Oxbridge schmoxbridge?

[Randomword6]

I'm just wondering, my kids all rejected the idea of Oxbridge as dated and elitist, and I didn't go. It was thought back in the day that going to either was a guarantee of a good career, but is this true now? Does it depend on the subject?

I am pretty sceptical about “uni blind” job applications. I’ve seen how these work in practice in fields like law, and it’s most often pretty clear from the degree course and many other factors including awards and extracurricular achievements where the candidate studied and/or what type of university, especially if it’s Oxbridge.

My personal opinion is that those supposedly “blind” processes actually just enable the usual sorting to go on, just covertly instead and with everyone pretending that oh they can’t possibly tell which university awarded the candidate X essay prize in Roman Law and a Rugby Blue.

I am deeply sceptical about the value of “blind” applications - it’s far better to train interviewers to fairly assess job candidates on open and accurate information, than to pretend you’re designing a process that is “blind” when it isn’t in practice. Blind applications are something of a fig leaf of pretend diversity, tbh.

Back to your original question, OP, but there are plenty of good universities and courses. If everyone clever just went to Oxbridge it would hardly be fair to all the academics in other universities who also want good students to teach!

Doesn’t have to be Cambridge - Birmingham, Nottingham, Bristol, Manchester, UCL, Kings, LSE etc plenty of grads doing TCs at firms where they’ll earn that on qualification. Not the be all and end all tbh, so many want to leave. Very stressful

Oh and I guess re your question OP which I have veered from I would say it's dated and elitist and it offers a good career. Salaries for Imperial graduates are higher but I think that's partly self-selecting - there are probably more people at Oxford/Cambridge who have really established family wealth and don't need to earn so much, but if you go there wanting a high earning job and that's your focus then undoubtedly an Oxbridge degree will help.

Well, the college system has existed since the early medieval period, and each college is an independent statutory foundation/educational charity, so I doubt they can change it just to make applicants feel less confused by it.

Of course the colleges know that most people don’t have loads of money - that’s why the bursaries are so generous. (Most academics these days are pretty penniless, too, and often live in rented college accommodation themselves.)

Many colleges have a lottery system for undergraduate room balloting because they all pay the same rent or banded rent. In fact the oldest and most grand / Hogwartsy colleges are the ones which are often likeliest to have more money available and charge lower rents overall. The colleges range from modern ones which make most of their income from room rents and conferences; to ones with big endowments and old rooms on draughty staircases. There’s a big variety, too, so applicants can choose to apply to a small friendly college, or a big sporty one, or a modern one, or a medium one with a big music scene and chapel, or whatever.

But the courses are complex and the students are expected to get going acclimatising themselves to a very fast paced confusing environment from day 1, and be self-starters — and that’s not to everyone’s taste or style, so if DC prefer a different kind of environment then that’s also fine!

Oxford get many more good applications than they can make offers to, so in that sense they don’t really have to “be appealing” as it were. Bear in mind that the colleges and the university will be cross-subsidising the fees the students brings by more than double — the average full cost of teaching a degree at Oxford or Cambridge is around £20-22,000 and less than half of that is paid from the fees the student brings (the rest is paid by college and university’s own funds as educational charities — how else do you think the tutorial system is funded? The student fees don’t cover anything remotely like the cost of 1-1 teaching.)

So in that sense they aren’t “customers” in quite the same way at Oxbridge as at other universities where the degree cost, depending on subject, may be much closer to the fee amount (though many other universities effectively subsidise the fees, too, just not to the same degree as Oxbridge.) Oxford, and the college, will be investing as much financially in your child’s degree as he is; so they are less trying to put bums on seats, and more trying to find the cleverest students they can who will benefit from the university’s investment in them, too. It’s not the system for everyone, but it would be silly to pretend it doesn’t confer benefits — the funds to teach in small groups by experts in the field, and provide excellent libraries and labs, are just some of them.

LOL 🤣 I couldn't begin to guess at your motivation for writing all that but really it just makes me think I'm not fussed about Oxford and hope that they don't offer but Imperial do hahaha.

