Turn down a Cambridge offer

[Wobbliebits]

My daughter and I were talking about the whole uni student experience.

Having spent a week at a Cambridge summer school and also visited her friend at a different uni for a week she feels that if someone went to oxbridge they would miss out on the nightlife, clubbing, staying up all night, eating beans on toast kinda thing.

I have no experience of being at a uni... are we stereo typing and being very judgemental to think this? And would someone be crazy to turn down an offer to study medicine at oxbridge due to these views?

Thank you for your thoughts 🙂

Is this a joke thread?

You would be absolutely insane to turn down medicine at Oxbridge if that’s the career that you want to go into; and you got an offer.

I certainly wouldn’t turn it down based on some strange ideas you’ve got. There’s plenty of student experience there.

A medicine degree will have very little by way of clubbing and staying out all night anyway, to be honest.

Surprised that someone who thinks this is smart enough to get an offer from oxbridge to study medicine.

Maybe she just doesn't want to go there. It's a lot of pressure and it's not for everyone.

Ummmm...my daughter is currently a student in Cambridge and does all of the above

Has she got a place or is this hypothetical?

And yes, I agree... being a medic doesn't give you much of a student experience at all tbh.

If it's medicine, then you can do medicine anywhere. No-one ever cares where you studied.

Most important issue is that people end up working near where they studied - does she want to end up in East Anglia?

You can do that or not do that at any university. However, some Doctors I know chose to do their training elsewhere as at the time, Cambridge wasn't considered the best course for Medics...

I used to work for a University. Studying medicine or nursing stopped some students from doing stuff as they were at the hospital a lot. Others studied a lot. They tended to socialise with others from their course.

DD1 at Oxford goes clubbing 3-4 nights a week going by FB posts. I think OP's DD might benefit from a visit and a chat with actual Oxbridge students.

I was at Oxbridge and went out at least as often as not! There might be less options than in a much bigger city, but there's certainly plenty of nightlife even excluding all of the college events. I also did my share of going out clubbing, getting in at 3 to finish an essay, hand in then sleep. Ditto beans on toast at 4 in the morning.
Honestly, Oxbridge doesn't suit everyone (I'd guess in the same way that any university might not be the best fit for everyone) and I had a couple of friends who left in the first year, but it would be crazy to turn down the offer because of the concerns you've mentioned.

That's a silly stereotype tbh. And if you have an offer from oxbridge you'd be pretty insane to turn it down.

Much clubbing, beans on toast and staying out all night was done when I was at med school by those who wanted to. Was renowned as a hard partying course.

However socializing pretty much happens with other medics wherever you are due to the nature of the course.

Um... depends whether your dd wants to accrue hideous debt while eating beans on toast, clubbing and staying up all night, or if her objective in going to university is to get a degree.

You’re welcome to eat beans on toast at Oxbridge, and they have nightclubs there too, but don’t let reality get in the way of your prejudices.

I genuinely wonder what she thinks students at Oxbridge eat, caviar and swan? I remember eating meatballs straight out of the tin in my room at one point.

It is true that unlike some other places you are less likely to live in a "student house" which you have to find for yourself, in Cambridge anyway. You are more likely to live in college rooms (which may not actually be in college). Doesn't stop you clubbing and eating beans.

I wanted to turn down my offer at Cambridge and go to York instead. My parents said I should do whatever I wanted to do but my head of sixth form told me that I'd be crazy to miss out on such an amazing opportunity. I listened to him and went to Cambridge. Rightly or wrongly, an Oxbridge degree opens a lot of doors and has made a huge difference to my life. I'm immensely grateful to my teacher for making me think again.

BTW, I stayed up all night quite a lot in Cambridge and went clubbing a fair bit too, along with lots of cultural, intellectual and voluntary activities as well. My student life was bloody fantastic!

I spent a year as a student pilot at Oxford Air Training School and the nightlife in Oxford was brilliant! Certainly the uni students living in the centre of town seemed to have a better social life than the student pilots living out in Kidlington and just going into town occasionally (was much poorer as a flying student than a uni student!) If she doesn't want to go to Oxbridge then she shouldn't have to, but lack of social life/clubbing is a poor excuse.

Is there any great advantage to doing medicine at Oxbridge vs medicine at any other good university with a medical school? It was always my understanding that the Oxbridge advantage is vastly diminished in the case of medicine.

I must admit, one of the reasons I was put off applying was when I visited Oxford aged about 16/17 and found the students seemed a lot less mature and streetwise than my friends and I thought we were at that age. The lack of proper nightlife in the city seemed like a big deal since we came from a reasonable sized northern city with a big going out culture. With the benefit of hindsight this was clearly bollocks and I'm sure I'd have enjoyed the experience, but at the time it felt like a step backwards. I chose to go somewhere more similar to my home city and have no regrets about that (and probably wouldn't have got into Oxford anyway) but you do have different priorities when you're 17 to when you're 30 odd.

*And yes, I agree... being a medic doesn't give you much of a student experience at all tbh.&

Wtf?

The medics were the most rowdy bunch at my uni. Followed closely by the lawyers.

When I was in Cambridge, the medics were renowned for their partying!

And if you have an offer from oxbridge you'd be pretty insane to turn it down.

No, you wouldn't. It would be insane to turn it down for reasons such as not experiencing eating beans from a can.

There are pretty sane reasons for turning Oxbridge medicine down for another place - for medicine the Oxbridge "advantage" in later employment does not play a role; medicine at Oxbridge takes 6 years; you typically have to move for your clinical stage anyhow; you might prefer the teaching methods at other medical schools.

And more generally somebody holding an Oxbridge offer is likely to have offers from other world leading departments in the UK. It is very sensible to balance the advantages and disadvantages of studying at each of them.

I went to Cambridge ten years ago and honestly, all the normal student activities happen there! A family member was also a medic at Cambridge, I believe he was one of the college organisers for clubbing events! He's now a consultant. Considering the amount of debt students can get into it might not be the best thing to choose a University just based upon what you can do socially, but what you can get out of the course. I know nothing about medicine but can only vouch for Cambridge as offering a fab student experience as well as having a top reputation. I went to a northern comprehensive and am not from money, just to dispel any Cambridge stereotype ideas. But everyone is different...I think good reasons for choosing a different uni might be if it was located somewhere your daughter prefers to be or offers a preferred course spec. Other unis offer fab courses too and an earlier poster who probably knows more than me suggested it doesn't matter where you get a medicine degree from...so anyway, good luck to your daughter and hope she has a fab time wherever she chooses to go

OP Is this a hypothetical question or has your DD actually been made an offer?

Given the UCAS deadline for oxbridge and medicine was less than a fortnight ago, I think it’s very unlikely that the OP’s DD has an actual offer, unless she has deferred entry.

So perhaps she should wait to see what offers she actually gets before asking this.