Oxbridge degrees - worth it?

[Pombearsandnaiceham]

What do you think? Would be interested to hear your thoughts :)

I always look at the uni attended before interviewing as it indicates a certain focus and intelligence.
I think you can do well with a soft subject that you cannot if you graduate elsewhere.
However I disagree with the physics from hull comment: with this subject you will be much better qualified for lots of jobs. Soft subjects are becoming less sellable now we work in an international market.

Can someone explain the college system to me?
Do you apply to study at Oxford or Cambridge University then once accepted apply to a college?
Are they like halls of residences but with tutors?
Can you go to Oxbridge but not be in a college?

@CloudNinetyNine this may be helpful in explaining the Oxford and Cambridge collegiate system www.topuniversities.com/where-to-study/europe/united-kingdom/oxbridge-explained

@CloudNinetyNine

To answer your questions more directly

1. You don't apply to the university directly, you apply specifically to a college. You get accepted by a college, which therefore means you are accepted by the university - which is made up of a number of colleges

1. Sort of - but it's a community as well. As a student at my college I had a nominated personal tutor who didn't necessarily teach me directly, but who was responsible for my pastoral care as a student within that community. There are sports teams for each college who compete against each other, each college has its own little student union (the JCR, or junior common room). You're a member of that college first and foremost - although after my first year, the options I took meant I didn't study with any tutors within my college, as I didn't take the papers they taught.

1. No you can't be a student of the university without being a member of one of its colleges

It's complicated to get your head around at first, but my experience was that I LOVED my college. It was great to do university wide social activities but also to have the intimacy of a smaller community that I was part of.

St John's Oxford is often biased away from Private schools - although there are plenty of their pupils around, its just "you know a State school pupil with 3 A* is 'bright'". Very wealthy, but also has gone out of its way to help disabled students (despite the historic structure) for a long time.

maddie, if anything I'd expect Oxford to be less expensive than Leeds as there is often quite a good accommodation packet and there are far more chances of bursaries and other types of support

and the tuition fees are the same

maddie my sister went to a city university very similar to Leeds and read the same subject as me.

Once you factor in the cost of private rental and the financial support that I listed above, my Oxford degree cost less than hers.

It's a brutal fact that in many fields graduates of even the top universities end up having to take very low paid or unpaid roles in order to get a foot in the door. One of my closest friends with a first from Oxford worked for minimum wage wiping bums as a health care assistant for a year before applying to study graduate entry medicine. She is now a doctor. I very much doubt that your DH's employee intends to stay in the role for long.

Thanks bananafish.
Does that mean if, for example, there are 100 places at medical school each year then these places would get allocated to different colleges. So, the one you apply to may have 20 places available? And does that mean you might apply to a few different colleges to increase your chance of getting in?

You can only apply to one college. And you can't apply to both universities.

If you apply to an Oxford college and they offer other candidates places over you, but they think you are good enough for Oxford, you may be interviewed by other undersubscribed colleges and get in that way.

Interesting...thank you.
Is it only Oxbridge that has this system?

@CloudNinetyNine really good question

Each college will have a set amount of medical places. Some colleges may not have medical places - my college for example didn't take geography or anthropology students. Some colleges may have more medical places than others (larger colleges for example)

You can't apply to more than one college to increase your chances. You can only apply to one college. I don't believe you can apply to both Oxford and Cambridge to increase your chances of an Oxbridge place either, although that might have changed?

Anyway, you pick a college and apply to that. It can happen that if a college thinks you're pretty awesome but not as awesome as the students it wants to make offers to, that you can get put into a pool, and asked to go and interview at another college where they may have places

In practice this will never happen for a subject like medicine which is dramatically over subscribed. It might happen for a subject which has a much lower ratio of applicants to places - theology for example. Similarly a college which gets a much lower number of applicants may have more places in the pool, if the quality of the students who have applied isn't up to scratch in their subject. I was aware, for example, it was possible that I might be asked to go for an interview at St Hilda's college - because that's the only all women's college left, and it gets many many fewer applicants, because many people don't want to go to a single sex college. A greater proportion of St Hilda's students will be made up of candidates who actually applied to other colleges, than you'd find at any other college. I'm not sure if this is the case at Cambridge where there's more than one all female college

(The male only colleges are religious orders, so they're not strictly considered colleges, they're called 'permanent private halls - that's another subject entirely)

In practice the number of applicants significantly exceeds the number of places in almost all scenarios, so it's much much more likely that you won't be offered a place, than that you will get pooled and get a place at another college

Or what PP said!!

Durham has a collegiate system - I had to pick a college when I applied (scratches head to remember which college I applied to)

I seem to remember Trinity College Dublin also does, cba to Google to see if I'm mis remembering

I'm not sure if the system works in the same way as Oxbridge however - hopefully other posters may be able to advise

St Hildas is co ed now.

