in thinking University Challenge should be for UNDER graduates?

[NotnOtter]

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.

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!