Oxbridge Reject Universities: c or d?

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My university, Bristol had (and maybe still has) a reputation for being the one of those that people turned down for Oxford or Cambridge went to. Other examples are Durham and Nottingham.

So, is it good to have attended such an institution? Does it harm a university to have that reputation?

― MarkH, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

new Oxbride reject uni answers. Yes, from outside the UK as well...are there equivalent unis in other countries?

― MarkH, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

There was a bit of that at Warwick. But mostly people just got on with it. Warwick is a fantastic university.

― Will, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

But didn't a lot of the trad reject univeristies like Bristol and Durham automatically turn you down if you applied for Oxbridge?

My second choice was UEA to read English. Rasied eyebrows at my Maths & Philosphy interview at Oxford. But I wuv them ziggurats.

― Pete, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

No, I went to Bournemouth which was largely a college for the stupid children of rich people.

― chris, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

AH, how I also love stupid rich people. Stupid rich people and their money are easily parted. Especially if they think they can play poker.

― Pete, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

but you are not in that category, Chris, so presumably you must have experienced some of the same sense of isolation as some of the people who posted to the original Oxbridge thread? Well, I hope you didn't of course...hopefully you found a group of mates to hang around with whom you had plenty in common with.

Pete: I've only heard that about Bristol, Durham etc automatically rejecting you if you applied to Oxbridge in recent years. I know one person from my course in Bristol who was turned down by Cambridge. When the student union elections were held in my final year, the student newspaper Epigram interviewed the candidates for Union President. their very first question was "which Oxbridge college turned you down?" The runner-up was turned down by Brasenose. The correct answer was of course, "None: Bristol was my first choice". The Socialist Worker Student Society candidate answered "What's Oxbridge?" Maybe he was trying to make a serious point, but it certainly didn't come across in print and it wasn't helped by his gormless expression in his photograph.

― MarkH, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Was Warwick really for Oxbridge rejects, Will? When I applied it seemed to be a very anonymous place, and the great majority of my chums were state school educated (unlike me, posh kid). I only needed BCC, for heavens sake! Though by the time I left it seemed to be a fixture in the top ten, so I suppose things change.

Hang on, I was an Oxbridge reject! In fact, Pembroke College Oxford wrote to my tutor at school asking why I'd even bothered applying.

― Mark C, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I ended up going to Bournemouth because it was by the sea and a long way from Chesterfield. and also because I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and couldn't choose a specific subject to do (a problem I still have now in fact). I turned down doing politics and economics at Essex though, not sure how much of a mistake that might have been, but I heard that the campus was horrible. For some reason I turned Warwick down as well, I'm starting to regret that a little.

Fortunately there were a few like minded souls at Bournemouth, not too many though.

― chris, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I admit my somewhat inaspicious university career was my own fault: none of us were well informed at all, we didn't look at reputations, career paths, I know certainly I was dead set on getting the hell out of Preston and therefore had NO idea what I was getting myself into. Certainly it wasn't encouraged at my college to apply for Oxbridge. A few notices went up saying "If you want to apply for Oxbridge, go see someone about it" but apart from that, nothing. Of course no-one bothered.

I think what came out from learning in hindsight has been that a universities reputation has become more subject specific. Like Kingston say, great animation/design tradition, possibly more respected than a more "generally" prestigous place not renowned for such a course. And perhaps a Law course @ Oxford WOULD be better than say one @ Bristol. It seems that if you're going for a specific degree related course where you would be using that skill, the employer would be sussed on which place is best ON ITS MERITS, rather than old boy hur hur so you went up to Kings or Queens or Jokers or whatever. Do people think this is ACTUALLY the case? Perhaps in a not specifically degree related job Oxbridge would gain a lot more cachet.

BUT! Thinking about this, I know people with Firsts who have been turned down by jobs for not showing enough "life skills" (CHIZ!) and there are plenty of employers who could see going to Oxbridge as meaning the candidate has a hell of a lot more to prove than someone who went to Nottingham or whatever - less far removed from regular life, and that. Cos whatever you say, and I'm not having a go - Oxbridge life does not seem AT ALL regular (at least to me).

― Sarah, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It depended on the course, Mark. It was, maybe, more for English subjects. For maths and management, Warwick was often preferred to Oxbridge! I talked to people who had received offers and turned them down.

― Will, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Warwick are a big member of the Russell Group (elite research institutions) which I usually use as my catagory for those Oxbridge reject places. I suppose the main criteria my be the disbelief that anyone would go to them out of choice. So while Imperial or UCL may well fit in as reject Universities - but aren't put in the catagory as people often want to come to London to study. Whereas Warwick or Bristol may well push up the eyebrow of those not in the know.

Oxford was my reject place. I was rejected from another college two day before I got accepted by Queen's on a technicality.

