Discrepancies between Oxbridge Colleges

[blatty]

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone else was aware of the unfair discrepancies that Oxbridge colleges are making in regard to policy of returning students.

As Oxbridge students tend to live in college, they are at the helm of their colleges when it comes to accommodation. Whilst at other universities, those with private houses could return to study in their uni environment.

My dd is at Cambridge, at a well known, wealthy college. They have said absolutely no one, bar internationals, are allowed back. One poor chap has a bad home life and had already booked a flight from Belfast but they refused his return. He played hell and they finally let him return.

Dd has her finals to work for and has coursework. We have really bad wifi as live in the countryside. She didn’t even bother trying to make a case for return. She wanted to stay for some of the christmas break, but her tutor told her not to bother even applying to stay. Apparently the only UK students who would be allowed to stay were those who faced real threat of physical abuse if they went home, and even then they had to agree not to leave Cambridge at all.

But my dd has lots of friends at other colleges who have been allowed back. Some colleges are apparently at around 50% for final years. Reasons such as bad wifi/noisy household are being accepted for sufficient grounds to return.

How is this fair that some students are being given access to good study spaces and libraries, whilst others are being completely disregarded?

She is furious and is set upon writing to the head of her college upon graduation.

Now of course I understand it’s down to covid, but how can one college let students back and others not?

The basic answer is that each college is a separate legal entity, with its own rules abs decision making. Also there’s a huge variation in finance and accommodation across colleges, so some colleges are are more able to put covid safe measures in place. It’s frustrating though.

I agree, it is extremely unfair. This is a subject of discussion on the current Oxbridge thread. I'd say that most of the DC of posters on that thread are staying at home (some have asked to return, others haven't) but a few are back in college. There are huge discrepancies between colleges, ranging from some who have allowed virtually nobody to return, to some with a handful of students who have had to apply with a reason, to at least one college I know that has told students they will trust their own judgements about whether they are eligible to return. My own DS is back at Oxford and estimates he is one of 20 first years in his college. I expect it's rather a strange atmosphere, but the good thing about him being a first year is that he really doesn't know much different.

I feel sorry for your DD, not least because it will probably change how she feels about her university and college which is a real shame. Also, I'm very sad to read about students with truly bad home lives who are not allowed to return.

@thereinmadnesslies makes a good point, the differences in approach may be driven by differences in accommodation. The O college I'm thinking of which apparently is allowing a lot of people to return is quite spacious I believe.

By your own admission she hasn't made a case to return. She should do this. Sometimes the individual tutors are not actually up to speed with what the college is or is not allowing. Writing at the end of her course won't actually achieve anything other than perhaps an apology or indeed an assertion that she should have notified them of her prolems at the time and they would have dealt with them or supported her.

I suggest she writes now (not to her tutor) and asks whether she may be permitted to return stting out the issues she is facing. They can say no but maybe they will say yes. If she doesn't write she will never know.

It is probably not illegal to rent a room elsewhere by the way in Oxford, Cambridge etc (although expensive for parents to fund) if a child has very bad wifi at home and needs to be in the university city to pass the exam or somewhere with better wifi so that might be another option if the alternative is failing finals.

Xenia in that situation the college has a responsibility to comply with the government guidance to allow the student to return to his or her room in college accommodation.

That said, Cambridge colleges with a few notable exceptions do seem to be interpreting the guidance in a narrow way compared to Oxford colleges, again, with a few notable exceptions the other way. I think it's arguable that the colleges adopting the uber narrow approach are not complying with the guidance and therefore students with decent grounds should push their colleges rather than accept a first decision, if it's negative.

My own DD didn't have to press her case fortunately, because it's headed up by reasonable people.

Trouble is, she can physically be back in the city and bypass the 'not coming back to live in college' bit by renting a room locally (the college / university can only deny access to spaces that it controls, not the city itself), but it doesn't help much with access to books etc if access to the library is totally forbidden.

I agree although I think at some universities libraries are open. My son was saying Bristol has some library access open for those without internet etc and only for urgent access and silent study www.bristol.ac.uk/library/

Some of my law books which cost hundreds of pounds to buy are pirated online and those pirate sites have some books (which I don't use by the way not least because I practise copyright law amongst other things but my older son showed me once. I was amazed how much was on there)

Would it be cheaper or possible to get better WiFi? If it is internet that is the problem then there may be mobile plans (though I understand that some location have v poor internet and poor mobile data coverage)

@Namenic as someone whose DD has been allowed to return to a not well-known or wealthy C college, I can assure you that it is impossible to get better affordable wifi here.

I live 10 miles from the city centre in a lovely rural hamlet, 3 miles from the sea. The town 2 miles away has superfast broadband, the village a mile away does too. Our hamlet does not. Our broadband comes in on the copper phone wire. Our maximum speed is 2Mbps on a good day. There is some 3G mobile phone coverage now (didn't used to be any) but that only works at the front of our house which is 400 years old and has thick stone/cob walls.

Until September, DH was trying to build his business on NMW and I work 4 days/week as a teacher. There was no spare money for satellite or anything like that. BT promised to put in fibre to the property in the spring. It's 8 months since they said "tomorrow" and nothing has happened. I have pushed this back onto our MP who has promised to try to sort it.

In the spring, I was trying to teach remotely and my DDs were both trying to access their university courses all on the same connection. It was a disaster. Hence, DD being allowed back. She is the only person on her floor on her staircase (8 rooms) and there is one other person in the block.

This college seems to apply common sense to a number of scenarios, for which we are really grateful. They also view the students' families as part of the wider college community. Having not studied at Oxbridge ourselves, this is our first experience and we have to say that we are delighted with the attitude of everyone with whom we have come into contact. However, having read of the experiences of other parents on this site, it is disappointing that not everyone's experience is as good as ours.

Yes there seem to be a lot of people who think people can just get better wifi. Lots of the UK cannot get good wifi. I live in outer London not outer Hebrides and 10 years ago my son had to find the openreach external consultant first to find out what the problem was and then we had to raise £12k from neighbours to get the right kind of power to the local BT box and open reach paid £24k. The result was we could get internet good enough to watch TV at long last but even though we have the very fastest in theory BT service as we are 4 miles from the exchange and then up a few streets from the local box on over head copper wires it is still not that great and cuts out at least once a day briefly. It is one reason I am very unhappy BT /Ofcom are getting rid of the landline phone network in 2025 www.futureofvoice.co.uk/. My landlines never cut out.

Uni of Cambridge Library current services. They are going above and beyond to ensure students have access to the material they need.

www.lib.cam.ac.uk/using-library

Click & Collect and Book Returnsare available onsite. Whilst we are in lockdown, pleaseuse these twoservicesin the spirit ofUK governmentguidancewhich stresses thattravel should currently be limited to essential, local journeys only.

A lot easier to comply with that, if your are actually currently residing locally, of course. Possibly back in your college?

Then no doubt they will be making good use of the Ask a curator service /scan and deliver services instead. They really are very helpful in the library.