What banana said! When I was there it was rare to meet someone at Hilda's who had actually applied there. I wonder if that has changed now that it admits men. The pooling system should theoretically mean that talented students don't slip through the net because their chosen college is full. Sometimes capacity is created if an offeree requests to defer, too.

I remember going to a lecture on Oxbridge admissions at a university access day in year 12 and being surprised that it was entirely about gaming the system and getting in at all costs - e.g. as a woman, apply for chemistry at Hilda's because there are only 0.7 applicants per place as opposed to PPE at Christ Church with 4.7 applicants per place (I'm paraphrasing and I don't remember the exact figures). I do not recommend taking this approach!

You can't apply for both Oxford and Cambridge in the same year. The UCAS deadline is earlier, too - October rather than January - along with medicine and veterinary science pretty much everywhere.

Only Oxford and Cambridge teach in college as far as I am aware. They are also unusual as the Tutorial is such a key teaching tool.

@YippieKayakOtherBuckets is bang on - because I wanted to defer, there was a greater chance of being pooled and sent to St Hilda's. Because to get a place at my chosen college, they had to decide at my interview if they thought they would want to offer me a place over next year's cohort of applicants, who they hadn't yet interviewed.

I remember being asked if I would give up deferred entry for a gap year, in case they decided they wanted to offer me a place for this year's entry, but weren't willing to take a punt on giving a place away for next year

(I said if it came down to a place or no place, I'd give up the gap year, but I explained my reasons for wanting deferred entry. I was fortunate enough to be offered a place for deferred entry, but was given an AAA offer, where others got AAB, I seem to remember - this was in 1999, however, so much will have changed!)

At Cambridge and I think Oxford too, colleges are responsible for the non-teaching stuff. They'll do the admissions and interviews, rent you accommodation, offer personal support if you need it. You can get your mail sent to the college and pick it up at the pigeonholes at the entrance. The colleges usually have their own dining hall, common room, bar, chapel, and sports teams for the popular sports (rowing, football, rugby, etc). They have their own student unions (JCR for undergrads and MCR for grad students) who'll organise events. The college also sorts out your tutorials - a professor, you, and maybe one or two other students discussing some work the professor set.

The facilities are normally all at the 'central site'; most colleges also have accommodation on other sites and that's more like a 'regular' hall of residence or shared house. They like to put first years at central site so it's easier and you're less likely to feel isolated.

The university with its departments, apart from its colleges, does the teaching. So students from all colleges in each subject will be attending the same lectures and practicals, and sitting the same exams. There's also social activity, sports, and hobbies at university-wide level. If you want to do something less common like fencing, rock climbing, or ham radio, that will probably be done by a university-wide student group.

Durham I think is somewhat similar, but maybe the colleges do a bit less there and the university does more?

Trinity College Dublin is an unusual case. In theory it has a collegiate structure like Oxford and Cambridge, but there's only one college. So I think it ends up being a legal distinction with no practical effect at Dublin.

There's also a bit of snobbery amongst the colleges. Not all colleges were created equally .

I went from a northern state/grammar school to an ex women's college when dinosaurs still roamed the earth and loved every minute and still feel immensely grateful and proud that I had that experience. It was worth it to me and now that DS is at an RG uni doing a similar course, I see even more how lucky I was to go to Oxbridge. The work was far more intense and harder than what is expected of DS.
My college though relatively poor gives more bursaries and financial support than any other college in Oxford (so contrary to what Tamale claims up thread). It is a very diverse student body and provides 3 years guaranteed, on site accommodation at subsidised cost. It also puts a huge effort into outreach and its pastoral care has been transformed since I was there.
I felt and still do feel, that I am part of a community in a way that non collegiate unis perhaps don't. I will always be welcome in college, to use its facilities.
The hooray Henrys are really not an issue and there is no reason why someone from a state/financially disadvantaged family should not fit in. It's a big uni. There's someone for everyone and you never know, you might find that you can get along with people from different backgrounds. I mixed with aristocracy and others who are now very famous or important. They are all just people!

On the money issue, to be fair I will say that I received a substantial bursary from a source other than the university or college, around £3000 a year for three years. I don't think comparable funding would have been available from the college. Without that extra funding I would have had to either find sufficiently well-paid work in the holidays (not guaranteed), break Cambridge's restriction on term time work, or drop out.

mateysmum When did you go to your college? I went in the last few years. Like I said, there's not as much funding for support due to disability issues in some colleges. They'll just force people into rusticating.

mateysmum What college was this? M

I think as well, don't get your heart set on a specific college when applying. Most people end up getting pooled- especially for arts/humanities subjects. Also, everyone is raving about the collegiate system, but it can actually worsen an already terrible experience if your the other people in your college are very snobby and cliquey.

• If you end up in a college where no one is friendly towards you and you're deliberately excluded, then it can be extremely alienating. Yes, you can participate in extracurricular stuff, but if the students you meet through sports or drama already have a group of friends from their own college, they very rarely will reciprocate your efforts to socialise outside of the stuff you're doing.