To be pleased most of the cabinet are Oxbridge graduates?

[sagerosemaryandthyme]

That's it really. Surely we want the brightest and best in the cabinet.

Sorry curiosity but your sister needs to get herself better organised then job-wise, that is hardly Oxford's fault and would apply to any univeristy!

What are you basing your assertion that people are let in purely on the basis of family wealth/status? That may have been the case 40/50years ago but certainly isn't ime anymore.

Yes the coven was near the ice rink, never went there but did go to the awful one in the westgate, can't remember what that is called though!

mistletoe - come on, nightclubs vs. politics? No competition!

curiousity - I wish you'd stop trotting out this idea that people get in through wealth and connections alone. where's your evidence?

also one of my bfs from college was a working class northern state educated lad.he married a working class state educated northern lass. they weren't unique.

there is no doubt that some people face bigger hurdles - but they're not insurmountable.

going off piste and talking about nightclubs is far more fun

Freuds is the one I'm thinking of - very big and lovely location but I don't remember it being that posh or studenty - lots of OUP used to hang out there (though they're probably all ex-students). Raouls was the one downstairs I think. Coven is the one near the station I think and was quite grungy.

DTMs was a dive. Cannot believe that Park End is still going in that awful shopping centre. I don't think there were any decent clubs in Oxford. Does anyone remember Shotover?

Po na na?? Is that the westgate one?

Curiosity

"because they let people in purely through family status/wealth"

How do you work this out? Do you think that in interviews they ask you whether your parents went to university, and how big their bank balance is and what they do for a living?

My interviewers were solely interested in whether I thought the modernization of the Tory party under Sir Robert Peel was inevitable given the Corn Law Question ... . They can't have had any idea about my background save for what was obvious from the the application form ie that I grew up in the sticks up north and went to state schools.

Park End is the one diagonal to DTM's. Which one you went to depended on length of queue.

Went back a good few years ago for the degree ceremony...and ended up in a new place, The Bridge...that was ok. And definitely more 'upmarket' than the others. But as a student I couldnt have afforded it.

Park End was in Westgate. PoNaNa was downstairs in Jericho I think. My Dh thinks my friends and I were very 'yah' because we hung out in Jericho rather than the college bar and/or the Bear.

I don't like the Cabinet being all white/male/public school-educated becasue it's so unrepresentative and removed from the everyday experience of the majority of the country. And I don't agree with private education but that's a topic for a whole other thread and I'm not getting into that here when I can reminisce about rubbish nightspots in 90s Oxford.

The one above the Westgate was Filth when I was there - 04-07. Disgusting place - always sticky...everything was so sticky.

Curiosity: "I think Oxford is not accessible for the average, intelligent, hard working, state educated pupil from a northern town with working class parents. For this reason, and because they let people in purely through family status/wealth I think it is an elitist and exclusive establishment"

I just don't understand what proof or evidence you have to be able to say "they let people in purely through family status/wealth". Can you please let us know???

What 'class' your parents are has absolutely no influence on your application - I far as I remember, there was no section on the UCAS form for you to tick working/middle/upper class.

I hate this preoccupation with class - the lines are so blurred anyway, how can you categorise people so generally??

Oh yes - what was the one in Westgate then? Very townie.

Curiosity

All my friends, both state school and private, worked for about 2/3 of the holidays and took about one month for travelling. We all saved up for the upcoming year.

If your sister doesn't want to work and save up then that's fine if your parents can afford it, but it's not an Oxbridge issue.

Fifth Avenue in the Westgate Centre. Park End is on Park End St going towards the station.

Fifth avenue!!! OMG! I had forgotten about all these places!

Park end defo not in westgate..frequented it far too frequently to know that.

I missed the 'northern towns' remark.

FWIW, my best mate at Cambridge was from Middlesborough, state school. One of her classmates was at another college. They weren't unusual.

I feel worried that I've not heard about half these clubs! Though, isn't Po Na Na the one near Debenhams?

