Salt burn makes me worry for poor kids at ‘posh’ unis.

[Pippetypoppity]

Im beginning to think certain Universities have much wealthier students on average and a kid from a poorer background would have a hard time perhaps ? Oliver in Saltburn was almost ostracised. Dc is looking at Exeter and Bath as favs. Not going to have any of the spending money, nice things from home the private school kids there will have I’m guessing. Will they have a hard time and be excluded in any way do you think. Horrible to think that as pretty shy and socially awkward anyway 🥹.

This is such nonsense, such an outdated stereotype.

Agree with PPs on general class mixing and it being a leveller. For me the bigger issue is the vast number of international students mainly from one country, who are mostly rich too. 50% of the students at some unis, 70% at the Scottish one a family member works at. See also threads in HE here about people's DC having various challenges because of this.

Yes generally a student finds their gang, but there's v little mixing between the above big group and the rest.

ds is at Bath - he has kids from Harrow and local comps in his flat - they all seem to get on ok. It's not a posh uni at all from what I can see?

Think Exeter does have a larger public school cohort, but again as a % of total nos they're pretty low - it's about finding your own tribe at these places and with that many freshers it should be ok?

All the posh kids will be pretending to be poor working class salts of the earth anyway

Saltburn is a very silly film. That is all. The most socially accurate thing about it is that it was written by some wealthy Oxford student who understands aristocratic fear of the middle/lower classes comin' over here and stealin' our privilege, treatin' our elite establishments like a bleedin' meritocracy. Even at Oxford and Cambridge, a huge number of students are state educated. The same will be true of Exeter, Bristol, Warwick etc. Some super rich, others more average.

I think your child will be fine if the course and the city feel right.

It is now, 30 years ago it was 44-50%.

Some colleges favoured private schools and some favoured state, so some would be dominated by one or the other.

goodness OP, you must get concerned about so very much if you so easily extrapolate from fictional TV dramas

but presumably you couldn’t have afforded to?

Exeter has a reputation for having a lot of private school kids of a certain tweedy vibe. It's certainly not everyone there. It will also probably depend on what course he's planning on doing.

I was at Oxford when Saltburn was set. Many of the really wealthy kids - fee fixing boarding schools - tended to keep to themselves, hang out with people they went to school with. But not all of them. Upper middle class kids - good London independent day schools - mixed with everyone, and interests the same as most of the comp kids.

I went up from a rural grammar, lower middle class parents (office jobs, mortgage, no skiing). My friendship group was pretty mixed - probably 50/50 independent school and not. I always felt the bigger divide was between London kids - who just seemed cool, and knowledgeable about life - and those of us who were excited when our town got a H&M.

What would you say is more accurate?

I can assure you that they are not, and that, if they were, it wouldn't fool anyone for a second. A friend of mine at Oxford lived out in second year in a houseshare, which included a girl who had never done the washing up in her life, and hung over the sink in bewildered admiration when my friend started doing it, asking how she knew how much washing up liquid to use (and had to be reminded to rinse it off when she took her turn she also used to get grocery deliveries from Fortnum's). I knew someone who spent half of the year in London annually, but had never been on the tube. Quite a lot of people found my jobs (very ordinary teenage stuff shopwork, fruit-picking, au pairing) and things like hitching very exotic.

Sorry, unintentional strike-through.

What an interesting thread. You've had quite a lot of scorn poured on you, OP, from people who are determined you should understand that Saltburn is fictional, but that doesn't mean it has absolutely.no basis in real life, or that it's not natural to worry when a child is making major life choices and/or leaving home.

There may well be a smaller percentage range of privately -educated kids at a given Oxbridge college but IME, they are often louder, more confident and take up more space, as it were, than the less cocky state school kids who might take a bit longer to find their feet. Hence it can seem unbalanced, both in a film like Saltburn and occasionally in real life.

I went to an Oxbridge reject uni when Saltburn was set and tbh the only element I found unrealistic was Felix even taking up with Oliver - I felt there was enough class division at my uni that that just wouldn't have happened. Hot posh people had hot posh friends, and that was that! That's not to say there wasn't a certain amount of mixing/mobility between groups, but it was definitely fairly tribal (with notable exceptions etc, don't @ me).

You can’t be for real!

Bath is fine. Exeter I would avoid if you're not rich.

Im beginning to think certain Universities have much wealthier students on average and a kid from a poorer background would have a hard time perhaps ? Oliver in Saltburn was almost ostracised.

Oh, OP, Saltburn was a very silly film. It was a complete fiction, and no university is like that for the majority of students.

Maybe there are still some students who think they're living in a modern version of Brideshead, but it's not how modern universities actually are (I've taught in universities since the 1980s).

What is so incredible? That someone people don't know how to wash up because they've literally never done it? That some people who live in Knightsbridge don't go on the tube? That some of them consider a WC teenager's life as having involved more experience than their own?

65% of Exeter students are state educated - are you implying they’re all rich?

Trust me, salt burn is no more based on real life than east Enders is.

Most "posh" kids are normal, fun loving and kind. They won't deliberately rib anyone about not having had money. They might even wish they had had less of a luxury life if they feel it singles them out. Snobbery does work both ways with class.

I think if your kids are open minded and happy in themselves they probably wouldn't rule out being friends with someone with more money either. Therefore they are unlikely to have a problem with it - might even feel lucky if they house share with people who can get takeaways and have left overs more often! You can get idiots in any social class but Uni is a good way to make friends with all backgrounds and broaden your opinions.

Exeter does a lot of outreach and low offers for West Country students, there are also quite a few students from Wales. Therefore a pretty good mix, and in all these unis the majority are still state school pupils.

Generally it's the Welsh students who have all the money, regardless of background. They have such great finance they end up subbing everyone else!

What a load of nonsense.

Op what skills do you think they're missing? You talk about not eating out so is it variety of food, which cutlery to use? With travel, not much you can do now but did you do cultural stuff with them? Have you raised them to be tolerant and open minded? I'd concentrate on specific things rather than the damaged going adult who murders a family for their wealth

Thanks or your comment but I'm not really sure what you're after here - do you want me to disbelieve the evidence of my own eyes?! 😁 As I said, I went to an Oxbridge reject uni in the early 2000s and saw and heard some things that would.not at all have been put of place in Saltburn. I'm certainly not saying all RG HEIs were like that 20-25yrs ago, or even all Oxbridge colleges - I'm just saying that IME, some of the tropes shown in the film have basis in fact. Like @LookAtAllThoseRoses, I encountered some people that had to be seen to be believed!

Exeter and Bath aren’t posh universities.