To think DH is wrong to threaten to not speak to DS over university choice

[DPSN]

DS has an offer to study at Cambridge but is considering turning it down to study closer to home at a university with a reputation for his subject which is nowhere near as good as Cambridge's to be near his girlfriend. I think basing a life choice on a current GF is a mistake but he is very stubborn and I cannot force him to go to Cambridge. If she is the love of his life, love will conquer time and distance but if she isn't,I think he will regret turning down Cambridge for her.
I have asked him to weigh up the pros and cons of each option carefully.
DH , on the other hand, has said he will not want to speak to him again if he doesn't go to Cambridge and would want to limit financial support.
I feel I am living in a parallel world with DH thinking he can control DS' s choices with threats and bullying tactics. He says I am too soft for saying ultimately it is DS' s life and choice.
Opinions please.

It's not that I think it's downmarket, it was more in response to the the suggestion he would have to have his career in one town. (It could be London we don't know) and therefore somehow that would be wrong to take a Cambridge place from someone else. My point was he could become a teacher and those are needed everywhere so he could go back home forever and teach.

Thank you topseyt we are clearly in Thame wavelength!

Same wavelength!

She said quite clearly that she would check back in on Sunday evening.

Yes, she did say she wouldn't be back until Sunday evening. No need to call it a set up.

I hope she gives herself plenty of time to read. We seem to have provided an array of opinions and food for thought as MN usually does.

I love reading others opinions, it helps you focus your own...and realise you aren't perfect!

Funnyperson if you have doubts about trolling Mumsnet require you to report the OP or any of the OP's posts to them using the report button rather than clog up/derail the thread with accusations.

I love the opinions too. Always keeps me realising that there is more than one approach to just about everything and each has its advantages and drawbacks.

Id go ballistic if ds did this!

I know it's not great parenting but I'd be threatening/whatever to stop them from making such a bad decision!

OP how well do you know the gf? Can you invite her round for tea and try to convince her that if she loves ds she should enable him to go?

I have friends from Cambridge who have become police officers, nurses, non- fast steam civil servants and gardeners

Yes that's my experience too. None amongst my circle of friends bombed quite as badly as I did, but most ended up in careers like those above.

A Cambridge degree isn't an automatic ticket to the glittering prizes that some posters seem to think it is.

Those of my acquaintance who enjoyed high flying/glamorous careers were by and large the offspring of wealthier and well connected parents. So they'd be able to rely on their social network to find opportunities, have patents who were able to fund further study, training or internships. With a few notable exceptions, those of us from lower middle or working class backgrounds got rather more humdrum jobs.

Going to Cambridge isn't the golden ticket. But Cambridge, plus family money, plus contacts may well be.

Sorry Compos, while I'm grateful for your endorsement of what I said above, I have to disagree that the lucrative jobs only go to those from privileged backgrounds.

I was the first person in my family to gain any academic qualification above O level and my background is extremely working class. I am a Partner in a City law firm having trained at another very prestigious major firm which recruited me on the milk round from Cambridge and made no bones about their preference for Oxbridge candidates. My DH has a very similar background (his Dad ran away to sea age 15 and his Mum has no qualifications) and he was recruited into a management consultancy from Cambridge and now holds a senior position in an investment bank. I have many Cambridge friends from similarly cash-strapped and badly-connected families who are now extremely high-earning. In my experience the ones who had the connections and background went a little bit further still- the two MPs, the one who got an MBE in his late thirties, the various TV producers and presenters and the award winning theatre director. But they were by no means the only ones to find financial or social success.

I should add that my DH and I and countless others like us who went to the City do not in any way consider ourselves better than those who did not. We were fortunate to find the work enjoyable; not everyone does and I understand that completely.

Jessie - I wonder if we went to university a few years apart or our friendship groups were different?

I graduated early to mid 2000s when there were already less graduate jobs than graduates to fill them and internships and credential inflation were starting to kick in.

Whilst there were some of us whose backgroundd were working class or lower middle class, those from an extremely cash-strapped background were quite thin on the ground too with the impact of fees and the removal of maintance grants a few years beforehand.

That may be a factor Compos. I graduated in 96; DH graduated in 2000. However I know from my position as a recruiter of graduates that we have strict safeguards in place to ensure that jobs are not awarded to people who get them through connections, and most big graduate employers will have similar policies.

It tends to be the lower paid areas (media and the arts) where jobs are easier to get if you have rich parents able to find you through unpaid internships.

Oh and Cambridge has all sorts of grants available to ensure that nobody is prevented from going there by lack of money; it's a cornerstone of its outreach programmes. In any event student life there is often cheaper (eg halls rents very low, heavily subsidised food in college) than at other universities.

DH has decided not to go down the threatening not to talk to him etc route.
DS has accepted the offer. I am not convinced his heart is in it but we will see. I suspect he may have accepted it to avoid confrontation and major discussions. Time will tell if he meets the conditions and then actually takes up his place there.
The discussion here was a lot lengthier than I had expected - it really helps to hear other people's opinions and to read about other people's experience.

I wonder if people are fixating on Cambridge here a bit too much.

What if the OP were just:

DS (aged 18) has an offer, and is likely to get the grades for, a university that is well-regarded in his subject.

His girlfriend wants him to turn it down and go to a less-well-regarded university so that they can live together.

It doesn't matter whether Cambridge is "magic" or not, it matters whether the local university is worse. And it is.

My eldest DD simply went along to the drinks and suppers offered by the magic circle law firms at Oxford, applied for a vac scheme with references given by her tutors and without knowing a soul in any of the firms to which she applied, completed the vac schemes and was offered a training contract and subsequently a job. No nepotism required, which was just as well. She graduated significantly more recently than you Compos. My second and third DDs have been no different. That said, they do say that unpaid internships in fashion, publishing etc do seem easier to come by if you know people, but there are paid internships out there in different fields which rely rather more on track record and brains.

DPSN you'll know if his heart is in it if he meets the conditions or fails to meet them and is gutted. Will the more local uni be his insurance or does that not work?

DPSN Your son has not narrowed his choices so that's good. Your husband has managed the U turn so that's good. Hopefully the crisis has been averted and the week ahead will see some building of bridges between the two of them.

Great news DPSN. Now may be the time to begin a charm offensive on the GF and her Mum.

In the meantime I would have a very emphatic talk with your son about the importance of using contraception; multiple methods if possible. And how to know a woman's fertile time. Awkward, yes, but let's face it - it's hardly unheard of for young women to deliberately get pregnant as a way to keep a man close.

OP, what is wrong with you? Don't you know that the normal thing on MN is to promise a future date when you will update, and then never return to the thread.

Seriously, thanks for the update, and best wishes for your son. What subject is he hoping to study?

If DS does achieve his offer and chooses to attend Cambridge he will only spend around six months of the year there. I'm sure if your DS and his girlfriend are committed to each other then they could make this work.

It is not really an option to have the girlfriend visit at the weekend as many students still have lectures, exams and lots of preparation work for supervisions to complete. They do not have really have regular extended periods of free time and that is why the terms are only 8 weeks long.

That's a good result for now, OP.

I am sure your DH was speaking in n the heat of the moment before, which we are all capable of doing.

You will see over time whether your DS's heart is in this or not, but if it turns out not to be then that is just the way things are. Hopefully your DH will have taken on board that it really isn't worth a family falling out over.