Oxbridge Prejudice

[The Boston Crab]

Haha. The beginning of the end. Or the end of the end. Cheers for the laugh.

[DistressedArea]

Are people who go to Oxford and Cambridge not simply - pound for pound - the most academically gifted people in the country?

Wait - are you saying that graduates of other universities are fatter?

That might be true, I've not looked into it.

[Funcrusher]

Very good, very intelligent, very academically talented, in with a shout but not 'Oxbridge talented', and therefore they go elsewhere. Straight A grades (or even A*) mean virtually nothing at that level. There are plenty of students with top grades and a polished personal statement, but it's the Oxbridge entrance assessments and the interview process which are there to identify the upper echelons of talent.

Do you have anyone in particular in mind here?

[biggytitbo]

This issue is the fact several important professions, especially the media, politics and political journalism, are disaproprtionetly made up of oxbridge types, which has made the msm in the UK to be the most group think infested, narrow and exclusive occupations in the country.

[Icehaven]

A surprisingly high number of members of one of the reading groups I run at work went to Oxbridge, at least 5 or 6 I can think of off the top of my head, and at one point 3 at the same time (two Oxford one Cambridge) so much friendly rivalry and talking each other's colleges down ensued. I should probably mention they were all also prisoners on a sex offender wing, just to offer a bit of balance.

[pancreas]

Obviously this is a troll thread, so don't take it too seriously.

In case you're interested, I managed admissions for one of the Cambridge colleges for 3 years, while I was a post-doc there. The very good students tended to shine through—perhaps we'd get one or two of these a year. At the bottom there are people who are obviously not up to it—often they can churn through the algebra quickly but can't move even slightly outside of their comfort zone. Then there's a sort of mush in the middle and you try to give offers to some of them and not to others based on hunches and some evidence from the admissions test, hoping you get people who are prepared to work hard enough to get a II.1. So you offer STEP grades (special maths exam taken after all the other A levels) based on whether you think they're worth a punt, or not. The standard offer is 11, but I used to argue for increasing the grades to S1 if a posh independent school kid, and lower to 12 if from a particularly terrible background. Sometimes this worked, sometimes it didn't. We managed to let in a terrible kid from a very posh independent school with S1 grades—school complained that we were punishing their pupils for going to their school with higher entrance grade—we told them to get to fuck, and given how he turned out—can't remember if he got a II.2 or III in the end—we were right to be extra cautious.

Of course, it's all skewed because the Maths Olympiad people all get trained in Trinity College, that takes something like 40 Maths kids a year. All in all, Cambridge will get something like 40 of the top 50 in the country, Oxford will get 8, Warwick 1 or 2 ...

[DistressedArea]

At any time, did you weigh the applicants?

[DistressedArea]

Actually, I'm guessing the OP meant brain weight, otherwise you could get up the league tables just by arranging a few 'accidents' in the lab.

Did you weigh their brains?

[Noonling]

This issue is the fact several important professions, especially the media, politics and political journalism, are disaproprtionetly made up of oxbridge types, which has made the msm in the UK to be the most group think infested, narrow and exclusive occupations in the country.

Yeah, I don't have prejudice against individuals from Oxbridge (or at least I try not to), but the fact the whole system is weighted towards such people makes me uncomfortable. Why wouldn't it?

Of the 56 Prime Ministers to date, 42 studied at Oxbridge, 11 did not go to university (most recently Winston Churchill and John Major), and only 3, Earl Russell, Neville Chamberlain, and Gordon Brown, went to other universities (Edinburgh, Birmingham and Edinburgh respectively).
http://www.blanchflower.org/alumni/pm.html

Just one in 100 members of the UK public was educated at Oxbridge, however graduates from those two universities make up 75% of senior judges, 59% of cabinet posts, 57% of permanent secretaries, 50% of diplomatics, 47% of newspaper columnists, 44% of public body chairs and 33% of BBC executives.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/aug/28/elitism-in-britain-breakdown-by-profession

[pancreas]

Did you weigh their brains?

No, we just did a little phrenology.

I should also point out that we did whatever we could to positively discriminate in favour of BAME students, at least under my watch. Doesn't hurt to throw out an extra STEP offer or three—if anyone gets a 11, you pretty much want them whatever else happens.

Classics is one of the scandals. Since no fucker does it at a state school, it's like 100 odd places per year set aside for (often very fucking stupid) private school kids.

[DistressedArea]

Classics = Ancient media studies.

[Paul Calf]

Are people who go to Oxford and Cambridge not simply - pound for pound - the most academically gifted people in the country?

Except the ones whose parents have the power, money and influence to get their thicko inbred offspring in and get them walked through the key academic challenges, I suppose so.

I mean, the assumption that people are at Oxbridge on pure intellectual merit is a bit Mitford\pre-war Huxley but I imagine that won't give you any sleepless nights.

[Urinal Cake]

They're the funniest too.

[Absorb the anus burn]

Try spending an evening or two at The Oxford & Cambridge Club (71 Pall Mall)

Members have to be graduates of the two universities, but guests can have gone anywhere or not even got sign or sound of a CSE......

Fucking hell.... Some intelligent achievers... plenty of thick to middling social misfits with RP accents and enough money to remove most of life's pressing problems... a few too many sociopaths who probably got into their select colleges through cunning than real intelligence.

[The Boston Crab]

a few too many sociopaths who probably got into their select colleges through cunning than real intelligence.

Enchanté.