Many students prefer to spend the huge tuition fees on getting the best academic experience and job prospects.

And many students want to enjoy a less stressful time at university. DD wasn't "Oxbridge shaped". She simply wouldn't have coped with the intense workload. Not every bright student wants that.

My motivation? I teach there; it’s normally useful to potential applicants —and their parents — to dispel some of the myths about rents and so on that you seemed worried about.

I think, if you’re not interested in Oxford or dispelling some of the myths around it, why post about it? To complain about the rents being a lottery and say you don’t understand it, when you aren’t then interested in someone explaining what that usually means? The rents at Oxford work out normally far cheaper than other universities (they are not charged year round, as a room in a student shared house with a landlord would be, for one.)

I manage some bursary funds where we are literally giving out 3k or up to double that as grants to students each year. Travel grants part-funding students’ study trips abroad. Extra foreign language classes paid for just because we can. Book grants and prizes of hundreds of free pounds for students, especially if they are doing well in their exams. Hardship funds paying for all sorts of things. If you don’t have family money there are lots of funds to access that other universities just don’t have. Libraries in college just a few steps away to work in. World experts in a subject available to chat after lectures or give advice at any time by email. Labs with world-class equipment.

Yes, it’s confusing and old, but you get huge benefits just in the experience (and I’m not even talking about jobs afterwards). If it doesn’t appeal — there are lots of different and also great university experiences out there. If DC are finding it offputting, will they like the environment to work in? Maybe not! — and nothing wrong with that. It isn’t the be all and end all and it isn’t everyone’s thing.

But I don’t quite know where the sneering comes in and then the disinterest in learning more about it. (I’d assumed you were actually interested — my mistake!)

I was interested and so was DS, very much so. When the school told him they thought he had a realistic chance of getting in he was excited and felt that it was an enormous opportunity that he wanted to make the most of.

But, our dealings with it have been confusing and obfuscating. It's all very well saying you can have a modern college or an old one, you can have what you please. But literally going in cold not knowing anything about any of them, having to learn about them all is just another barrier.

There are plenty of people who understand it all already. It seems to me that these are the people Oxford wants ie the people it's always had. The stats bear this out. Your own dismissive attitude also bears it out.

You say you shouldn't sell it. Be assured you've met that remit.

It isn’t a flat ‘no’, depends what league tables you’re looking at.

St Andrews is top in the 2023 Guardian University Guide and second ahead of Cambridge in The Times and Sunday Times 2023 (and St Andrews was top last year - the first university ever to be ranked ahead of Oxbridge).

Admittedly Oxbridge does better in the global rankings.

Some of the misconceptions on this thread are fascinating - as is the reverse elitism 🤨

fwiw I was a care-experienced kid who got an offer from Oxbridge and spectacularly failed to achieve it (glandular fever and a lot of family drama). They accepted me anyway and changed my life. I met my best friends there - one from a single parent family, first in his family to even finish school, who achieved a First in Science. They paid for me to have therapy and they gave me access to one on one teaching with the recognised leading experts in their field. It was phenomenal.

There was no snobbery, but huge camaraderie between a lot of very bright people who didn’t think and act in the same way and benefited from a much more personalised teaching method. School friends went to Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle and Nottingham and also had a great time, but commented that it was unlikely their professors could pick them out of a crowd. They also said they weren’t pushed nearly as hard.

There was a lot of work to get through in a short space of time - we learnt how to analyse, synthesise, form opinions, articulate them cogently and influence people; absolutely invaluable for most career paths.

I now have a very senior role in a top firm - NOT because it magically opens doors (though thanks for negating all Oxbridge graduates’ individual efforts @Hillarious) but because I worked bloody hard from the very good foundation that university gave me.

Is it dated - probably yes in terms of having lots of tradition but I'm sure in terms if sciences the facilities are top notch given the money it has access to.

Is it elitist - yes because it takes the most academic students who have done lots of extra-curricular too.

Will it help with job prospects - I've always assumed so but then if you think about it the brightest should have the best job prospects if they are actually bright.

