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.

I do think you have a point there @pantsymcpantsface" - there are some loud and braying types , but equally there are those who are not and are just decent nice people - and indeed some who just go to university to get a degree and hope to meet some nice people along the way. It isn't a dating agency.

If you want the dating agency - isn't it Durham where they have the highest percentage of graduates who marry other Durhamites?! God forbid with the guy I was seeing at uni... although he is earning a nice salary and drives a flashy car these days (I'm actually still friends with him - just wrong guy and wrong time)

Well I've got just reward for weeding my raspberry patch! Your posts are sublime Maria. I would say ridiculous but I'm hoping for more :) Is your DSS feeding you bullshit because he knows it will keep you happy (or at least off his back)? Poor DSS. I suspect the truth is more along the lines that contemporary female Cambridge students could eat him for breakfast.

I’ve had a good laugh at Maria’s posts too.

Needmore: you are in a very elite bubble regarding engineering. There are many universities that offer Engineering and we have many excellent courses. For what it’s worth, I haven’t had a DD at Imperial, but DH was Sheffield many moons ago! It’s ridiculous to state 6 universities and think all the ex polys, many RG and post 92 universities are selecting universities for engineering. They are not. However many offer great courses producing very employable engineers. You just don’t have to be super academic to get in.

'Cambridge females are extremely ambitious' might be a bit nearer the truth but even that is too general ... and their 'ambition' may be something far more interesting than financial prospects.

I do think just to make a point anyone who is thinking of DCs applying to Oxbridge it is not ( in DS's experience) some kind of Made in Chelsea / city cattle market. His experience was most found their own friends - there are enough students to do so.

Anyway - he has graduated now , but if any hugely rich and lovely and nice person wants to target my son as a trophy husband we do have a cup. It is engraved with "The Cheerful Sparrows" . Obviously DS will need to agree. This is Oxford not Cambridge so possibly not so much targeting spouses. - I do joke here

You know, goodbyestranger, that being rude about other posters DC is very telling ;)

Basilisk - have you forgotten what university was like? What being 18/19/20/21 was like? Of course it’s a dating agency! It always has been! My grandmothers/mother/aunts had all sorts of stories to tell about how they overcame chaperoning rules. And it continues...

Cambridge females are extremely ambitious

And you can note when they enter the "ring-seeking" part of their mating cycle by the large red-striped crest that emerges from their heads and their distinctive mating dance.

Seriously, the fuck?

Expressing sympathy for your poor DSS is most certainly not being rude about him Maria. My sympathy is actually genuine.

I love the idea that these clever Cambridge (as well as Bristol) women are so incredibly backward on the social and sexual front that the only way that they can conceive of 'making the first move' is to invite someone to a college formal!!!! Haha, gotta love it :)

More please Maria!

@MariaNovella - I am quite elderly , but not so elderly I ever had to have a chaperone. In general being at university was more about the degree & yes one met people but it was not a place to meet a husband in the first instance. I do not think DS thought it was a dating agency - of course people meet people at university & at work and at their sports / other stuff. 35 years ago a medic I knew had a phone call from his mother to say - be careful of the nurses, they just want to meet a doctor

If you are really serious re it's a dating agency ( and I cannot believe you are ) - well , OK . Not in Ds's experience. I don't think it is helpful for those whose DCs want to apply.

@SoHotADragonRetired Ha ha - you made me laugh there - Can the Cambridge women buy their crests at same time as gown ? ( for all Cambridge people / parents - I am actually joking here . )

Of course university is a dating agency and of course that is a major reason for young people to go. I’m truly amazed anyone can have forgotten

"At Cambridge there is most definitely a market for a French Banker Boyfriend "

Well this explains why one of my child's friends was not snapped up by some ambitious female. I dont know what school they went to but my child did go to stay at their family's holiday home, so I suspect private. They were also studying a subject where they can expect to be paid considerable sums of money on graduation. Excellent manners, not massively handsome but not bad. Couldnt understand why they didnt have a girlfriend (or boyfriend - but they have a girlfriend now). Clearly because they were not French.

The idea that a Cambridge graduate might think their financial prospects are poor is ridiculous.

As a young woman I preferred older men because they were more confident. We didnt mix much with postgraduates but I did date a 3rd year briefly in my first term - what's boak about that?

This was at Cambridge alreadytaken, for context?

I'll be back after I've made our frittata.

“Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.”

Virginia Woolf wrote that in A Room of One's Own in 1929. She was passionate about women getting access to the privileged halls of Oxbridge, but curiously enough, I don't think access to a dating agency was the main goal she had in mind.

Nor do I think it is the main goal that most Oxbridge women undergraduates have in mind today.

Instead of the Cambridge undergraduate women pursuing the male postgrads, Maria, it may well be the male postgrads who need these young women as an ego boost: to reflect their own figures deliciously back to them at twice their natural size.

Just saying.

SoHotaDragon

I guess Oxford girls are different then. My DS who goes to a state school and is in year 12 has a girlfriend in her first year at Oxford. She is obviously not "aiming high" in the way it has been talked about on this thread!

I asked DD1 if university was a dating agency (she is at Warwick) and she gave me a WTF face, and asked me if I was for real. She said she and her friends tend to “hang out” rather than date. Obviously some dating and shagging goes on, but finding a significant other is not top priority by a long stretch.

DH spent most of his time at university experimenting with drugs, so it wasn’t a dating agency for him either.

Although I’d be the first to say that they are both a bit odd, I don’t imagine they are on their own.

I think I’ll go with my grandmother’s account (also 1920s) rather than Virginia Woolf’s. It was a first hand account, after all, and clearly relationships between men and women were a lot of fun. My grandmother was also a hell of a lot better looking than horse faced V Woolf

I can only echo what some other posters have already said. I went to Oxford in the late 1990s. Of all the people I could have made friends with, my closest friends from college were, like me, state-educated and from the few towns surrounding the place where I had grown up. It wasn't deliberate - it was just that I was 18 and shy and somewhere new, and incredibly nervous of all the very confident people who seemed to know exactly what they were doing. Then in the midst of this nervousness, I met some "people like me", with whom I had shared experiences and similar cultural references. As an immature teenager, I held on tightly to those people to help me find my feet in an unfamiliar environment.

DH, again, arrived at Cambridge having been to a fairly challenging state school. His closest friends then, and to this day, were the people at a variety of Cambridge colleges with whom he had spent his MoD-run gap year engineering training course. Some were state-educated and some had been to private schools, but they held on to each other because they had in-jokes and similar experiences from the preceding year.

Apologies if someone has pointed this out already - I haven't RTFT - but I recall Michelle Obama telling a similar story about her time at Princeton.

From what DD has told me university is not so much a dating agency as a RL Tinder.

Indeed, TapasForTwo, a RL Tinder is how Warwick has been described to me by a lot of students.

Girls who tried to bag a rich boyfriend when I was a student were easy to spot and not looked upon kindly. I am sure your DSs is lovely but a lot of bright girls would find the prospect of ending up with a French banker deathly dull. I have an image of a twenty year old with a crease in his chinos. Definitely not the sort of person that interesting women would want to be with.

My grandmother was also a hell of a lot better looking than horse faced V Woolf

Wow. Let's measure women by their declared level of physical attractiveness. Sexism is real

Ireallyneedtonamechange, I'm sure it's true that people of similar backgrounds gravitate towards one another. That explains why different Oxbridge students (and parents) can experience the universities so differently. If you are someone who cares a lot about money and status, you will probably gravitate towards other students who care a lot about money and status. If not, you won't.

The Michelle Obama story is a really good example. I hope Princeton has changed since her day, though, and that black students are not such a minority.