[Icehaven]

Classics is one of the scandals. Since no fucker does it at a state school, it's like 100 odd places per year set aside for (often very fucking stupid) private school kids.

I went to private school and Latin was compulsory for the first 3 years, then Classics was a GCSE option. I'm quite sure this is exactly why.

[All Surrogate]

I know some very nice people who studied at Cambridge or Oxford.  They aren't snobs; but then, I wouldn't be friends with them if they were.  They are clever, in various ways.  One of them went to a comprehensive school and is now a professor of cosmology.  I wish them all well.

I think it is a difficult problem to provide excellent teaching and research positions to everyone who would benefit from them.  The prevalence of Cambridge and Oxford graduates in government is part of a wider problem: the professionalisation of politics.

[Buelligan]

Classics is one of the scandals. Since no fucker does it at a state school, it's like 100 odd places per year set aside for (often very fucking stupid) private school kids.

Balls.  I did classics, reading in my spare time, because I was interested, just like everything else I've ever learnt.

[Johnny Yesno]

Ah, the OP is Oxbridge. So much now falls into place, including the thread (from 2012, I think) about whether he should go shooting with his girlfriend's family.

[sevendaughters]

I did an MPhil at Cambridge and went there with a bunch of class-based shoulder chips and came out with a few of them extinguished but not all. Some unfailingly nice people who happen to be very clever, some absolute eye-of-all-that-is-bad born-rich get-rich die-rich hate art soulless gobshites. It wasn't right for me and I've encountered a bit of snobbery about it since that I just figure is par for the course if you're a provincial type who does okay. I get a bit Mike Baldwin about it. But it doesn't help that famous Oxbridge graduates like Boris Johnson and Toby Young constantly reify the collective idea of what it leads to, because my friends from my time there are mostly teaching at smaller universities or still researching.

[Paul Calf]

I've known a few working-class and lower-middle class Oxbridge grads and the impression that I get is that there's a persistent clique of rakish, very well-connected and powerful upper-class dilettantes for whom getting there on merit and working hard are things that just aren't done. It's hard to make the most of your time there when you're socially excluded from a lot of stuff.

[bgmnts]

Balls.  I did classics, reading in my spare time, because I was interested, just like everything else I've ever learnt.

Right but not in state schools.

[pancreas]

Balls.  I did classics, reading in my spare time, because I was interested, just like everything else I've ever learnt.

I'm not decrying the subject per se, more the fact that it's not taught anywhere except private schools, meaning that shit classics scholars can get an easy place in Oxbridge. Blame Blair, Cameron etc.

[The Boston Crab]

Ah, the OP is Oxbridge. So much now falls into place, including the thread (from 2012, I think) about whether he should go shooting with his girlfriend's family.

Hahaha! Great stuff.


Tally ho, old boy!

[Small Man Big Horse]

I went to the Poly in Cambridge and never met a pleasant cambridge student, but then I imagine all the nice ones didn't go to the shitty pubs and nightclubs that I did. My housemate Kate slept with a cambridge student though and the next morning when he discovered she wasn't at the same university as him he was appalled, and claimed that "She should be honoured that he slept with her". So based on that petty amount of evidence I'm going to say they're all monstrous cunts who should be shot when they turn 25.

[bgmnts]

She should be honoured that he slept with her

Genuinely laughed.

[Ryan Gosling]

I personally feel this bloke summed everything up in this song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrXB31Znxpk

[finnquark]

It's hard to make the most of your time there when you're socially excluded from a lot of stuff.

I wasn't sure why I was the only male sports team captain in the college not invited to the (disgusting, misogynistic, etc) drinking society, until someone pointed out I was the only one from a comp. I'd thought it was due to football being a proles game.

[kngen]

Vanessa Feltz got a first class honours degree from Trinity, but got the boot from the BBC for hiring actors to appear as 'real people' on her tawdry chat show. I left school at 15, but even I could tell you that - even at the very lowest rungs of journalism – that's kind of nonsense is going to come back and bite you on the arse.

[Shit Good Nose]

Of the four people I've known in my life who went there (one in Oxbridge, the other three in Cambridge), all bar one of them got in largely because of a long history of rich (in monetary terms) family, and they all breezed in no problem, almost as if it was written and guaranteed even if they got shit grades.  Not that they were otherwise dumbasses - they were still pretty academically savvy - but the one who got in that didn't come from money worked incredibly hard at it and, despite getting more than the necessary A-levels, had to go through what seemed like endless intense interviews/interrogations which lasted for hours at a time in front of a panel of people and those interviews went on for weeks.  Contrast that with the moneyed-up Oxford lad who told me his interview consisted of a single half hour chat with one don (or whatever you call them) over a glass of sherry (or brandy, I can't remember which) where he (the don) just reminisced about being a student at Oxford with one of this guy's relatives.

Those four now:
Leading scientist and world authority on research into autism in young children (Cambridge - money, but very very bright as well and was always destined to end up doing something mega clever);
Investment banker at Deutsche Bank, although currently on a career "break" (Oxford - money, not much better than average at most subjects with the exception of maths, which he was naturally very adept at);
Airbrush artist with galleries in London and New York (Cambridge - did not come from money, excelled at every subject but still had to work his arse off for years just to get in);
Floats between semi-professional jobs in the estate management field, public and private sector (Cambridge - money.  Fairly bright, but has just always bummed around not really knowing what to do and only in the field because her dad worked in it and pretty much forced her to follow in his footsteps).