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.

Helvetica I get that but... At 18 I wasn't blessed with the insight of years and experience... No-one to tell me that there were cheaper balls, no-one to show me that it's ok to have good manners. My duke of Edinburgh award and Saturday job seemed insignificant compared to the folk who'd been trekking in Peru or were working towards a pilots licenced. It was an open day (well couple of days actually). I was academically capable. But I felt as though I might as well have been from the moon as from a state school in a northern town.

But most people even from private schools aren't working towards private pilot's licences or even trekking in Peru. I do know someone amongst the children of our acquaintances who went to Latin America for some of a gap year, to be fair, but he worked in a shop for 6 months to earn the money. I don't know anyone training to be a pilot. Most of them have bar jobs in the summer or work for waitering services. Of course there are a few snobby fools at many universities, but the vast majority of students are eager to have new experiences and meet different people.

I am of the opinion also this is probably not a real problem - And to @Atalune - yes I genuinely believe there are not swathes there because of their position.
How many at Oxford 12,000 u/g ? - haven't googled it so if I am way out you may claim your £5. Enough anyway you can ignore cliques if you so choose

But Heart, I felt the same way about the Duke of Edinburgh awards! (Or music lessons, or going abroad on holiday, or having parents who worked in white collar jobs, or having anyone else in the family who’d gone to university.) One person’s normal is another person’s out of the world exotic.

I am a bit that people are still in denial about this sort of thing. I have been on the receiving end of snobbery and assumptions about me for pretty much all my life. I can say that it’s a definite thing. As I said earlier my dc had a taste of this at an event in London where someone asked if the news has to be dumbed down for Northerners. Imagine for one second being the only Northerner in the room, as he was, and having to listen to that crap.

A family member was told by a boy in her college 'you're not what I expected someone from a state school to be like' (she went to a well regarded school in north London, not exactly deprived). I think a lot of privately educated people are so 'protected' from society they don't really know anything about the great unwashed. DH is still a bit like this, I can't let him near workmen because he puts on a fake cockney accent, calls them mate and then is excessively rude if he's not happy about something.

But University is a big place, you just ignore the weirdos and find your own tribe.

@piso I hope your daughter has found good friends and is enjoying that aspect as well as the academic side.

I went to Oxford and didn't really get exposed to the side of it you describe...not denying it is there; I must have been lucky, and it probably passed me by -- your dd is likely more observant than I was. I am also from Oxford so could tap into the "town" side of it more easily, probably.

I was invited to a private dining society event on one occasion and didn't go; I never felt I missed out as a result of that!

I think that clubs and societies beyond college and in line with her interests might help, if she is feeling isolated by any chance. Particularly things that take you outside the student bubble, like volunteering in the museums (not only students who do this); folk bands if she likes music...etc.

Is she in her first year? Hopefully some of the cliques may disband to some extent as the people in them get less insecure...

You seem to think, goodbyestranger, that we don’t meet his friends and acquaintances. We do. Paris is not exactly off the beaten track and we go to London/wherever pretty often. So I think we have a more accurate assessment than yours, which is purely speculative ;)

So have I, how. It’s not unusual.

I was at a dinner party given by the parents of an Oxford friend in the vac, I think in my second year, and a man next to me literally couldn’t believe I knew my friend because we were on the same degree course. He kept asking questions designed to catch me out, and finally said straight out did I just mean I was at secretarial college in Oxford. And then, to add insult to injury, my friend’s mother said at the end of the meal ‘Didn’t you do well!’ as if she’d been expecting me to eat like a gorilla, or be unable to match her friends’ conversation.

And don’t start me on the imitations of my accent, and assumptions I was thick, heavy-drinking and violent. But I’ve had that as much or more elsewhere in England as at Oxford, to be honest..

And as an extremely forthright person, I have no problem calling people on their staggering rudeness, snobbery and xenophobia.

Maria it has nothing to do with beaten tracks and everything to do with the fact that it just sounds fanciful. When it comes to second degrees the first uni is of some interest but there's just none in schools. You may want it to be so but it isn't. Perhaps your DSS was trying to make his postgrad experience mirror what he thought an undergrad one would have been like, but they're chalk and cheese.

“A family member was told by a boy in her college 'you're not what I expected someone from a state school to be like'“

A very common Mumsnet attitude, sadly. I have a little collection of appalling comments made on here about state schools and state school pupils.

Oh @bonsoir I do love your gauche little stories

I thought your DSS went to Bristol, MariaNovella, or was that the older one?

My friend went to oxford from a council estate. She made much of this to all and sundry and became rather celebrated for regaling her tales of the outside privy etc. She was a marvel at making up the most fantastical tales, you'd think she attended Dotheboys Hall. 😉😉😉
She's a professor there now.

goodbyestranger - I’m not sure why you think the postgrad experience is so very different from the undergrad experience. It’s not as if postgrads and undergrads don’t live together, eat together, go to the same parties and go out together;). Indeed, female undergraduates seem to find male postgraduates a lot more interesting than male undergraduates;)

My interview at Oxford was filled with these sorts, so I can believe it. Every other person just slid into place with ease, effortlessly understanding what to do and where to go; talking about skiing, ponies, new cars, laptops. They all seemed to know each other's schools and have friends of friends who knew each other - and there I was from Bogshit Nowhereland with no money and no clue; my family could barely afford a car and just about managed camping holidays. It was like peering into another indecipherable universe. I kept looking around for anyone else who wasn't slotting right in, but it was just me.

I don't remember anyone being overtly rude about it to be fair - they just sort of looked straight through me like I wasn't really there. We had no common ground whatsoever.

It really isn't the same Maria and just no response worth making to the female undergrad comment.

Honestly, though I can't possibly deny that you and your children all met these weird teenagers at your interviews and open days, I don't know any teenagers who talk about their parents' cars or even their own cars. Certainly no one talked about ponies or skiing or cars at my interview or indeed throughout my undergraduate years. They all talked about the course they wanted to do or what books they liked (English interview) or what music they listened to. And of course as undergraduates we talked about when we were going to the bar or whether we had done our essays or who we fancied.

Yes, goodbyestranger. The signet ring is worn by women but a certain type of woman! As you have discovered. It’s not important of course and it’s just an item of jewellery! What one person likes, another finds naff. That’s fashion though, isn’t it? (Just going to the safe to get my gobstopper diamond ring out - just to remind myself if isn’t naff)

I do love these threads. Posters argue how Oxbridge is not snobby while posting comment after comment of snobby posts. Apples and trees and all that...

That's exactly what I was expecting ontop, lots of fellow geeks who loved books and studying! Instead I felt very out of place. I assumed that was part of the point of the physical interview of course - seeing if you were confident enough to fit in, even if you were from a different background, and if you'd be happy there.

Like I said, no one was rude or even snobby at me, we were just from different worlds.

You have singularly failed to explain what you think the difference is, goodbyestranger.

The undergraduate and postgraduate communities ARE quite different. A quick google shows that 20% of oxford undergrads are international students, and 64% of postgrads. If 64% of postgrads don't come from Britain -a majority - they are much more likely to be unfamiliar with or uninterested in British class divisions and school backgrounds.

Postgrads do not all arrive straight from overseas, however. EU students who do a UK undergraduate degree are statistically far more likely to continue to Masters level than UK students are, and some of those EU students will already have been educated in British schools.

On Oxbridge elitism, I find this recent Times article to have a very cheerful headline:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/private-woe-over-rise-of-state-pupils-at-oxbridge-0wz57wvsf