Talking down Oxbridge after getting rejected

[Dddsfea]

Does anyone know anyone else that does this? I know a parent who tries to talk down Oxford and Cambridge after her DC didn't get in.

Saying the students there aren't that better than anyone else and that they only worked hard in 6th form. And that they study less at university compared to those at other unis.

Yes, that was a clear example of the prejudice that is trotted out about Oxbridge.

Thing is that the sort of person that states that won't have realised that they have probably met others that went to one of the other, just they haven't told them. Because they haven't told them, they've assumed they couldn't have gone there, so it reinforces their opinion incorrectly.

And also anyone who has told me, it's because it's come up in conversation (and never on the first time of meeting) and not to say would be awkward. For example I found out a couple of months ago that someone I have known for around 25 years went to Cambridge. They mentioned that they were catching the train to meet up with uni friends in London. I asked if they'd been to a London uni, and they said no, but the uni they'd been to was harder to get to. So I asked which uni.
They avoided saying Cambridge until faced with a direct question.

This is absolute nonsense. I have 2 degrees from Oxford. Anyone I’ve met since I graduated would have no idea, unless they specifically asked where I studied.

The raging inferno of jealousy when my son got into Grammar school was ridiculous. Through his peers who also got in, it was suggested that my son didn't deserve a place bacause (wait for it) he didn't pay for tution since Year 3, where as they did. He did actually have some tuition from the April before the tests in September for a few months, which I actually felt guilty about thinking it was too little too late. Anyway he just about scraped in but has surpassed all his tutored peers by being in all the top sets which we never mention to these former friends. Their lack of humility was their downfall, not ours.

Is getting a husband true of the reverse, is. Snaring a rich wife or a 1st?

Sour grapes are always quite funny to listen to, imo. Yes, yes, of course X is crap, that's why you were trying to get it...

@Worried1305.And yet here you are telling us. 1:0 to me I think. Or 2:0 as you have two degrees and had to tell us that.

Told complete strangers they’ll never meet, or not realise if they do meet them 🤣.

Why does that make you feel not good enough, rather than just thinking they’re being a bit of an arsehole? And if people do that to you (nobody has ever done it to me, so I’m not sure I can imagine the context, tbh), have you considered that you may be coming across as condescending towards them and they are reacting by trying to defend their credentials? ie maybe they are being thin skinned, just like you?

Ah yes! But still mentioned.

Of course these unis are mentioned for one upmanship! Why bother otherwise? Why would anyone care where someone went to university when they first meet? It’s like testing the market. Are you worth knowing? Are you like me or somehow inferior? It’s a conversation stopper or a signal to move forward. Seen it used time and time again.

We do have close friends who are Oxbridge educated so it’s not universal but it’s a phenomenon. University attended is rarely mentioned by anyone else. Just the other day in a learning group I run, a new member got up for his part of the session and within 30 seconds he’d dropped in “Cambridge”. Why did any of us need to know? Given his job he was a bit of an under achiever!

Yup, you do come across as condescending.

Feels like there's considerable confirmation bias there, Tizer.

People mentioning where they went to university is a fairly normal part of social chit-chat.

If someone's asked where they went are they expected to lie if they went to Oxbridge?

I’m an academic who has worked in Oxbridge and outside it. When I first left an Oxford job for a job at a different uni, the single best thing about my new job was no longer having to deal with everyone else’s baggage and bullshit about Oxbridge. For example, going to a party and someone asks where you work and then just goes “oh great” as opposed to berating you for the next 20 minutes about how Oxford is over-rated/ full of snobs/ sold out to the wokerati/hates private school kids/ is full of weirdos and academic success isn’t everything in life you know/didn’t let my cousin in in 1982 and he went on to be a millionaire so doesn’t that just show you.

So yes I would say that talking Oxbridge down because of your own issues around it or your own disappointment at not going there is massively common.