I do slightly wonder if Curiosity's sister isn't spinning her parents a bit of a tale. 'Oh, no, mum, I couldn't work, the college would kick me out ... yes, I have to go to this expensive event, everyone does'. Sorry to be cynical but it sounds a little like that.

And I don't want to keep banging on Curiosity but I am from a Northern comp., working class background and Oxford was accessible to me.

I would agree with Fennel's breakdown - Oxford in my time consisted mainly of hard-working academically bright middle class children from the better sort of state school or minor public schools. But it was open to all (unlike Eton or a career in politics it seems).

Yes Po Na Na is the one near Debenhams.

Curiosity - your assertions seem a little odd. I can assure you (having been at both the student and the admissions end of this debate) that Oxford does NOT let students in "purely through family status/wealth". There may be a very occassional case of it in the odd College that is either a) very broke or b) a little snobby, but it is so rare that I'd be willing to bet that the cases number in single figures each year.

As I and others have explained, the problem is not with access to Oxford, which really tries to be socially inclusive, it's with the perception of access on the part of potential students.

YABU - I would rather they had a handle on the real world to be honest rather than their privileged bubbles.

I went to Cambridge - state educated throughout, comprehensive secondary school, middle-class mum, working-class dad. No money, no 'connections', nothing except hard work and intelligence (I suppose, although don't feel that intelligent most days ).

Oh, and I got a job in a pub and supported myself throughout. Yes, you're not allowed to have a job but I got one, didn't mention it to my tutors and am still here to tell the tale!

And I met a whole group of people there from very similar state school backgrounds to myself. With all due respect, curiosity, you really are talking rubbish!

very antiquated view imo.They only did the cruddy subjects that they did because they couldn't get onto a law coure at oxbridge, or anywhere for that matter.I am of course talking about Bert and Ernie, not the rest of them,because I don't know too much about their academic backgrounds.

You are not only being unreasonable, you're also being naive if you think all or even most people who are Oxbridge are clever. I recently went to a wedding where the groom and most of his friends were Oxford graduates. I remember commenting to DH after the wedding at how mediocre, even stupid, the 'Oxford bunch' were. If they were academically superior it really didn't show in their conversations. I was surprised at how Oxford actually accepted people like that. Yes, some from Oxbridge may be clever but having read there doesn't guarantee it. That probably applies to any University.

i get what you're trying to say OP, but like the majority of the people on this thread im going to have to disagree.
thats like saying that tuition fees shouldnt be capped because the teaching at Oxbridge is so superior to all other unis.
my daughters childhood friend is off to Cambridge this September, and he will receive every bit of help available, as he so deserves. there shouldnt be a price on education!

and Nick Griffin went to Cambridge, proving that being booksmart isnt a measure of any real intelligence

It is not the fact that they are Oxbridge that concerns me, it's the fact that the people of integrity seem to have fallen by the wayside, and the young clique running the conservative party at the moment consists of political lightweights with good family connections, plus the slimiest slimey schemers.

Some of the slimeballs have good brains, but none of them seem to have the sort of good, solid background outside the magical world of spin, that a cabinet ought to have in spades.

By "spin" I mean politics + media.

For life experience, we're left with the older generation.

There were people of integrity in politics in Oxford in the 80s - some of them women - but they are nowhere to be seen now.
Meanwhile, the big mistake that the clique is making is thinking that sharp brains and an ability for sneaky cliquery is enough to win votes from ordinary people, and run the country.
The first has been proved wrong...

I've seen no evidence Nick Griffin is booksmart. He got a 2.2 in any case, so he is obviously one of their mistakes.

Britfish - I strongly dispute that the teaching in Oxford is better than elsewhere. My experience is that Oxford tutors are undertrained, and far too arrogant and uninterested to make good teachers. They are the sort of people who passed every single exam in their lives without problems, and cant understand why anyone else might find anything difficult.
In other universities, the tutors are more realistic, I think, and actually teach.