Postcard #10 Oxford
Here’s my tenth postcard from my Run the UK Challenge.
By coincidence I arrive in Oxford five years to the day that Eliza and I were invited there for High Table by a former friend.
At the time E had aspirations of studying there but it became apparent that it would not be for someone with her neurodivergences.
I wanted to study there too and did the dreaded entrance exams when I was just 17. I was totally unprepared to write discursive essays and didn’t get an interview and this rejection threw a shadow over my life for years. Truth is that my course at SOAS was much better. We even learned Modern Chinese there and not just the Classical language – imagine! – and I got to spend a year in China on full grant (remember those?) as oppposed to my parents being expected to finance a trip during the summer vacation, which would just not have happened.
There were six Oxbridge candidates from my state grammar school and not one of us got in. When you see the intellectual caliber of some of those who did go there, it does make you wonder how on earth they got into what is supposedly one of the very top universities in the world. Bitter? Of course I am! It seems to provide a magic key to the upper echelons of life.
I know, I know. #NotAllOxbridge I know LOADS of Oxbridge people and some of them are the loveliest, kindest, cleverest people you could ever hope to know and I admire and love them hugely. (You know who you are! xx) But there’s a lot of mediocrity and entitlement too. People who think that that they no longer need to learn anything, one can only assume.
Anyway, end of rant. It’s a nice town. The prison, also on my route, has been turned into a Malmaison hotel. I’m been trying to formulate a joke here about the former inmates having been let out and now running the country but I’ll leave it right there.
2 Comments
What do you think? Let me know!
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Oh that so much resonates with me. I applied to Oxford to do physics in the late 80s, chose not to do the exam, travelled down on the train (the first time I’d been away from home by myself) and found I was supposed to do an hour long test, in a tutor’s oak-panelled bedroom, that evening.
At the interview the next day I made a mess of things, I didn’t point out that one of the topics in the test I’d had to teach myself because the school weren’t running that module – and the textbook I was recommended was full of mistakes which I went through and corrected.
If I’d had any advice or support on how to deal with situations like this I imagine I’d have made a real point of this. Instead I was so upset I just gave up and came home and didn’t even go to the second interview at the “less posh” college (which I suspect might have been more supportive).
It was so traumatic – this first time I think I’d ever failed at anything. And I’m sure they Are much better now. But I think the point stands: it’s all about confidence, support and familiarity. I still get angry!
I agree. It was my first big shock. The course at SOAS was so much better, and also world-renowned, of course, but Oxford was Oxford. Looking back I had no chance of getting in: wrong school, no contacts, inadequate preparation, no parents who had ready been there. When it came for my children to consider their university choices (and their opposite educational experience), they both rejected it because of the sort of people who do go there. But I am certain that my career prospects would have been better if I’d had that on my CV.