That is totally different from thinking that there are lots of other excellent universities, and that for a particular student or course, some may be a far better choice than Oxbridge. Which is a view I’d wholeheartedly agree with.

@TizerorFizz is correct, some socially awkward people DO drop their oxbridge credentials early.

I think though, its not in order to make people feel bad or inferior, its in the hope you won't dismiss them as a clueless twat and pause instead to think "oh, they might not be as thick as I'd assumed". Its out of insecurity rather than arrogance (which is itself just the flip side of the same coin).

So you’ve written off an entire university on the basis of one person’s set of friends at a wedding?

@HPFA Asking them is totally different! This is unsolicited information that’s neither wanted or needed. Within a few minutes of talking to someone? No one else does it! @BubbaHorovitz You might well be correct. When you get to know people you get to know their background and swap info. Then it’s appropriate. Anything earlier is ? Not necessary.

If someone tells me they went to Oxford/Cambridge I say "nice" and ask them what college and what they studied

Vegans, people whose pet dogs are rescues and Oxbridge grads. Chances are you will find out in less than an hour 🤣

My DP (who was also an academic at Oxford) used to try to avoid revealing at social occasions that he taught at Oxford precisely because of the prejudices being revealed on this thread and how tedious they are to be at the receiving end of. But that can make you look a bit of a twat too as the conversation often goes:

• What do you do?
• I teach subject X.
• Which school?
• At university level. How about you?
• Oh right, which university?
• Oxford

(50% chance of this being followed up with into a weird passive aggressive response. He would get more combative responses and I would get more condescension a la “don’t you know, little lady, that Oxford is actually…”).

The other thing that was hilarious was that if anyone then asked him where he studied they would be visibly baffled that he had not been at Oxbridge himself and that he was proud of his own institution and didn’t perceive it as inferior.

Basically Oxbridge has a weird hold over the mentality of a certain section of British society which is very little to do with the actual experience of studying at or researching at Oxford.

Agree ! It’s Saturday night, my (3rd year) dd is still in college although term has ended, and at the moment she’s in the library, where she’s been most Saturday nights all year.

That’s an active conversation about his job! It’s entirely different! I get some people have a reticence to boast. I agree it’s all wierd!

That’s total nonsense. Just as it is about vegans. You’d have to have a raging inferiority complex to think that people are dangling their university pasts in front of you with the intention of making you feel ‘not good enough’.

Yeah so what you are describing is a pretty common reaction from a lot of people who don’t get what they want - it’s always someone else’s fault…

You didn’t get the job? They didn’t interview you properly. They were unprofessional. They didn’t seem that good anyway….

You didn’t make the school team? The teachers have favourites. They didn’t have a proper tryout. You were nursing an injury….

You didn’t get into a football academy? The scouts don’t know what they are looking for. You were playing in the wrong position. You weren’t given long enough….

Etc etc etc

I’ve heard all these and many more. It’s a coping mechanism and doesn’t make what they are saying right or true. Let it go.

Look, Oxford has hated every single one of my family for generations.

AND every new generation, says 'Imma get in'.

We don't.

And then we laugh.

My son sobbed in my arms for about 30 seconds in my arms before perking up.

It's a family thing now.

I don't want to be a member of a club that would let me in.

It's just a funny thing now.

Oxford is a great University, the students there are certainly not 'better' than any other top level students.

It's a funny thing the whole Oxbridge acceptance.

My family went to Durham, Edinburgh, Imperial, Exeter, Sheffield.

No fucker has suffered as a result.

Only about a third of the people who are intelligent enough, talented enough and hardworking enough for Oxbridge get in, because there aren't enough places to accommodate everyone who meets the standards they want, and they don't just therefore increase the standard, there's flexibility to try to find those who will thrive best. So therefore logically there are indeed plenty of equally intelligent, talented, and hardworking people at other universities.

But if she thinks having shorter terms means they are working less she's too hilariously ignorant to pay any attention to.