What's odd MadBad is I never thought of it as a competition... but there you go
What is odder is I am really busy at work but have just spent 10 minutes googling stuff and oddly while C is better in the world O is better within the uk. Which clearly makes sense
Also, what is odd is in every article I googled the photos are of Oxford and Oxford is always listed first....
Heh ho, I offer this article which I cut and pasted cos I can't do links (cos clearly I'm not a mathmetician which is another thing I didn't realise until about 10 minutes ago)
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June 03, 2009
Which is better - Oxford or Cambridge? Two graduates exchange robust views...
The new Times Good University Guide 2010 includes a wealth of interesting, and very useful, information. It also includes a definitive list of the top universities in the UK. At number one, and keeping its position from last year, is Oxford, followed by arch rival Cambridge at number two. You can see the list of universities here, and read John O'Leary's view of the rivalry.
But here we take a more personal look at the top two universities. In one corner, we have Tom Whipple, Mathematics graduate of Churchill College, Cambridge and in the other, Will Pavia, who studied History at Lincoln College, Oxford.
Tom's view: why Cambridge is really number one....
"Let us be clear about what these figures mean. Coming second to Oxford for the 8th year running is a triumph for Cambridge. Look into the data, and you see that, academically, Cambridge outranks the Midlands Polytechnic in almost every category. It has higher entry standards, a better research rating and more staff. Where it loses out ? the only reason it is not top overall ? is in funding and facilities.
In other words, despite suffering such a paucity of swanky libraries and plushly-upholstered debating chambers that it drops a place in the rankings, Cambridge still produces the finest students in the country. Oxford is like the try-hard sixth former who wins the effort prize, but fails to write anything original in his or her exams.
It was ever thus. Oxford proudly lists 25 prime ministers amongst its alumni ? a roll call of academic mediocrities from the Earl of Rosebery, who quit his studies because the university would not let him keep his horse, to Tony Blair. Cambridge, conversely, has just 15 past British leaders. What it does have is 83 Nobel laureates ? more than France, Italy or Russia. And whilst 1930s Oxford students voted to in ?no circumstances fight for King and Country?; 1930s Cambridge students provided the core of the mathematicians who broke Germany?s Enigma code.
There is an idea at Oxford that there is a great antipathy between the two universities, that we are twin titans of education engaged in an epic struggle. The first time I went to a Blues rugby match, I was assaulted for 80 minutes by the dirtiest, most elaborate chants from the opposite stands. It was bemusing: if only they put the same effort into their studies.
On our side of the pitch we had no retorts ? not because we were incapable of finding half a dozen limericks including the words ?Oxford Scum?, but simply because we didn?t know we had to. We weren't aware they were qualified enough to be considered rivals.."
Will's view: But Oxford is actually number one, and the best.....
"The stereotypical view of Oxford and Cambridge is that the latter is full of scientists and mathematicians and Oxford is the place for artists and humanities students. The figures often give a more nuanced view: I don?t intend to go through them here, because I went to Oxford and don?t really have a head for numbers, but suffice to say they show that Oxford is better. It has been better since 2002. That?s twelve years running.
Beyond the petty process of measuring the success of the two institutions, via a sort of academic accountancy, however, there is the more important business of measuring the spirit of a place.
Oxford is a bustling city, Cambridge is a small village in East Anglia. Oxford has nightclubs - they are mainly quite awful but at least they are there - and pubs where Tolkein and C.S Lewis once sat and debated great subjects, driving all the regulars to distraction. Cambridge probably holds the odd fete but there is not much else there to write home about.
This must be why Cambridge students spend most of their time plotting the downfall of this country. You might say that Kim Philby and his friends are all water under the misshapen stone bridge, but there have been further dastardly acts since.
In 2000, for instance, a group of students from Cambridge, kidnapped a Womble from an Oxford College and carried out several horrible acts of torture on the poor stuffed animal, posting pictures of it dangling by a shoe lace above an assortment of sharp objects. This is what these people are capable of, when they aren?t spying for the Soviet Union.
To outsiders ? who regard students of both universities as effete types who have elaborate affairs with their teddy bears ? this whole debate probably looks rather childish. The deeper reasons for it, if there are any, is perhaps that students make a very arbitrary choice in choosing to apply to one place or another, and afterwards defend it to the hilt, like children defending their own dysfunctional families. The fact remains, though, that Oxford is better. So there."