Bruce Feiler’s Looking for Class offers a good insight into the Oxbridge system for Americans. It seems that this is true, students goof off for nine months and then cram at the end of the year (or second or third year?) to pass exams. To me this sounds like an incredibly inefficient way to learn anything.
In my American experience, we had an exam every five weeks or so and many classes had additional mandatory assignments. So the learning is incremental and your grades (marks) are the result of accumulating the results of multiple works. Thus, you are required to demonstrate your mastery of the subject as you go.
There were some classes, like certain humanities, in which your entire grade might depend on a single assignment, such as a research paper or composition, but that assignment was due at the end of the quarter (10 weeks) or the semester (15 weeks). It wasn’t the cumulative work of an entire year or more.
It is also very common for professors to take into account other factors in grading a student, such as participation in class discussion (lecture). Overall, it seems to me a much more thorough and engaged system.
I can’t imagine being in a situation in which there was no evaluation until the very end and my entire result depended on a single exam.
Remember that Oxbridge students spend a lot of time with their tutors, in very small groups or even one-to-one. The student will know very well how they are doing with respect to the expected standard.
US law schools work on mostly the same principle, though on a semester basis rather than a yearly one: your entire grade is based on the final exam for each class (with some exceptions).
I thought Oxford didn’t give upper seconds. That’s what my brother told my parents, anyway, and I’d hate to think he was lying. I vaguely recall Humphrey Appleby saying it too.
My dad said, many years ago, people going to university learned a lot of the material initially and more intensively in British “high school”. North Ameican high schools tend to teach everyone the same very basic material, so as a result the US students have to study like hell in their chosen field for 4 years. In the end, in his opinion, a degree from either side of the pond meant the same thing.
I assume this meant the British stream for university-bound students was very different from their general/vocational system and also from the more egalitarian US system?
Well, traditionally Oxbridge drew a majority of students from public (ie., what we’d call private in the US) schools. Nowadays it looks like they’re taking slightly over half their students from state schools.
I had an Oxford-trained professor in college, and he ran some of his classes on a modified tutorial model: five or six times a semester you’d have to present an essay answering a question and then he’d tear you to shreds ever so politely (“Who did you read?” he’d ask, eyebrow cocked, and you’d realize with dread in your heart he’d read everything you did, and everything you didn’t, and would want to know why). I’ve never had a teacher know so exactly where I was, nor gotten such accurate feedback. If I’d had that for three years, I’d have come out Educated.
One really important difference: it wasn’t “Here are the things I want you to know”. It was “You go learn about this. When you think you are done, I’ll tell you how you are doing.” The lectures and the library work (gods, the library work. The class all got to be good friends huddled around the reserved books) were something you did to get the learning you needed. I felt a lot more responsible for my own learning and I really loved it. The whole assignments/quizzes/test system feels like you are being rewarded for doing what you were supposed to, for not screwing up, for dotting your i’s and crossing your t’s. In this one professor’s class, it felt like I was being evaluated on my mastery of the subject.
Also, can’t you be basically expelled if your tutor/college think you are just a total waste of space and energy? There are checks and balances to make sure you aren’t completely screwing around.
Certainly true when I went through high school and university in England. The English system specializes much earlier (although I believe this has changed a bit since the 70s). By the equivalent of 11th grade, I was studying only three subjects: Math(s), Chemistry and Biology. In my three year degree in Biochemistry, I studied:
Year 1: 50% chemistry, 25% biochemistry, 25% from a small list of options (I did physiology)
Year 2: 50% biochemistry, 25% chemistry, 25% option (pharmacology)
Year 3: 100% biochemistry.
It actually complicates the process of applying to the universities themselves quite considerably, especially when you consider that in the UK you have to apply to study a specific course throughout university. If you apply for an unpopular course at an undersubscribed college (Chemistry at some modern college on the outskirts of town) that gives you a better chance of getting into Oxford University than if you apply for Law at one of the most famous old colleges. Bit of a balancing act.
My recollection of applying to U of T in the 1970s was that you picked three universities (say, U of T, Queen’s, and Western); and U of T would send you a further application, where you indicated your choice of colleges.
Incidentally, the suburban campuses that you referred to were Scarborough (in Scarborough, naturally) and Erindale (in Mississauga). I see no need to refer to them as you did.
Originally, U of T’s old colleges were organized along religious grounds; but (again my recollection), by the 1970s, this had gone by the wayside. Certainly, the newer A&S colleges (New, Woodsworth, Scarborough, Erindale) were non-denominational. It is true that St. Mike’s still had daily mass, but they did not (actually, could not, according to human rights laws) exclude Protestant or Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist or atheist students from applying to the college, as they once may have. However, many students and parents remembered the old days–I well remember being told by my parents not to apply to St. Mike’s at all, as it was Roman Catholic. And Trinity, as an Anglican school, was way down on my list; again, as dictated by my parents. Victoria (bland Protestant), UC, and Scarborough (both non-denominational) topped my selections.
No. As mentioned, students were free to choose whatever college they liked.
Fifth-generation U of T graduate here. As I’m so fond of saying, I have a degree from the University of Toronto, but I got an education at Hart House.
Yes, and UDS already explained it (my thanks got deleted along with some spam): the “colleges”, unlike those in my American and Scottish Universities, are not equivalent to Spanish facultades at all; they provide completely different services because the degrees themselves are structured in a completely different way.
