Aibu to think its veey unfair that universities with `colleges`can have a number of teams in university challenge...

[Allthingspretty]

Where as other umiversities have one team?

You can't appy to Oxford and Cambridge UCAS info.

You only apply to one college at Cambridge, I am not sure about Oxford. When I was a sixthformer there was some strange system where Oxford colleges were in groups of 3.

To be honest Oxbridge is really over represented in University challenge with 6 colleges each out of 28 teams in the last full series en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_Challenge_2011-12.

Nope you have to choose between Oxford and Cambridge you can't apply to both

Oops, I see you now have to pick one college. Probably fair enough.

hobbles away to bathchair feeling older than ever

The college I was at was about the same size as a small university on its own, and rammed full of the sort of rabidly competitive and slightly oddball individuals so beloved of television producers.

DP's college has around 300 people and they beat a good university of 20,000 on Uni Chall. Would the other teams seriously want to come up against a whole Oxford or whole Cambridge team?! I think not.

Also, fwiw, there are several preliminary rounds before the televised ones. There is an 'interesting TV personality test' but selection is based primarily on the teams' general knowledge. I have this on good authority not only from DP (former contestant) but also a friend of mine who is a BBC producer. So if there are lots of Oxbridge colleges in the televised rounds, it's mainly down to their talent. Their performances against other, bigger universities proves that too. I think some people just can't stand the fact that small Oxbridge colleges have so much talent.

I do believe that oxbridge students are talented fwitw etc . Maube the colleges thing needs to be explained to a wider audiemce as i am sure i am not the only one who thought it a bit unfair.

In the last couple of years, you apply to one Cambridge college (but may be pooled to a second if they don't want to make you an offer). Oxford you are interviewed at two, and accepted by one or rejected by both.

Places like Durham are different- you apply to the university of Durham, which decides to make you an offer or not- it's not the choice of a college, even though you're put in one afterwards.

Oh and for some stuff the London universities do compete as one team. For the inter-varsity ballroom dance competitions there's a 'Universities of London' team which you compete on if you're at Imperial, UCL etc.

So, you can't apply to both (interesting).

I also agree with someone lower down, the Oxbridge contestants are very talented. Maybe it would become the Oxford v Cambridge university challenge if they had to combine.

Inter-varsity ballroom dance?! I clearly went to a whole different class of university...

You can apply to both Oxford and Cambridge if you're going for an organ scholarship, or at least you could twenty years ago.

Actually you do apply to a particular college at Durham- this caught out some of my 6th form mates as they hadn't realised and had to hurriedly choose one. The main difference from Oxbridge is that you are taught fully in departments rather than having tutorials in college as at Oxbridge.

As far as I recall, you're interviewed by the department at Durham, but the college has to accept you as well, IYSWIM.

Durham colleges are more of a glorified halls of residence. I think Durham would benefit from having one uni team rather than colleges.

(Durham alumni here) DP also got an offer at Cambs but turned it down and went to Durham

Agree about Durham, the colleges are to do with residential stuff and sports teams. The academic side of things is entirely separate, thought the colleges all to have a good mix of people across the depts and when I went in 94 you applied and were interviewed by both. If the dept wanted you and the college didn't, they would try and find you one. In Oxbridge, the colleges are virtually separate entities and your experience of uni would be very different depending on which you went to. The University Challenge set-up is the fairest for all the reasons stated above.

I had no idea that you couldn't app,y to Oxford and Cambridge - why is that (I understand this may be seen as a dim question so apologies if so)

Sorry, yes I wasn't very clear. At Oxbridge you're accepted by the the college, at Durham it's the university. You can choose a college but it's more like halls.

Lancaster is the same iirc.

You still can apply to both Oxford and Cambridge with an organ scholarship. Bizarre, IMO.

I think the reason they split it into teams is simply that otherwise it would be very boring to watch one or other university constantly winning. If the best four people out of 300-odd undergraduates can get to the finals, you can imagine it would be fairly steamroller-ish if they let them select the best four out of the whole university.

They say the reason you can't apply to both is administrative - they interview virtually everyone (though less, I think these days), and applications go in on 15th Oct instead of the later deadline for everything else to make time. If you could apply to both it'd increase the workload hugely.

I imagine that at least half of Oxbridge applicants would apply to both if they were allowed (some courses aren't available at both, and there are geographical/logistical reasons for choosing one over the other) so I would guess it keeps applications down a lot.

Still sort of stupid and unfair though.

Miaow - ALL the other colleges have a general disdain for Hatfield! :-)
In a sense, yes, Durham colleges are more simply halls of residence, but sports-wise all colleges have very separate teams. There's definitely a distinct camaraderie when you meet people and discover they go or went to your college.
I don't it think it would work to have separate teams for all of durham's colleges.

The only people who can "kind of" apply to both Oxford and Cambridge are Choral and Organ Scholars, but they are auditioned in September and so have to apply even earlier than normal.