Colleges at Cambridge and Oxford

Factual Questions
1

I’ve been reading The Fry Chronicles by Stephen Fry. He talks exhaustively about his experiences at Cambridge and more specifically about his years at Queens’ College, down to a lengthy section on where the apostrophe should go.

What he never writes about at all, presumably because his British audience would already know although that doesn’t stop several hundred other pages of explanation, is how undergraduates at Cambridge or Oxford wind up in the particular colleges they attend, even though that seems to be a vastly important decision. And the usually even more anal Wikipedia is also silent on the subject.

Are students assigned? If so, what drives the decisions? Do they have free choice? What are their criteria? How do they know which is best for them? Do they frequently switch around during their stay to one more congenial?

I know that some colleges are more prestigious than others, but I don’t have a sense of what the aftermath is if you attend one of the newer or specialized or less distinguished colleges. Or is it that every graduate is equal but some are more equal than others?

2

Actually wikipedia provides quite a bit of explanation:

3

I’m going to answer this as best I can remember, and from what I know of the undergrad process, which is mostly second-hand info from my ex-wife and friends at Oxford.

Yes and no. Typically an undergrad selects three colleges as his or her preference. Each college is free to accept or reject the student’s application, so while a student is free to pick any college he or she wants, in the end it’s up to the colleges as to whether they’ll take that student or not. I didn’t know of anyone who got rejected by all three of their choices, but it happens. Then you get assigned to a college which didn’t have enough students declaring a preference to them.

What it essentially means is the student has to take a bit of a blind gamble. Obviously if you’re one of the top candidates, you’ll probably get your first pick. Every year there’s a “league table” among the colleges for exam results, and the colleges want to take the best students available to get to the top of the league (ETA: Norrington Table, that’s what it’s called). But if you’re in the middle of the pack…it might be better to not go for the more established colleges with more academic prowess, lest you apply for “Christ Church, Balliol, New” and have them all reject you, leaving you to be assigned to Green College or whatever.

Apart from what I’ve suggested above–students want to study in the more established, more academically-rated colleges–students pick colleges for the same reasons incoming freshmen in the US pick their universities. One college might be more known for business, another for PPE (philosophy, politics, and economics–aka the hack’s degree), still another for Classics. Perhaps someone wants to study with a specific professor who’s well known or who someone they’ve known has recommended. Some students go to the college their father or other relative has attended–most colleges have preferences for “legacy” students. In short, there are colleges for toffs, there are colleges for hacks, there are colleges for serious students, and some colleges are for all three.

There are other reasons to attend one college or another. The college I attended, Jesus College Oxford, is traditionally the college for students from Wales. It isn’t like the old days when close to 75% of its student body was Welsh, but the percentage is still fairly high. If you want to study Welsh or Celtic languages at Oxford, it’s your best bet; if you want to go into politics in Wales, it’s a good choice too. Other colleges have similar tendencies in their student body.

Not that I’m aware of. I’m thinking it’s fairly rare; then again, I didn’t know that many undergrads, although almost all of the ones I did know stayed at Jesus College for their three years (the ones who didn’t were generally dropouts).

Oxford is really pushing the idea that “an Oxford degree is an Oxford degree” now. But it’s a new concept, tied to the greater centralization of administration (which, in turn, is a result of student fees and the concentration of money in central administration). Most old members don’t even say that they’re Oxford grads: they’re Jesus College grads or Somerville grads or St. Catz (Catherine’s) grads. My gut feeling is that if you’re going into business or hard science going to one of the newer colleges isn’t a burden, and it may be a bonus. But there probably still is some discrimination towards the new colleges (as opposed to New College). That’s all relative, though: a grad from any Oxbridge college is going to be thought of more highly than even the top grads from a “redbrick” university like Leeds or Manchester (a shame as I attended Leeds too and in some respects you’ll certainly get a better education there).

4

Interesting. Can you tell us more about the impact of your college on the student’s academic experience?

The Oxford colleges wikipedia article says that lectures and examinations are centralized for all the University, but suggests that tutorial groups and tutorial leaders are assigned by college.

If that’s it, I think that it’s an interesting split. My university had a ‘college system’, but the colleges are mostly administrative units for social events and student residences. I think that each college offered a few electives and other obscure courses each year, but I never took any that were offered by my college as opposed to the more mainstream departments. (I did take one or two courses from ‘Atkinson College’, but that was the name that the Faculty of adult and continuing education operated under in those days, so it was the only place to go for certain summer term courses.

And the college office buildings were frequently used to teach mainstream courses, especially for small class sizes.

5

I met a lot of Welsh people, one of whom was my ex-wife, so it wasn’t that good :stuck_out_tongue: No, I applied to Jesus College because the academic I wanted to work with was there. Niall Ferguson was also there, so that was a nice bonus.