I clicked on this thread as its topical for us. DD's school wants her to apply but DD not so keen. She doesn't think it's the best for her subject and she thinks the application process would be too intense - some of her friends have been preparing for years.

As it happens, DD and I are just back from 26 hours in Cambridge. She's on half term and she wanted to see something specific there. I thought it would be a good opportunity to see if she might be tempted and we went on a tour.

She was really turned off by it and frankly I was relieved to leave as every place we went to, including just walking in the street, seemed to echo with the voices of socially unaware, very confident saviours of the world.

Whilst I'd be really proud if she applied and got in, it's really not for her - both in terms of the topic and her personality. I think we've happily put that idea to bed without having to make a big deal about the choice.

Just wish it was easy to work out where would be best for her, but these things work themselves out.

That's a nice post KeepingKeepingOn.

@KeepingKeepingOn's and @postcardpuffin 's posts are spot-on. I too was someone who grew up in care, first in my family to go on in education past 16, state schools all the way through (some good, some dreadful - I taught myself for many of my GCSEs while in the care system at the same time). Getting into Cambridge seemed like a dream - I found a brochure to my college in the sixth form career's room and couldn't believe that I might actually live in such a beautiful place - and was something I knew NOTHING about.
But I did get in, and it absolutely changed my life. The college paid for my therapy too. When I got very ill and ended up in a psychiatric hospital, it was tutor (a Nobel prize winner) who took me in, visited me, and took me to her own home when I was discharged. The college gave me tons of money - to buy my books, to travel, for my next degrees (I went on to get a PhD). When my loan ran out, they gave me generous hardship money so I didn't have to worry.
Above all, the one-on-one teaching (by the very best people in the field, by people whose research I was also reading), which is particular to Oxbridge was life-changing. That engagement with ideas, really being challenged to think and question, being truly listened to, was something I had craved all those years reading alone in foster care and children's homes.
Were there some posh people there? Yes, but, with everyone living in college (where rooms were deeply subsidized and every room cost the same), everyone riding a bicycle, and everyone so engaged with their studies, it mattered less than it would elsewhere.
In sixth form, a teacher told me that, yes, I was bright, but Oxbridge wasn't for "people like us." I am forever grateful that I didn't listen.

@Ihlaria Wow, your prejudices really are showing! FWIW I grew up working class in a poor northern city and went to a bog standard comp, and I didn’t find the college system a barrier. I went on to do a lot of widening participation work and in my experience serious applicants want to hear about what it’s really like, not some outdated opinions that don’t reflect reality. The courses themselves are far more tough than the application process!

She was really turned off by it and frankly I was relieved to leave as every place we went to, including just walking in the street, seemed to echo with the voices of socially unaware, very confident saviours of the world.
@Walkingtheplank yeah, I won’t lie, there is a bit of that. Pretty much everyone feels like they ought to be having some amazing social experience that they aren’t really having but other people are - it’s just a FOMO aspect of the place that you learn to live with. State-educated students actually tend to be better able to cope with that - and are often more adaptable and socially resilient, in fact. They tend to just roll eyes and humour the more yappy public school types.

The key thing is to really love the course and the subject and want to do it for its own sake — not for future salary prospects or kudos or changing the world, but just for the enjoyment of the subject. I absolutely adored my course - I loved the teaching; I loved the lectures; I loved the libraries; I even liked doing the exams (sort of). If the course isn’t right for your DD, that’s the main thing. Kids need to find the right subject and course for them, not go after Oxbridge just to earn pots of money (plenty do, but plenty don’t or actively choose not to - lots of my students recently have gone into teaching, for example!) Fingers crossed that your DD finds the course she loves too.

Excellent points, and Very true

"learn about them all is just another barrier."

most universities, to know more you have to learn about them, why is that a bad thing ?

