Oxford Magdalen rejection letter

[MissTillyFlop]

My school teachers encouraged me to apply for Oxbridge, but I didn't, as I had a massive 'class' chip on my shoulder. Then after leaving the decent uni I went to (I left after 6 weeks, deciding i didn't like the course) I lived with my g/f and went to one of the cr@ppiest colleges there was, and then split up ith the g/f after a bit. Oh, the opportunities I wasted...

Youth is always wasted on the young.

 

[Maz]

Is it still the case that if you apply to Cambridge you can't apply to Oxford (and vice versa)?
Shows how much they don't like each other!

 

[astrocan]

I know that if you put Oxford as second choice or lower you won't be considered.
I doubti f Cambs would be an exception to this rule.

 

[Night Train]

Cambridge don't do clearing. They have many times more qualified students applying than they have places especially in Engineering where they are in the top two or three in the country.

I got something from a Cambridge College offering a non engineering, non science, non technical course. I do rememebr it was a brown parchment type paper with University buildings skyline backing the heading. It probably wasn't related to the University and was some back street educational establishment over a minicab office!

 

[BigonaBianchi]

Good for her!!

..reminds me of holding up a tenner at the check out when the assistant hands out the change to make sure I havent just been given a dodgy note by tescos et all.

 

[PK99]

They do in their own way, they call it the "pool".

But it is not "clearing" as in the UCAS sense of mopping up people post results who have not hit their offers.

The pool is pre offer for candidates whose college of choice cannot make them an offer (as each college has limited numbers of places in each subject) but who show well at interview

 

[Paladin - York]

with the highest % of state sector students of all the Oxford colleges.

but I'm not sure where Fiona Bruce went before Hertford!

 

[martint235]

I found the letter amusing.

I was lucky enough to study Computer Science in the 80s when Oxbridge wasn't really considered as a place to study the subject. Manchester was the top Uni for it at the time. I did have a friend who applied to Cambridge because he wanted to turn them down (he was a socialist at the time)

 

[Red Light]

No its not the UCAS system, but its still a hierarchy of colleges within a university, in the same way as the UCAS clearing is a hierarchy of universities within the UK. It goes as read that ALL Cambridge applicants have hit the grades (else no interview at all obviously).

But Night Rider will not have got an offer from Cambridge through UCAS Clearing along with offers from Middlesex and Woolwich (not that there is a Woolwich University either)

 

[Night Train]

But Night Train will not have got an offer from Cambridge through UCAS Clearing along with offers from Middlesex and Woolwich (not that there is a Woolwich University either)

I got something from somewhere in Cambridge, it was back in 1983/4 so possibly and oddball memory.
Middlesex and Woolwich were Polytechnics then.
I remember taking the Woolwich ferry to go to the open day and finding they had a big thing about studying the movement of bulk solids, pumping flour through pipes.

 

[Dan B]

I applied to Oxford mostly on the basis that there were lots of bookshops and that when I went to the open day the towncity looked quite pretty even in the rain (I visited Warwick three days later, which quite blatantly didn't).

I thought the letter was quite funny, but maybe that's what four years in Britain's oldest university does to one's sense of humour

 

[srw]

I applied to Oxford mostly on the basis that there were lots of bookshops

You didn't notice the little signs over the doors then? "Art", "Music", "Travel" - that sort of thing. A bit of a giveaway.

(I remember when Dillons opened in Oxford, with pretensions to compete with Blackwells. Friends who worked at Blackwells told a story, which had at least some truth in it, that at the end of one Michaelmas term the Dillons staff found an unexploded bomb on the shelf behind the first-year maths textbooks. It had been planted in September.)

 

[brokenflipflop]

Bobble hat and ethnic blanket? Check
Self-righteous I'm better than you attitude? Check
Laughing at silly traditions? Check
Fearing you'll feel out of place? Check

She'd have fitted right in at Oxford - as she will at any university

and Cyclechat

 

[Red Light]

I got something from somewhere in Cambridge, it was back in 1983/4 so possibly and oddball memory.
Middlesex and Woolwich were Polytechnics then.
I remember taking the Woolwich ferry to go to the open day and finding they had a big thing about studying the movement of bulk solids, pumping flour through pipes.

Cambridgeshire College of Art and Technology?

 

[ASC1951]

It goes as read that ALL Cambridge applicants have hit the grades (else no interview at all obviously).

I don't think it does, Smeggers. These days people apply to Cambridge - and are interviewed - in the autumn school term i.e. six to nine months before they have even taken their A levels.