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.

Yes, my anecdotes are similar to yours, MI - I went to a school (abroad) where only the very brightest, with parents willing and able to help them, applied to Oxbridge. Inevitably all those that made it got Firsts/went on to do starry PhDs etc.

Well you shouldn't make huge assumptions based on ONE person's opinion (remember, opinion is not fact...) from ONE college of about 39 undergrad colleges in Oxford.

I went to Oxford, and I went to state primary and secondary school. I received no extra Oxbridge prep tutoring, and no extra exam tutoring. My college had a good mix of state/private students - and to top it off, a good mix of northerners, southerners, Scots, Welsh, Irish and international students.

Yes plenty of people work hard who don't get in, but this is simply down to LIMITED PLACES. Quite logical really.... particularly when so many students get 4 As at A level these days. Oxford cannot possibly admit every student with straight As.

Perhaps your sister needs to make some more friends, and maybe then she'll have a more realistic view on Oxford as a whole. (And I only left Oxford in 2007, so I like to think I have a fairly recent experience too)

I went to Oxford and I'm very reassured that most of the cabinet went to Oxford/Cambridge. I think a lot of people have a very outdated view of Oxford/Cambridge, really the whole emphasis now is on outreach and trying to encourage state school pupils to apply (that's one of the main problems in widening access actually getting applicants from state schools/poor backgrounds etc).

My friends from Oxford are all very normal (albeit intelligent, hardworking and aspirational) people from normal backgrounds, none of them had rich parents and certainly no one I knew there had "bought" their place or where there as the result of some sort of "privilege". Yes there are the odd few like that but it really is the minority. It's extremely competitive and you have to be not only bright but articulate and able to think not just repeat facts and pass exams. And yes I do think in comparison with many other universities you get a different sort of education.

So OP YADNBU

Right, argue all you want but I bet you'll prove the rule... All you Oxford/Cambridge graduates what are your backgrounds like? How many are entirely state educated from working class or poor backgrounds? How many middle/Upper class with various amounts of private education? Not saying for a second that most people don't need to work hard to get in BUT for lots of the population you can never hope for an undergraduate place at oxford or cambridge no matter how hard you work or intelligent you are. My sister really struggles to socialise because everytime the social group do anything it is very, very expensive and she can't afford it being on ordinary student money. We are privileged anyway - no private education but from a middle class background and a great state college.

Curiosity - my last post still applies to your most recent comment.

Curiosity, have you read my post? My point is that one reason, a big one, that young people from state schools don't get those places is precisely the belief that they're only for the brightest. I'm not saying this is a Good Thing. I was making an observation.

By the way, since you ask, my parents are middle-class academics; for the chunks of my life spent back in India (where my mother is from) I attended private schools (there is not much state education in India); the majority of my education, certainly from 14 onwards, was in a comprehensive school where most people didn't do very well.

YABVU

I dislike the way the media reports that, say, DC went to Eton and Oxford as if they are the same thing. For example, I had no chance of goingt o Eton whereas Oxford acepted me (with my baackground of Notherthern comprehensive school and working-class parents). And I believe strongly that academic elitism is something to be sought after and that the Oxford tutorial system is arguably the best teaching method and demands a lot of its students in the way that not all courses at other universities do. Eg, my sister's course in European Studies at a different university was just nowhere near as rigorous academically or in terms of workload as what I was expected to do

This is not to assume that Oxford students are brighter but I believe the Oxford system is more challenging (generally speaking, I'm sure not all courses etc are the same, eg, I think Oxford is not good for medecine etc).

I'm more concerned that the Cabinet is heavily white, privately-educated and male than their choice of university.

Cassell, I think the whole point is that the Cabinet is made up almost entirely of Oxbridge graduates from public schools.

Curiosity

I was brought up in Cumbria and went to state schools locally all through. Got my A levels and went to Trinity, Cambridge which I loved.

That said it is true my parents are middle class and both university educated themselves. However we didn't have much money - my father worked for a charity and my mother was a SAHM.

My experience was that Cambridge was a great place to have little money - generous travel grants, generous book grants, low rent which they didn't even bother charging half the time.

I can't relate at all to the thing about your sister and her social life. I had a group of about 10 close friends, half state half public school. We just used to drink in the college bar and go out for a pizza/curry that sort of thing. Once a year there was of course a big May Ball, but that was only £70 and well worth it. What is your sister doing that costs such a lot?

Agree with what magaly and motherinferior said. Also, not basing it on someone's opinion. Basing my opinion on what I have seen, the people I have met and the experiences my sister has had...

You are getting awfully het up...

I still think there are very few people from ordinary working class backgrounds who are able to go to Oxford no matter how intelligent they are and that Oxford is not a 'genuine mix'. My mum was shocked to discover what Oxford was like when my sister went having felt how you describe about intellectual merit and indulging academia all of her life.