Spanish degrees are conferred by the University too (I’ve had problems because of this, since my Facultad changed universities in the middle of my years there; people tell me my degree is impossible because the university that conferred it did not exist when I began my studies), but Facultades are where you get your coursework and your tutoring… same as in my American and Scottish Universities, but without running from a building to another. Oxbridge is just a completely different system.
They certainly do give upper seconds. The conceit is - or used to be - that getting an upper second reflected badly on you. To get an upper second you had to work extremely hard, but you weren’t bright or talented enough to get a first. At the same time you must have worked so hard that you neglected much of the social, cultural, sporting, culinary, musical, sexual and pharmacological experiences that three years in Oxford University offers. Hence, you were a bit of a bore, unadventurous, insecure and possibly a nerd.
When applying for Cambridge you select one college you wish to apply for, or make an ‘open’ application. If you select ‘open’ you get assigned a college (usually tied to whichever college has has least applicants that year for the subject you are applying for) and are treated as if you’d applied to that college all along. If you’re female, this will typically be to a female-only college.
You then go to interview, where you may get an offer, rejected or ‘pooled’. Rejected and offer are self explanatory. ‘Pooled’ means the college is saying “You’re pretty good, but we’ve got lots of good people this year.” There is then almost a secondary application process - colleges who haven’t had many good applicants in the first round have a look in the (winter) pool and see if they like the look of any, in which case you get put through the interview process again, with an end result of either offer or rejection.
Now let’s say you’ve got an offer. Come results day, if you miss your offer you get put in the summer pool. Colleges now have the option of looking at you again and taking you, despite missing your offer.
I’m not so sure about this. Firms want a 2:1, not “a 2:2 from Oxbridge or 2:1 from anywhere else”.
It varies significantly between courses. For me, it simplifies to 25% of my mark coming from a final year project, 75% coming from final year exams. Other years are irrelevant.
Of course, you do take exams in the other years and if you don’t pass them you probably will get kicked out. I think some stricter colleges will kick you out if you get any less than a 2:1 in end of year exams.
Three in the entire time there is a little extreme.
However, in arts subjects it’s a little different to science subjects. If you can argue and write well, and have a decent grounding in books you can cite I imagine you can do reasonably (I can’t say for sure, I don’t even have any second hand experience).
Really, my recollection - I haven’t thought about this in nearly 40 years - was that you picked the colleges at UofT as choices in your “top 3 universities” list. I may be wrong.
Really, you went to UofT on the 70’s and you don’t understand the nicknames for the nether colleges?
For a lot of the technical students, if you didn’t have the marks for downtown you went to Scarberia; then by 3rd year you went to classes downtown anyway, since those were not offered in the suburbs.
Like the rest of Canada, even in the 1970’s denomination was just a name. So were the colleges. You could apply wherever you wanted, and I don’t recall that religion was a factor in admissions. The churches may have had a hand in running some of the colleges, but it was more historical and a reflection of the social attitudes of 1900 than of 1970 Catholic school grads tended to apply to St. Michael’s, but enough also went to University or New Or the suburbs. Nobody really cared.
Most of the students in sciences probably never saw their colleges, since they all went to the same classes in the science departments across campus. If you wanted to you could participate in the college life, or you could totally ignore the college. IIRC, Elliot Milstein had a mezuzah on his residence door frame at St. Michaels and ran a credible second in the election for student union president there.
Only a balancing act if you have multiple subjects in which you think you’re able to convince the interviewers that you are ‘Oxbridge material’. This is fairly unlikely given that you will generally have 3/4 A-Level subjects on which to base your application - maths is a good indicator subject for whether someone is applying for sciences or arts.
Hence the balancing act would have to happen during the selection of those subjects, a couple of years before applying to university.
On the other hand, I agree that choice of colleges makes a difference to the success of your application (even though they deny it).
Interesting. I’ve heard an alternative that if you got a first then you’ve wasted your time at university (i.e. have worked too hard for the entire time there).
Of course, I (unsurprisingly) have counterexamples for all of these assertions but I suppose people favour whichever generalisation makes them look best.
The Oxford tutorial system is a profound strength, but the random-ness of college selection can also make it a weakness. To get taught by someone brilliant 1 to 2, or 1 to 3, every week, is a rare privilege - but say they’re not brilliant? You can get lumbered with an appalling teacher for major sections of your degree for 3 years with no escape.
It’s next to impossible as an 18 yo prospective undergrad to choose colleges based on teacher quality - this information is not available. Although maybe schools with a long history of sending students to Oxbridge do actually have a feel for this and can steer students the right way.
I was taught organic chemistry at Oxford by a very conscientious academic - a skilled teacher and highly motivated by teaching. It’s probably not an exaggeration to say that the quality of this part of my degree could not be matched anywhere else in the world. All a result of a fairly random college selection on my part.
The Lord giveth and he taketh away, though, as the Fellows I had in the other two areas of chemistry were very weak teachers - 3 years of physical chemistry tutorials with a disinterested mumbler.
There is more transparency and scrutiny of university teaching these days, though, so there’s probably less chance of getting dragged down by a woeful tutor.
Relevant to this thread: Dr. Rowan Williams, the current Archbishop of Canterbury, announced yesterday that he is stepping down from his position as Archbishop at the end of the year to take the position of Master of Magdalene College at the University of Cambridge. Link.
Nobody’s created a “RateYourTeacher.com” for Oxbridge? Or is it that you have no real choice, the person is assigned randomly?
(I know when I went to UofT, the SAC course evaluations were just getting big and many profs were horrified by the concept of being rated by mere students.)
