Elitism at Oxford

[piso]

I thought I would post this, not to put people off, but rather to make them aware that Oxford isn't the bastion of egalitarianism that it claims to now be.

My Dd is in her first year at a well known Oxford college. It is an old prestigious one, that has a reputation for being particular pro state school.

In her year group, there is a clear clique of London schoolers, think St Pauls and Westminster. They tend to bother with one another only. "Do you have a place in London?" "I'm from London, smugly the middle bit" "Oh you're so South Ken"

Then there are the old Eton boys, Radley boys etc who seem to also stick to one another.

Private dining societies are still a big thing in Oxford. Whilst apparently they are open to non private school kids, you have to be invited and considered suitable. Ergo, those who come from certain families, went to certain schools.

Favourite activities are skiing and horses. Where are you going skiing this vac? Oh you don't ski? "Our family have known each other forever, we always ski together at Klosters"

DD's neighbour for example is a third generation Oxonian. She proudly caresses her signet ring when talking down to others. She said in freshers week that she'd only consider dating someone from Eton, or Harrow if she had to as she wants a husband like her dad. This girl didn't even get the entry requirements for her course, but after some negotiation got in.

My point being, far from reverse snobbery, is that there still is clearly a large group of hugely entitled people at Oxford. Being born wealthy is certainly none of their faults (nor is it a problem!). DH is from the boarding school type of family, but there seems to be a high preponderance of rich, London type who are keen on being exclusionary.

Never have I been asked in a snobbish way where I went to school, but dd has numerous times, and not in an interested way; a way to see if you are suitable for friendship.

Some friendship groups at her college this year were very much decided based on appropriate background. You get a tick if you're from London. A tick if you went to a select few schools. A tick if your parents know of one another. Another tick if you have a lodge somewhere too.

OP, I think you may have actually set back the cause of greater diversity at Oxford.

None of this is surprising - it is human behaviour, like trying to find like. People refer to what is normal for them. If they ski or ride, that is what they talk about. They are probably trying to find common ground.

Replay those conversations substituting your county for London, the name of your local town for South Kensington, camping for skiing and football for croquet. The last is not a perfect substitution, I admit!

It is also worth remembering that people who have been to elite schools often are very able and are extremely well prepared for university life. They are privileged, yes - but that does not negate their ability. Hence they still get selected in droves for Oxbridge and RG universities, because they meet the criteria in addition to all the support that an elite school will give to facilitate their entry.

Needmoresleep people seem to do a fair bit of growing up at Oxford ahead of going into a profession, certainly if my DC and their friends are anything to go by. It's a major leap to say that the behaviour described by OP is a standard attribute of the 'scarily accomplished'. More like an attribute of the sort of student who needs an Oxford education to broaden his or her horizons a bit more and learn that the enemy has at least equal talent too.

Although on the whole I'm with Irma. It sounds very much as though OP's DD is letting a limited and entirely manageable problem get under her skin which is a sure recipe for being miserable.

It's a major leap to believe that the behaviour described by the OP actually exists at all. I don't know who the enemy is or might be. My sons went to a private secondary school and have never skiied in their lives, nor for that matter ridden a horse nor had a second home nor spent summers on a landed estate. Many of their friends ski as do many of their friends from primary school who didn't go to private secondary school. If several of your school friends have started at the same university as you, it's not uncommon for you to spend some time with them at first as you all find your feet. And who aged 18 actually says: "Do you have a place in London?" They don't sound very ... contemporary. I never met anyone remotely like that even 30 years ago.

The enemy would be those excluded from the particular coterie described by OP, who appear to believe that they're superior to those that they're excluding.

Durham was/is like this in parts.

The "Rahs" were definitely not the majority though. And many were the butt of jokes by lots of the student population.

But don't dismiss them all. Some of the nicest people I met there were SO posh and turned out to be lovely, welcoming and found a few of us mouthy northern girls on their courses good company. Many a good night had at their college formals.

There are wealthy, privileged, narrow minded cliques in many universities and in countries all over the world. If that’s not your thing, stay away and do things you enjoy more!