I went to Oxford from a small, rural state school in the 2000's. It changed my life and set me on a course that I don't believe I would have taken had I chosen another institution. The quality of teaching and resources available to you there are excellent. For me, though, the thing which made the biggest impact was my peer group. Your peers are intelligent and ambitious and keep you on your toes. I was a bit clueless about jobs/careers after uni, but my peers were all busy applying for positions with the best firms so I followed suit, afraid of being left behind. I am now a senior executive in a professional services firm. I make a lot of money relative to most people - I'm in the top 0.1% of the UK income distribution spectrum, but that is still not a lot relative to some of my proximate peer group from Oxford! However, I love my job and have been able to combine it with having young children, which I think is unusual. Others in my peer group have chosen less lucrative careers, but they are all pretty successful in their fields (eg head teachers, well-known authors and actors). Throughout my career, having an Oxbridge degree has meant I have never felt like I don't deserve to be in the room. The tutorial system accustoms you to being challenged by and debating with your "olders and betters", which stands you in good stead for interviews and beyond. When I interview young people for graduate positions in my firm, the Oxbridge candidates are usually the best. You can't tell they are Oxbridge graduates at the time because they take Uni names off CVs these days, but you always find out after offering them the role that they have an Oxbridge background. 70% of our graduate joiners went to Oxbridge. If my children ever have a shot at Oxbridge, I would do my utmost to convince them to apply and not let any perception that Oxford and Cambridge are stuffy and outdated institutions (which they are not) put them off.

@Ihlaria your inverted snobbery is showing I'm afraid. It really isn't all that complicated. Even when I attended (from a state school with little experience of Oxbridge) it just required reading a handbook and some conversations, and for additional questions i found the access services and colleges fell over themselves to explain and guide me.

The process for renting rooms is very well documented. As far as I recall all first year undergrads will get an excellent room offer from their college. Some colleges are able to offer accommodation to undergraduates every year if they wish to have it, and I selected one of these colleges to remove the headache of being "low down" on the room ballot in my second or third year , which could either mean an offer of a room in a building I didnt like or no room offer at all. Good quality, subsidised accommodation close to the college and/or city centee is a huge bonus if you are a poor student (as I was). The room ballot occurs in plenty of time in later years for you to find private rented accommodation if you don't wish to take up the offer. It is a fair system.

For very poor students Oxbridge can appear intimidating but in reality the combination of hardship funds, well-subsidised accommodation and food, the availability of incredible libraries (in my college, open 24hours a day), and lots of free extra-curricular activities is very attractive.

As for destinations and careers, I've not done anything stellar with my Oxford degree but have had a successful and comfortable life so far. I wouldn't have missed my university experience for all the world - it was incredible, and I was able to immerse myself for 3 years in a life I never dreamed existed alongside people who were as passionate as me about their subject of choice. Yes, I encountered "public school types" and some very wealthy families. But I met a very broad range of people, and I found it entirely possible to live and learn alongside all of them.

Imperial is a fantastic university too, and lifestyle very different for an undergrad. After working for 30 years in industry my dad ended up working at Imperial (and before you ask, he did an apprenticeship as a lad and then an OU degree later on) so I know a little bit about it. You are right that the student experience in London is very different to Oxford. So if your DC prefers Imperial then go for it.

Please don't go round slagging off Oxford though, just because you couldn't be bothered to do your research. It's pretty rude.

I just wanted to say that everything @postcardpuffin has said is spot on.

I would also add that going to Oxbridge won't guarantee you a good career, but it will set you up to do that if that's what you want by providing a fantastic foundation - one-on-one teaching, access to amazing resources (the libraries really are incredible), a lively, intelligent and driven peer group, generous financial support (I received lots of help when I was there), good pastoral care within the College system... etc.

Yes, there are traditions (eg wearing sub fusc to exams), but I always enjoyed them. Yes, there are a few Johnson-esque types there (or there were in my day, probably less so now), but they are few and far between and can be easily avoided.

Overall, Oxford and Cambridge are fantastic institutions and it is a shame that these negative stereotypes about them persist and put off bright students from applying. Oxbridge won't suit everyone and that is fine, but please don't presume they aren't right without first visiting them and trying to get to know them.

Both my DC went to Cambridge, one graduating last year. Both have done very well since in getting good graduate jobs. Only a few job applications were uni blind, btw.

