispute the answers and they occasionally have to stop and cut bits out. I always feel sorry for the students when he either says something daft like 'ah, nuclear fusion, yes, it's nuclear fission but I'll accept that' (ok, it's never been quite that bad but obviously he knows fuck all about science), or when he rejects an answer and you can see from the student's face they were right all along.

But it's still good TV.

I do find it depressing it's rarely 50/50 men and women though, I really notice it.

YABU to declare that you should decide the rules for a game that you have nothing to do with.

But we do know what Rutherford himself thought on the matter. He said in 1925 that he had always been proud of being a New Zealander.

He was known as Lord Rutherford of Nelson though technically he was Lord Rutherford of Nelson and Cambridge.

and his father was Scottish, not English.

I think the appropriate thing in the context of the quiz would be to accept British or New Zealander as an answer and mention that he was both.

(sorry, have been hunting through physicist biographies - I did not know any of the above yesterday. I have also discovered that he was in favour of women's admission to Cambridge University and the President of a committee that helped displaced Jewish academics, so clearly a Good Egg.)

In favour of women's admission to Cambridge? That settles it, he can't have been British!

I do like it when you find out random, likeable facts about people.

Well, I like to see bright young things. Too many hairy old dudes. That's what spoilt Who Wants to be a Millionaire? It got so it was just a succession of beardy pub quiz blokes.

I like Only Connect too. Am in mighty awe of the Crossword Addicts who might just be the cleverest three people in the whole of the universe.

Don't the young get enough tv face time? Are old people not welcome anywhere?

The only thing I think is unfair is the fact Oxford and Cambridge are allowed to enter multiple teams using the college system. No wonder they always win when othe runiversities are only allowed to enter one team, but they can enter teams under the colleges meaning they can enter over ten teams.

Kelly
London University do too
and if Oxbridge were just two teams, only a united London team would EVER beat them as they are both mahoosive universities full of dead clever people

That would depend on how much you consider it a game of skill and how much you think it is a game of luck, wouldn't it?

If it is a game of luck, then more teams => more chance to win.

If it is a game of skill, then smaller pool of people to pick from for each team => each team is not as good as they would be if the whole university played just one team

<snurk> - I read that as dead clever people. People who are clever and dead. Zombie University Challenge teams!

AIBU to think that only alive people should be able to participate in University Challenge?

yes, YABU. They have had episodes where it's previous contestants who are now middle aged. They need a new gimmick and previous contestants who are now dead would do admirably. It would capitalise on the fact that zombies are fashionable and bring in a new audience.
Plus, I think a lot of people would tune in to see the zombies turn on Paxo and rip out his still beating heart for mispronouncing 'Don Quixote'.

To the post grad supporters on here - I just think its unfair - my general knowledge is infinitely better at forty than when I was a student - the bearded bofifins have an unfair advantage

Well said more beta

Foglike Manchester reading the daily mail and the Beano.

I like quiz shows but this one doesn't float my boat.

They don't even win a car FGS

When I was at uni there were mature students in their 30's and 40's doing first degrees.
Should they be barred?

Zombie UC : Player 2 has joined the game.

I do think it is pretty impressive how well some of the Oxbridge colleges do though - I remember some college team getting a to something like the quarter-finals and losing, and Paxman pointed out there were only about 400 students at that college in total, to several thousand at the university that beat them!

It's been shown over and over that older teams don't do as well, they're just too slow. But then lots of postgrads aren't much older than the undergrads so I doubt they actually have so very much more general knowledge - I think they will only have more knowlede about their own narrow area of interest.

It's just a guess, but I would expect that allowing postgrads and mature students leads to a more socially mixed team. IME the private school educated tended to be more confident as undergraduates and would thus be more likely to put themselves forward for things like this. I and a lot of other people I knew only really hit their stride in terms of taking part in things rather than just hiding in the library, once we became postgrads, and mature students are often people who have had crap educational opportunities the first time round but have done something about it as adults.

Well when I was at Oxford the oldest undergraduate at my college was in his 50's, he would have been an asset to the team. Of course when you allow Post-grads that does mean you get more American's etc., now that can't be an advantage can it?

Oxbridge "normally win" as they've got more teams entered in my view too. There are 28 Cambridge Colleges and 33 Oxford Colleges so that's quite a lot of potential additional goes compared to the rest of the roughly 100-150 Universities that only get to send one team each.

EG 2012 which I know isn't finished yet but of 28 Unis starting, 12 Oxf/ Cam colleges... So, not far off a 50% mathematical chance of one or other of them winning, just on basic pairing maths and a bit of luck... In 2011 28 Unis started with 12 being Oxbridge- Magdalen won.

Not to take credit away from the players and the skill to do it but I certainly don't take it as a sign of Oxbridge utter brilliance. Size of Uni= irrelevant- unless you're coming at it from the POV that it's OK if Leeds can divide themselves their 30,000 students into "teams" of 400 students and have up to 75 teams?

Oh and the US normally hammer the UC best-of teams according to the listing I found online of special UC matches...

I don't think size of college is irrelevant at all. I think if Leeds got teams per 400 students they'd still win or lose just as often, because surely they choose the best 4 out of their 30,000 students, not just 4 people at random?

To be fair I've no idea how they choose the contestants but I doubt it is just random.

I am always impressed how well overseas postgrads do at what are often fairly British-biased questions.

I think being education in the American system would be better for general knowledge. Plus people who've chosen to move countries are often the types of people who like finding out about the new country's quirks - my best mate is an American studying over here and before she came she assumed we'd all know the kings of England off by heart nd so on. We didn't.

Regarding how people get on UC interesting detail here

I was at Uni with a few massive triv-heads and when we were taking it seriously for a year we had a circuit of pub quizzes round London to keep ourselves in beer-vouchers. In my 3 years snapshot there, I saw no process to find entrants at my Uni for a team. One of the guys in my beer-team who was UG at my Uni, went to PG at Homerton, then PG at Open when he did UC; they were runners up that year and he was in the special invitation team that went against the US team. He did (may still, out of touch now) end up writing questions for UC for a bit.

I tried out for UC pretty much every year I was an undergraduate and a postgraduate. I got to the final round of my university's tryouts almost every time, got on the team once (we didn't get through to the TV round) and then a second time and was finally on the show towards the end of my postgrad degree.

So my own personal point of view is that if it was undergrads only I couldn't have fulfilled my longstanding ambition (because every time I watched university challenge people would say to me 'You should go on this', even before I was at uni). Needless to say however, I didn't trouble the scorers excessively when I was actually on.

Also, from my personal experience, older people often pick up more knowledge, but young people are much faster and have better recall. So I wouldn't consider it unfair. If you got points for saying 'I know this, it's on the tip of my tongue', the oldies would definitely beat the youngsters every time. All the 'geniuses' who singlehandedly took their teams to victory by knowing everything in recent years have been young undergraduates.

Gail Trimble wasn't an undergrad! She's a grown-up academic now and it was only a couple of years back.

Sorry, as you can see my command of facts is far from impressive.

Guttenplan was though.

I had to look up and check as my first reaction was 'shit, if she was an undergrad back then I really have done very little with the last few years while she got a PhD and a job!'.

Some Cambridge colleges are wincy though - peterhouse for example had a fabulous team and that picked from only a couple of hundred students - now that IS clever

I do think the nature of a US degree helps with UC. Its a much broader education. (However we used to assume all American's could list all the presidents, but there are some the average American has barely heard of, much the same really, and as for the citizenship test....)