To think it would be hard for someone from an ordinary background to not feel a bit left out in at a top flight uni?

[Hammy02]

I just can't see how people can have even similar experiences at such places if they are from massively different backgrounds. Do people tend to stick with people from the same backgrounds as each other? Even in my 6th form, those from wealthy backgrounds hung around together as they generally did more expensive things at the weekend than everyone else. Eg, holidays abroad half a dozen times a year while the rest of us had Saturday jobs.

wordfactory - Yes sounds very similar. My sixth form at school was tiny and had me, one other boy from another nearby estate to me that was also rough and then some kids who attended from the nearby posher villages. I also didn't know anyone who had been to university except teachers and the GP.

I actually ahd been to a few restaurants - local Italian once, cheese marketing board - I suppose more a cafe and pizza hut. And went to London with the school to see the Viking exhibition. But my experiences tbh were fairly limited.

And like you, this was totally normal for me. I had never met anyone that I knew that hadn't been to a comprehensive for example. And I do think people underestimate how much you just don't know in that situation, that others see as just common knowledge.

Actually Clothesof Sand IME (maybe just my rather laissez faire college) Oxford don't really bother with teaching undergraduates much at all. You are expected to think and learn for yourself. You mainly find out whether you did it right in your Prelims and Finals.

You have to have the confidence to form, and argue for, your own intellectual opinion from very early on. I saw many, many people find this a challenge (myself included) at the start. You do have to be quite a self assured sort to be able to deal with it. I think Oxford actively select kids who they think will stand up to that learning style and as a result there are a lot of assertive, self confident characters around.

Some people might mistake peers with that confidence (untempered by time and experience) as posh or up themselves and feel excluded by it. I don't think it's a class thing though- I could name handfuls of people who had it and people who didn't from both ends of the socio-economic spectrum. It really is about who you are, not where you have come from, whether you fit in. And no, not everybody would want to I had a bloody good time though.

herethereandeverywhere, you said, "I remember bantering with an old Etonian that I couldn't believe his parents had spent all that money on school fees when I'd come away with better A level results from my comp, courtesy of the tax payer."

My daughter had a similar conversation with and Old Etonian she was seeing - he asked what she thought about sending her (potential) child to Eton and she said, "Christ, no! If they ended up with qualifications like yours I'd be horrified! Give me a northern comp any day."

lesley until I went to university I had never met anyone who had been ot private school or grammar.
I had never met anyone openly gay or asian or jewish.

My whole frame of reference was white working/under class.

I think the particular learning style is a really important reason to choose or not choose Oxbridge, EBD, but I think that is rather a separate issue to the social ones of attending a university that attracts a certain type of student.

I don't think that genuinely posh people are usually the issue; it tends to be social climbers who look down on others, and they tend to cluster at certain universities.

YABU. Universities are huge so people are very likely to find people they get on with, and most people are open-minded enough to make friends with all kinds of people regardless of background. However YANBU to think there may also be occasional posh/rich cliques who may be annoying.

OP, a friend of mine (educated at a comprehensive school in Sheffield) went to Cambridge and had a boyfriend who had been to Harrow!

In day to day uni life, lectures etc. I wouldn't say I felt left out. I had friends from a variety of backgrounds.

Clubs and societies were a different matter. I can remember emptying out my penny jar to buy a ticket to go to a party in freshers week. Or joining a club that appeared to be affordable and finding you never really belonged unless you joined in on their weekend socials at 150 quid a pop.

In my year there was an additional divide in that all the deferred entry students went through on the old system of grants whilst we got no grants and had to pay fees.

So?

I'd hope that people from less well to do backgrounds don't go to top unis for the social life.

And the mix reflects society anyway.

Of course it doesn't reflect society ffs!

"I'd hope that people from less well to do backgrounds don't go to top unis for the social life."

Whereas people from well to do backgrounds...?

"State school kids were a minority and the vast majority of those from the state school sector had got to selective grammar schools. Those like me, who'd been to a bog standard state comp were a minority within that minority."

Had v similar experience compo and it was a shock.