Their time at Cambridge involved huge amounts of work. They both enjoyed their time there but had to work extremely hard. When they talked to school friends at other unis, there was no comparison in the workloads. Both have found their graduate jobs ( one in investment banking) easier than their Cambridge degrees.

I think they have learnt how to work hard and this will help in any future jobs.

How rude. It’s clear to me that @postcardpuffin was trying to be helpful and clarify things which you said you were finding confusing.

My own son has started at Oxford this autumn from a very bog standard comp. He was very half hearted about it to be honest and only ever really applied because of pressure from school. He was extremely sceptical about the college system, dressing up for formals etc etc. but he’s thrown himself into it and is having a blast.

The college system helped him to make friends instantly. The accommodation is cheaper than almost all of his friends at different unis around the country. He has a mix of large group lectures and very small group tutorials. And most importantly…there’s been any amount of free pizza/ drinks/ meals!

Yes there are some kids from very privileged backgrounds but there’s also my son from his very ordinary comp and three bed semi! And do you know what, he fits in brilliantly!

While there is a lot of inverted snobbery about Oxbridge I still feel that there is a fair amount of "it isn't for the likes of us" due to lack of confidence making people feel completely daunted by the whole application system.

Like it or not, for a great many people the perceptions is still that they are elite institutions only for the very elite. This thread is populated by people who have been there or have DC who are there or have been there so I don't feel it gives a balanced view of what most people think.

You often get this about higher education in general though, and I often read posts on the WIWIKAU Facebook page by people who think that all degrees are the same and wanting to go to more highly regarded universities is just pure snobbery.

As I stated earlier, I agree with @ZandathePanda that not all very bright students want the Oxbridge experience. It isn’t always only about the academics, but the whole experience. And not all students want to work in law/finance/banking/other similar high pressured jobs, or even in London.

Ihlaria Incredibly rude response to someone who was trying to help. As was pointed out Oxbridge is actually a better place for low-income students than many, many other unis because of all the subsidies. You don't have to apply to any particular college, something like 25 per cent of applicants do this.

Also some lovely testimonies from people who went, despite not fitting the perceived stereotypes, and had a blast. I went to Oxbridge 30 years ago and even then though there was the odd, loud-mouthed old Etonian (I remember one who became reasonably famous admitting later in an interview he'd no idea how he'd winged his place and didn't deserve it) there were even then far, far more just ordinary, very bright kids.

I'd attended a "top" private school but my two best friends were respectively an Iranian refugee who arrived in the UK aged 15 speaking no English and went to a rough N London comp and another girl from a comp in Wigan, which had never sent anyone to Oxbridge. The boy on my course who got the top first in the year had been to a comp in Essex. As I recall, the private kids were deferential to the kids who came from more challenging backgrounds, who also - quite rightly - had much easier offers. We all got on fantastically and had each others' eyes opened by our very different backgrounds. Everyone went on to not necessarily ultra-lucrative careers but very interesting ones.

Wow, the middle classes surely do set upon you if you dare step out of place. This thread is full of unsubstantiated comments from people who have chosen not to engage with Oxford because - they say - they don't feel the need/are better (!!!) with little comeback.

In contrast when I share the actual experience of my DS who is the very definition of bright but straitened (a "three bed semi" isn't a place we'll ever live in) beginning the process full of enthusiasm but feeling increasingly alienated while simultaneously being courted by other institutions you all close ranks. And btw there's no such thing as "inverted snobbery"

Thanks for getting it @RampantIvy.

Guarantee a good career? How so? The political class are just that, a class, nepotism and being able to walk into a qualifying job out of uni because your family know the people.

If you're not in that class you're on your own merits. A "good career" depends on you wanting to do that thing long-term and become an expert in it. I don't see how Oxbridge can guarantee that.

My mum said to me 'a first class degree from a crap uni is better than a third class degree from Oxford' and I think the point is if you go to a job and say 'look what I achieved even though my education was pretty rubbish, therefore I did this all myself' that's better than 'I got this result because I went to the best school, you can glean very little about my personal work ethic from this'