― Pete, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh yes, I agree with you about the London colleges Pete, a good point, well made. In my case, I lived in London and wanted to get out. One of the relatively small number of unis offering Biology & Geography joint honours courses was at Egham, Surrey, which i rejected out of hand because it was too close to London!

The difference between perception and reality is all-important. One might find that the so-called Oxbridge reject unis do discriminate against people who'd applied to Oxbridge to some extent but it's the other factors, like the age of the university (19th century foundations for Bristol and Durham, though Bristol didn't get its Charter until 1909), the architecture etc which tend to blind people to the actual facts.

Also, as I was going to say on the original Oxbridge thread (and changed my mind as it was slightly off-topic) there is an expression "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery". Durham is collegiate. Bristol has a hall called Wills which has architecture which apes Oxbridge colleges and has formal hall once a week with gowns.

― MarkH, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Isn't Trinity (those bastards, ahem) over here in Dublin where alot of English people who don't get into Oxford or Cambridge go? So my brother says anyway.

― Ronan, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hmmm, does St Andrews count? The percentage of privately educated people there is well up into the 60s (compared with Oxbridge which is low 40%s last time I looked), which is normally a good measure of Oxbridge rejectiness.

― RickyT, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Warwick is a university for students who reject Oxbridge, not the other way round.

― Trevor, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yay Trevor!

― Will, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Sarah, what kind of life skills? I'm wondering whether I've got any. Chris, I lived on that kind of Brookside Close thing on Bournemouth campus for a few weeks one summer. Better than all that dreaming spires bollocks. It was a polytechnic then.

― Peter Miller, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Mr Miller, I was never lucky enough to live on Brookside, I got put up in a cockroach infested hotel in the first year, I did go out with a girl who lived there for a while though and they were very pleasant indeed. and very handy for the Bar/shed known hilariously as the sugarmine, in fact all the bars there were named after magic roundabout places, for sobbing out loud.

― chris, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Sarah, what kind of life skills? I'm wondering whether I've got any.

Life skills ie SOCIALISING and communication and common sense instead of leading a sheltered cloistered academic life. Also the ability to deal with a wide range of diverse people. Perhaps it's thought that Oxbridge students won't be too experienced in those ways - although all the Oxbridge people I know seem to be very confident people in most respects, something which seems to be a great bonus. I wonder if I'd be more confident in myself with that type of background.

― Sarah, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ah Sarah - you've hit it on the button. Because it is relatively impossible to lose yourself at Oxbridge you either turn into a workaholic cabbage with no life skills, or a rather confident, witty and intelligent person with a mass of nuroses. Luhhverly.

SOAS isn't much of an Oxbridge reject place despite demandng ABB generally, since most of the stuff you do here cannot be done anywhere else. In the end that's how specialist institutions thrive.

― Pete, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I rejected cambridge and went to sheffield, according to our website the number one university in the country. My school were horrified by the prospect of sending me here, they have never sent anyone here before or since. they wern't that keen on letting me apply to cambridge though, they though I wouldn't get an offer and even if I did get the grades and so mess up there percentages. I made my cambridge offer but had already rejected it as not for me. Lots of my friends went to oxbridge and enjoyed it but were all glad to leave at the end but such is the way of things, I will be glad to leave here in the end.

― Ed, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

In Upper Sixth in our comprehensive, the top two or three (i.e. I was nowhere near) in each science subject got to take an Oxford Entrance paper, which they all failed spectacularly (the Maths paper was almost entirely 'S'-level material [do they still do those?], and so completely alien even to someone coasting to a grade A 'A'-level). I think it was a pass or bust scenario - none of them were subsequently made conditional offers or invited for interview. They all went on to Bristol, Durham and Imperial.

I went to the local Poly after *failing* my Maths 'A'-level, where I learned to spell the word 'category' correctly.

― Michael Jones, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Someone asked about overseas equivalents -- I'm sure others will have their own regional examples in America, but my college, UCI, was long seen as a second-choice school in comparison to UCLA or to a lesser extent USC. Indeed, the reason I'm here is that my own first choices of grad school turned me down... ;-) However, UCI has recently gone to town to burnish up its reputation and now ranks pretty high in a lot of evaluations; having some Nobel winners from here didn't hurt.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Damn, I thought Life Skills would be things like going to the post office and crossing the road, which I can manage reasonably well. I quite fancy the idea of a cloistered academic existence these days, but is it TOO LATE? I think those Oxbridge types must get self-belief thrashed into them at some point. From a distance, you seem quite brave, Sarah, so you'd probably be a round the world yachtswoman if you'd gone to Oxford.

I don't think the Bournemouth bar had a Magic Roundabout name when I was there, they must have passed that motion at a later date.

I did CSE maths.

― Peter Miller, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Bath and Sheffield have some very good physics groups.

― Paul Barclay, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm glad I went where I went.

― james, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

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