Except if you are walking around with a big chip on your shoulder, in which case you see kids who went to private/grammar schools as the enemy.

The truth is that in any setting, some people mix happily with people who are different to them. Others dont. And actually thd Oxford student body is pretty homogenous. Bright kids of about the same age. You wont like everyone, and everyone wont like you, but you will make more friends if you keep an open mind rather than judge.

From observation, “spoilt and arrogant” is a lifestyle segment. Parents, children huddling together being ultra competitive and showing off to the exclusion of almost any other activity.

but you will make more friends if you keep an open mind rather than judge.

Absolutely.

Except if you are walking around with a big chip on your shoulder, in which case you see kids who went to private/grammar schools as the enemy.

Have we moved away from a discussion of Oxbridge?

I can't remember ever being lumped in with the privately educated in my life.

Come to think of it, I've never heard a grammar student or alumnus do the "what school did you go to" silliness, either.

Nor the comprehensively educated, come to that.

It's funny how everyone else seems to get through life without behaving in this way.

Exactly this. I was open minded enough to chat with the super posh boys on my course. One (landed gentry, huge pad) had monogrammed slippers . Another had a picture of the queen on the desk in his room. Did Morris dancing.

I am sort of glad I found out about these quirks after I spoke to them regularly or j might've been more judgy. But they were gents and gems every one of them. Delightful, funny guys.

If I had a chip on my shoulder I'd have heard the accent, seen the cords etc and avoided. As it happens, I did a huge eyeroll in a lecture which made them laugh, and got chatting to them afterwards.

I'd say they were normal....I'm not sure they were. But they were lovely, smart guys who could laugh at themselves (they got a huge ribbing on a regular basis) and were great company. I'd have missed out.

My dc attended a course for young people interested in journalism which was in London. He was literally the only Northerner there. Somebody asked if the news had to be dumbed down for Northerners. He was horrified.

There's dickheads in every part of society and at every university.

Just find people you like and hang with them.

My DD has recounted similar behaviour at her uni; people asking which school she went to then walking off without another word when it wasn’t a name school they are familiar with. Fortunately there are enough plebs not to make this a massive issue at uni.

Scary how invested some posters are in minimising young people’s real experience of class based social exclusion and in excusing the behaviour of those doing it.

It doesn’t surprise me that the dc act like this when I read some posts on mumsnet.

One of our DC, who is French and went to school in France before university in the U.K., regularly had to field questions at Cambridge along the lines of “So, DC1, did you go to a state or a private school in Paris?”

DS is currently at Oxford and hasn't really come across this. He's said that Northerners are more of a minority than Austrians but everyone is really nice. He's in a very small unfashionable college though and doing physics not PPE so that might explain it.

FWIW I went to Leeds University in the 1980s and most of my friends turned out to be ex public school or indie and were great. I went to state school but nobody discussed it.

The depressing thing is that whilst this is something a student might encounter anywhere (as the posts up thread show) if it happens at Oxford it's somehow seen as a moral failing of the whole institution. I can't imagine you'd have a thread on 'Elitism at Newcastle' or 'Bath isn't the bastion of egalitarianism that it claims to now be' if a student felt similarly excluded. It creates a myth around Oxford and leads to applicants from state schools self-excluding like DD's friend I mentioned above who rejected Oxford for Bristol because she was worried about the high number of private pupils at Oxford, seemingly not realising that Bristol is about the same.

Not that I think the number of private school pupils is a sensible reason for rejecting a place anyway but I might if I were 17 and reading the OP.

Why are people so scared of toffs? There were loads when I was at Oxford. Not intimidating in the slightest. We're all people, after all.

But they were gents and gems every one of them. Delightful, funny guys.

And therefore not only showing the world that posh people can be nice, too, which is great (and, of course, perfectly true) but also demonstrating that they were the complete opposite of the students encountered by TinklyLittleLaugh's DD.

A mark of true class being the willingness and ability to converse with anyone, my mum used to say.

There’s an article in the Times today. It’s paywalled but I think it is a ‘Oxbridge are not fair - there’s positive discrimination against people who have paid for private school’.