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.

Hmm I still think that the rick crowd of that kind of outlook would be unlikely to be all in one place, in the nature of things. But yes, it would be crappy if it happened and you were the odd one out.

And in the context of this thread, the inappropriate serves wouldn't have been half as annoying if they'd been pronounced like that rather than 'sarve'.

rich crowd.

On my two-day trip from my state school to see if I wanted to apply to Oxbridge 20 years ago, I saw a poster for a winter ball with tickets at £100, and our guide clicked her fingers to the staff when she wanted more chips at dinner. I knew that this would not be the place for me!

Bizarrely I made it to a RG uni without having even heard of a gap year or knowing what an internship or training contract was. Sadly, I wouldn't be disadvantaged 'enough' to get an Oxbridge state school 'quota' place now.

Academic ability and potential is important... But anyone who doesn't think that connections and confidence are the things that make the wheels turn at uni, at work and in many social circles is deluding themselves. This is what private education buys you really.

There's one very snobby boy in DD1's College with a super plummy accent, dresses like Sebastian Flyte, wears a monocle and challenged another boy to a duel. He's from a Northern comp and his parents sound like Geoffrey Boycott. Never judge a book by its cover.

I think judging anyone for being so insecure they need to brag about belonging to a croquet club is a little bit mean.

Most of the push and non posh friends I made at a similar university decades ago all cringe when we think about how we behaved.

I’d have cringed more if I’d thought my mother was posting about it on social media.

Not entirely sure what your point is OP?

Since the OP has not come back to this thread after the first few posts and doesn't have a long posting history, I think we can fairly safely assume that none of it actually happened as it is described. I think it is what is described as 'baiting' to see who bites.

Not that there are not entitled people with poor social skills at Oxford, I'm sure, but I really don't believe that anyone interviews their friends by finding out if they have a 'lodge' somewhere. And I certainly don't believe that the signet ring caressing girl, if she even exists, is boasting that daddy pulled strings for her to get in. I would imagine she would keep that very quiet.

Real rich and upper class teens wouldnt need to ask you about abything let alone your 'lodge'

They just know

The girls also wear signet rings! Often given as 18th birthday or 21st presents with the family crest engraved on them. If you have not seen them, you haven’t mixed in life!

Quite a few university students contribute towards the “X uni problems” tweets. These take the piss of the over top posh types by tweeting possible and obviously ludicrous comments made by them. One assumes the targets of the jokes don’t read the tweets but it is quite a useful way to vent without offending anyone. So if you read “Just asked mummy to get the tiara out of the vault for the ball” - don’t take it literally! It’s like Overheard in Waitrose for students.

Bubbles in 'old' families it's definitely not a girl thing. That is not to say old money is better than new but traditionally absolutely not ok for a girl to wear a signet ring. (Someone is now going to tell me Elizabeth 1 wore one to which I'd counter that she probably wore one qua 'King').

When my sister and I were dividing up the contents of my mother’s jewellery box after her death, we found a small signet ring - far too small for any man, and very old. Just saying.

Ok Bubbles I've just found an article saying they're now all the rage for women and Pippa Middleton is never without hers. I'm clearly old and crusty :)

On my two-day trip from my state school to see if I wanted to apply to Oxbridge 20 years ago, I saw a poster for a winter ball with tickets at £100, and our guide clicked her fingers to the staff when she wanted more chips at dinner. I knew that this would not be the place for me!

That's a ridiculously arbitrary reason for not applying -- balls are not compulsory (and there are certainly much cheaper ones), and people with appalling manners attend all universities.

No one with a functioning brain cell would think Oxford was a 'bastion of egalitarianism', but I was a working-class foreigner at ChCh in the 1990s, and while, yes, the place was stuffed full of public school types (which I knew when I chose it, for other reasons), and was certainly not set up to provide the daughter of a bin man and a hospital cleaner with familiar surroundings, but the college did its best for me in lots of ways, was generous with scholarships and hardship funding, and I made lots of friends from all kinds of backgrounds to whom I'm still very close, there and at other colleges.

I wasn't going to get bent out of shape because the Cardinals or the Alices or the Piers Gaveston weren't knocking on my door, or because some people were clutsering around class signifiers I'd barely heard of.

I'd hardly left my home country before I arrived at Oxford we never took holidays when I was growing up I'd certainly never ski-ed, and the closest I'd been to croquet was the illustrations to Alice in Wonderland, but it turns out you can learn to play croquet. You aren't disqualified from picking up a mallet by your Low Birth, and nor are you debarred from making friends with a croquet half-blue called Rupert.

It was at times a discombobulating but brilliant experience.

Which is a lengthy way of saying that I don't like the perpetuation of the 'Not for the likes of us' mode of thinking.

Maria some men had teeny weeny little fingers. My MIL tried to persuade me to have an old family Welsh gold ring melted down for my wedding ring and it was teeny weeny. The reason I wasn't keen was because it was a ring belonging to a man. So clearly some men do have those sort of fingers.

Oh, and the people living the Brideshead-and-tiaras dream in my day were primarily wealthy overseas students (one American did break out her tiara on occasion, and seemed disappointed we didn't all have one) and/or graduate students who didn't get in as undergraduates and were determined seize their postgrad moment to dress like 19thc gentleman farmers and pace around Mercury smoking pipes in tweed etc etc.

Helvetica I'm with you. I have degrees from both of Oxbridge. I'm not working class, but I'm certainly neither posh nor moneyed Southeast (NI state school) and in 4 combined years at the two unis, I never saw a signet ring, got asked about a lodge, or anything even vaguely resembling some of these anecdotes. I met a lot of people. Most were friendly. Some were named Henry, went to private school and wore pink shorts. Some were from Bolton and liked gravy chips. I went to lectures, joined the football team, drank a lot of college bar pints, played the quiz machine and gained a world-class education.

Signet rings are hugely naff

It’s interesting because I think if you are foreign you may get an easier time than if you were from a place like Wigan for example. It’s hard to work out what your class is if you are an overseas student.

It’s hard to work out what your class is if you are an overseas student.

Exactly why our DC at Cambridge had to field so many questions about whether he had been to a state or a private school in Paris - other students wanted to pigeonhole him.

Maria to be fair to the other students they were probably making polite conversation with your DSS - when someone comes from elsewhere to do a Masters people have got way beyond asking about school, though they do generally want to know where you did undergrad, if only to place you (not literally place as in rank, but out of interest). I'm quite sure that no-one at Cambridge wanted to 'pigeon-hole' him anyway, the Cambridge courses at that level are far too mixed for any of this English class silliness.

He’s very perceptive, goodbyestranger, and he knows the English class thing inside out. He enjoyed playing with their prejudices. Still does ;)

horsemadmom one of my own DD's at the same college had someone in her year exactly like that, less the challenge to a duel. I remember catching sight of this vision performing his lonely constitutional around the grounds in weird garb and saying wtf but in fact he mellowed markedly and dropped the affectations pretty soon, certainly by second year. Perhaps they admit one a year to see how long it takes to drop the tweed etc.

I’m Irish, which means the default code is working class, unless you’re a Guinness the Knight of Glin.

Perhaps he likes to amuse you Maria or perhaps he reads too much into ordinary social exchanges. Either way, I don't buy it I'm afraid - as a group, they really wouldn't care.