I went to Cambridge. Was friends with people from a wide range of feeders schools. The real distinguishing factor was between people who were up for a bit of partying and hanging out in the bar along with the work and then people who were much quieter and more studious and socialised in a bit of a quieter way. I had mates from Eton and mates from state schools.
Some of the state school lot were a bit pleased with themselves for coming from state schools but many of them still had rather nice houses and parents with degrees. If anything I felt a bit unusual coming from a bog standard semi but being the scholarship girl at my private secondary school had prepared me for that.

I went to Bristol, 20 years ago. Was completely confused by the questions you were asked at Fresher's Week.

"What school did you go to?" - answer - nowhere you'd have heard of.

And "where did you go on your Gap Year?"

I didn't. Couldn't afford one.

I did find some like-minded friends, my course had more normal people on it - the Posh didn't tend to do a lot of Biochemistry, for some reason.

I was asked about my 'gap year' ( it wasn't planned, long story) and told the truth - been working, spent three weeks getting hammered exploring Greece.
'oh you should have gone to Africa' they said.

Now why didn't I think of that?

"I'd hope that people from less well to do backgrounds don't go to top unis for the social life."

Whereas people from well to do backgrounds...?

The original question was about ordinary backgrounds.

And while top universities do not have the same class percentages as society at large, people from ordinary backgrounds are still likely to find people from all backgrounds during their life.

I'd been on a trip to Cambridge before applying, one of those "get state school kids to come here" deals. I decided Cambridge really wasn't for me, because of all the Posh.

Bit of background - the Posh had infested the village I grew up in, bought up all the properties to be second homes meaning the locals got priced out, they descended in great numbers in the summer and made everyone's life a misery. So I was keen to avoid them.

Nobody told me about Bristol.

lueji - Actually many people from ordinary backgrounds never or extremely rarely meet or socialise with those from very well off backgrounds.

I'm Irish, from pretty far down the working-class, went to a bad local school notorious for fighting, truancy and pregnancies, and ended up at a very trad. Bullingdon-y Oxford college for two degrees. I'd be lying if I said that a minority of people - staff and other students - weren't actively unpleasant (I hadn't been there long before discovering what 'NQOC, dear' meant [Not Quite Our Class]), but I coped, despite the massive culture shock. Before I went there, I hardly even knew anyone middle-class, and I was absolutely astonished to see how other people lived, when friends started inviting me home in the vacations - but a lot of the time, I was equally exotic to them - the clever binman's daughter with her common accent and charity shop clothes.

I'm very glad I did go there, despite my own misgivings and how hard it was at the beginning. I did end up on anti-depressants for eighteen months, which I thought was down to something else entirely, but now am not so sure. The really difficult thing, though, is the perception that you are now 'too posh' for your own original background, while you'll never fit fully or easily into your new one either. But the system will never change unless more working-class people apply.

I was at uni with people who'd never met anyone from a scheme
had never been in a background other than own
then there was the faux school of hard knocks one is 'Ard as nails types. all geezery at uni and rah rah to mumsie and dad

.

I went to a state comp but am 'posh' on one side of my family. So at Uni I could outposh posh twats to confuse them or morph back into my particular Scottish dialect, or do a middle class RP for exams or interviews. You can get on with people anywhere if you keep an open mind, and that's what real education should be about.

YABU. I went to Cambridge having grown up in a council house and without two pennies to call my own. I felt as though I'd come home. Yes, there were posh twits at my college, but most people weren't. (Agree with HardCheese though, the real difficulty is that it means you don't fit in with your own family any more. I'm now upper middle class (I suppose) by profession and location, and my DS won't have known anything else - it's quite sad to think that he and his great-grandparents wouldn't have known what to say to each other.)

Haven't read whole thread.

I'm from an ordinary background and went to a top Uni. I didn't feel left out in the slightest and had / have friends from a wide variety of backgrounds. Life isn't about sticking with people just like you all the time.

I haven't read all of the posts, but just wanted to add that experiences at Oxford & Cambridge in particular may vary considerably from one college to another - some have much higher percentages of state school students than others. I think the character of the college makes a huge difference to the overall experience.

I think this pretense that the social mix is fine at university, and that people from disadvantaged backgrounds will find others just like them, actively discourages widening of access.

Until we accept that it is very difficult to make a go of it from certain backgrounds things will never ever change.
Last week I was speaking to a very clever boy who has never been a member of a library. He didn't know how they worked!
Do people think we can just supplant him in Oxford and he'll crack on nicely?