But it’s more important for undergrads than grad students. My secondary supervisor was at another college, and I worked with a number of professors at other halls and colleges. In any event most of my work was going to be at the History Department and the libraries, not the college.

Yes, that’s true. Keep in mind that lectures are totally optional for the most part, at least for most disciplines. You’ll learn something, yes, but it won’t necessarily be what you need to learn to sit the exams. When I was in undergrad at Leeds my friends laughed at me for going to most of the lectures. I don’t remember a single thing I learned there.

Ah, you went to York University. I took my master’s courses at the University of Toronto, and that was exactly my experience as a grad student. I think the colleges are a little more formalized at U of T, but most students didn’t belong to a college; I think it was a bit of a relic of the system. IIRC York and Toronto were originally based on the Oxbridge model.

6

Yes, University of Toronto (back in 70’s) each college was a separate selection on the university applicaion. You could pick a college in UofT, or York, or somewhere else in Ontario. Or you could (like me) pick 3 UofT colleges. Fortunately, I got into my first pick. Others ended up at Scarberia or at Urinedale (sorry, I mean Erindale).

Colleges were allocated by denomination at UofT, reflecting their histories. Trinity was Anglican, St. Michaels was Catholic, Victoria was some other protestant, University college was United, IIRC. Newer colleges and professional faculties were there for other reasons, and really what college you were registered at was raher irrelevant for the most part.

I tried the entrance exams for Oxford, but never even got a call back - so I guess I wasn’t as smart as I looked (or perhaps I *am *smarter than I look… who knows…). I don’t recall those entrance exams asking me for a college preference, but that was a long time ago.

My dad’s evaluation was that the North American school system teaches less compared to the British “high school” system; but made up for it by cramming your brain in 4 years of university, so grads on both sides of the pond came out with a bachelors’ of about the same value.

All I remember was that half the science questions on the entrance exam turned out to have additional subtleties I never thought of.

7

Most American universities have just one college for most undergraduates; for example UCLA has the College (of Letters and Science), Harvard has Harvard College and so on. But some unis do use the multiple college system for undergraduates. Mine, UCSD, had four such colleges at that time, and it didn’t really matter what you wanted to major in, because each college was supposed to have its own distinct philosophy and approach.

IIRC the application process worked the same way as it usually does with graduate “Schools”. You’d apply to the undergrad college you wanted to attend, and if they wanted you, they’d “recommend” you to the University, but in reality that was as good as the formal offer of admission.

8

I went to Oxford (St. John’s) as an undergrad and a graduate, so I went through the system myself and also chatted with the tutors as they were running the system for the new intake.

Duke has pretty much covered the choices. Students do have the option of submitting an open application, in which case they’ll be assigned to a college. I would say that I never heard anyone involved in the system express the preference which Duke mentions for ‘legacy’ applicants - they were looking for the best students from the applicants, full stop.

When I was a graduate, the Physics Department was putting a lot of effort into making sure that your college selection didn’t have a big impact on whether you’d get in to the University. They were trying to make sure that they accepted the top 200 applicants, even if every last one of them had applied to Magdalen (though obviously all 200 would not get to attend Magdalen!) This was done through exams and a series of moderated interviews. If you were good enough to get accepted, they will find you a place at a college.

In addition to the cultural issues which Duke mentions (in addition to those he mentioned, there are a couple of colleges which have a particularly good reputation for LGBT issues, say), there’s quality of life. My criteria in looking for a college were: close to the science area, where my lectures were; plenty of accommodation available for undergrads; decent food. Other people are primarily focussed on how much the college will charge them for food + accommodation, and head for the cheapest. (Colleges are independent financially, and so set their own rents and charges.)

I never heard of anyone changing college during their stay, except one chap who won a ‘Prize Fellowship’ to All Souls. Very impressive, and not common.

I’d say that in the graduate job market, there’s no discrimination based on which college you attended. An Oxford/Cambridge degree is seen as an Oxford/Cambridge degree. Even for networking/the old boys’ network, those who went to one college will be perfectly happy to reminisce with someone who went to a different college. Everyone did the same exams, so there’s no real difference. The only difference there might be is that if you go to a college which has a particularly good reputation for something (e.g. Balliol is famous for educating Prime Ministers and permanent secretaries) you’ll probably encounter more of those famous alumni at college events, but even there there are plenty of University alumni events which famous alumni also attend.

9

What? You mean they don’t use a Sorting Hat???

10

Hijack:

You can study the same subjects/get the same degrees in different Colleges from a single University?

Spanish Facultades teach specific degrees; you can get “Algebra I” in the Physics and Chemistry Facultad, and you can get “Algebra I” in any of the Engineering Facultades, but each of those courses will be geared towards the specific degrees the Facultad offers. You can have two Universities in the same town, both of which have Law Facultades, each of which offers (as their name says) Law degrees - but you won’t have two Facultades from the same University offering Law degrees.