I think unfortunately the genuinely poor often don't have the time or energy to commit to the level of study that getting into Oxford on your own merits will take, whilst some people are admitted purely on family connections or wealth so if it is about numbers why not ONLY admit people on academic merit? It does cost more to send my sister to Oxford, it has cost roughly the same to put my sister through her 3 year undergraduate degree as it did to put my other sister through a 5 year medical degree at another Uni. Cost is an issue.

curiosity - honestly, your sister needs to look for other social groups (except I guess it is a bit late if she is a finalist) - yes there are groups of people like that in Oxford, but there are a lot more ordinary skint students who want to do cheap stuff!

that her Oxford experience has not been all that it could be.

Being Northern was far more unusual than being state educated.

I was very skint at college and most of my friends were richer than me but it didn't make any difference to our social actvities etc. The beer was cheap.

Possibly though, many of us, depending on our age, can't reference what happened then to what happens now.
With tuition fees, more students attend uni and remain living at home. This might mean that the ones living in colleges etc are from wealtheir backgrounds where their parents can help. Or students who have plumped for large loans which many working class children will not do.

It could be my sister's chosen social group - her boyfriend is titled oxford grad type. You can have that.

I'm surprised that it costs more in your sister's experience curiosity - one of the good things about Oxford I thought is that there were tons of grants and subsidies etc (even for stuff like travelling in the holidays). Battels were heavily subsidised and so living in Oxford was much cheaper than my sisters' universities and my brother's (Edinburgh, Sheffield, York).

Hope your sister has a better time soon - I always thought Keble was one of the nicer colleges albeit a bit sporty for my liking!

PS I can also think of several of my contemporaries who came from very poor backgrounds in the inner cities eg London, Birmingham. They were really bright and were prominent in the college student union etc so the idea that they didn't fit in is just silly.

Lumping "Eton and Oxford" together is just silly. Oxbridge is now in a totally different category in terms of access, compared to the big public schools.

However, to be fair to them, the public schools are now making their own movement in this area. Lots of bursaries and scholarships for state school boys who are bright but don't have the money to pay. According to the Eton website 20% of Eton boys are on financial assistance, some on 100%.

Curiosity

I went to a private secondary school and to Cambridge, then Oxford. I knew some people at Cambridge who had expensive tastes and hobbies. At the moment I live in Oxford and the socializing amongst students seems mostly to consist of cups of tea in people's rooms by day and pints in the pub or in people's rooms by night. They mostly have jobs, at least in the holidays and some in term time.

When I applied for undergraduate, which was in 2003, Oxbridge was the cheaper option. To apply you needed to go to interview, but they would give you the train fare back if you couldn't afford it, and they put you up for the night. Once you were there there were no travel costs (unlike most campus universities) and my rent was a lot cheaper than friends in other places.

yes staranise - there's a huge difference between "eton and oxford" and "oxford". and lots of people, despite the evidence, are clearly determined to believe that they pretty much amount to the same thing. and want to put everyone in the same category.

Another Oxford graduate here - I've also been to LSE. And, if we're after massive anecdotal generalisations I may as well join in - the people I met at Oxford were much more "normal" (whatever that is) and had much more spark than those at LSE. LSE was full of spods.

Curiousity - my background?

Am first generation in this country. Parents arrived in 1976 with £5 in their pocket. Totally grafted their way to what they have now. I was state schooled all the way. No extra tuition. No grooming for interview. Maybe others on here were more confident 17/18 year olds - but I found the interviews truely hideous.

At one interview, I was interviewed by 5 tutors. All firing questions from different angles. I was asked to read a piece of work I had never come across before and prepare a essay for 9am the next morning. Then I had to read it out in front of all tutors. This went on for 4 days. It was hideous!

If we are going on personal opinion. The stinking rich are in the minority. The vast majority were normal, bright, ambitious kids who grafted.

Well, it costs my parents. They are middle class so income takes them out of the bracket and nothing is subsidised - they pay the going rate themselves. So accommodation and tuition fees cost them more at Oxford for my sister than at Liverpool where both my other siblings are/were.

And curiosity - I second the question, what on earth is your sister doing that costs so much. At my college, accomodation/ food/ even the bar is heavily subsidised. Everyone cycles everywhere - so cheap as chips there. And the most comprehensive libraries, so all texts you could need you can borrow.

With the exception of the balls - I cannot think of anything that cost an a lot of money. Even birthday parties were marked with picnics/ punting trips - not expensive! And the nightclubs, well they were dirt cheap.

How can tuition fees cost your parents more at Oxford than Liverpool when each university has to charge the same amount??

Your interview experience sounds like mine mistletoe - a truly hideous experience. At one of the interviews, one of the three tutors didn't bother to stop reading her newspaper.

Some of the other candidates had been prepped to the level that they were told what denier tights to wear.

LittleRedDragon - have jobs? My sister was told she was not allowed to work or she'd be kicked out - one of the reasons my parents find it more expensive to support her.