11

Yes. In Oxford and Cambridge the University sets and marks the exams and awards the degrees, and all students taking a degree in (say) law in any given year will face the same set of exams, regardless of which college they are members of.

The university also organises the lectures (though, as noted above, lectures are a less signficant part of the process at Oxford and Cambridge than they are at many other universities). In faculties like science and engineering the university provides the laboratories and similar facilities.

The colleges provide accommodation, food, an educational community and tutors. The signficance of accommodation and food are obvious. Every student has a tutor with whom he meets regularly, either face-to-face or in small groups, and the tutor is his academic supervisor. Tutors set essays and other assignments, and generally supervise the course of study and advise the student. It’s the tutor’s job to prepare the student for the University exams. Your tutor is usually member of your college, though sometimes a tutor from another college is arranged. (If that’s necessary, I think it’s the responsibility of your college to arrange it.)

13

Thank you.
And I reported the post above this one… sheeesh…

14

Can we backtrack a little? Where do your grades come from? Or is there a different evaluation system?

In the US, you take a course. Lectures, discussions, homework, labs, etc., are all part of the course. Your grade for the course is determined by some combination of those. If you get good enough grades in enough of the right types of courses, and eventually you get a degree. (There may or may not be a senior thesis or something required as well.) How does it work at Oxford or Cambridge?

15

Your final grade at Oxbridge is (with some exceptions in the sciences I think) your exam marks. That’s pretty much all there is. Everything else is for practice, essentially. Yes, I was stunned when my ex told me about that, but for most courses it’s true.

NB: that may have changed in the last few years, but I don’t know.

16

Degrees are graded thus; First class honours, Second class honours, first division; Second class honours, second division; Third class honours - usually abbreviated as I, II.1, II.2 and III. There was formerly a Fourth class honours, but it was discontinued years ago.

Normally in Oxford the class of degree is determined by exams held at the end of the final (third) year of the BA course. Sometimes one paper is replaced by a dissertation. In Cambridge the class is determined by results at the end-of-year exams over the final two, or all three, years. Coursework, assignments, etc during the year do not affect the class of degree.

17

QuizCustodet: You were looking at “decent food” as a selection criterium for your college? :stuck_out_tongue: De gustibus and all that…

Incidentally, the worst meal I ever had was at All Souls College when I was visiting a colleague. I still am not certain whether the meat was pork, beef, or Quorn.

18

If I’m interpreting the comments here correctly, it seems to me that the degree is being offered by the university, not by the college. So it’s not that two colleges are offering the same kind of degree separately. It’s that students in any college are allowed to take whatever degree the university offers.

19

The lack of emphasis on lectures is another bit of Fry’s memoirs that seems particularly eccentric to an American. He says he went to three his entire time there. That would be almost impossible here for the vast majority of professors and classes. Still, I bet that’s not as true for the science students as for the English majors.

As he tells it, all that free time is used up putting on plays or the million other student activities, none of which seemed to affect their academic standing in any way. Back in my day, it was a bit different. If a guy (always a guy) spent all his time at the radio station, he flunked out and then got a job in radio. At best people switched to a safety major. (For some reason, during my four years that was geology, the savior of all who had 1.6 GPAs. That changed overnight, much to some people’s surprise.)

With seemingly half of all good students using college as merely a resume-building base for post-graduate professional schools here, how do people who do nothing but pass exams go on to law or business or architecture or journalism in England?

20

So, you spend three years with no formal evaluation, you take a test, and then you are awarded some sort of degree??? Or there is prior evaluation, but it doesn’t affect your degree?

21

shrug Hell if I know, honestly. IMHO the exams, no matter what subject they might be in, tested little but how someone writes and how well they perform under pressure. Those might be admirable goals, but they don’t tell you a whole lot. (There are exceptions like my ex-wife, who cracked under the most minor pressure but who was such a genius in her field that anything she wrote would be lightyears ahead of anything anyone else could write, but they’re rare IMHO.)

At least at Oxbridge what I saw was that if you wanted to go into journalism, you wrote for one of the university papers and networked. Business and finance, hell, it seemed companies would take anyone who graduated. I met a woman who was studying history as an undergrad and seemed to be doing well; she told me that she’d considered going into grad school but decided to take a position with a firm in the City. “How did you get experience in finance?” I asked. “I didn’t, they just hired me.” Oh.

Law is a little different…I’ll leave that explanation to someone who knows that system better. There are a few other professions which require more training.

But for the most part it seems like networking is the way to get a career after Oxbridge. I remember going to their Careers Service and being told, in a nutshell, “we can’t help you, you have to help yourself.” Even they seemed to treat an Oxford degree as if it were a piece of paper! And so I, like so many others at Oxford, continued in the field I was working in on the side, where I knew a lot of people.