It’s no secret that institutions and individuals alike have a tendency to measure academic success on their affiliation with Britain’s two oldest universities. Year after year parents grapple for their children to attend the UK’s top generators of soon-to-be Oxbridge students (this year, Eton, Westminster and St Paul’s), and heated debates spark regarding the supposed undue advantage private school students receive when applying, or how ethnic minorities may be unjustly and purposely under-represented at these elitist institutions.
However, long also has raged the rebuttal that the doors Oxbridge opens for it’s alumni simply do not mitigate the intense academic pressure imposed upon students during such an important time of their youth; I recall an open day guide at Cambridge’s Peterhouse stating “As long as you don’t dip below a high 2:1, you wont get in any real trouble”. Moreover, just as we at Bristol began to embrace the full momentum of Fresher’s Week, a friend at Jesus College had turned in her second long-form essay in almost as many days.
Of course it wouldn’t be fair to conclude that Universities Oxbridge-down are inherently academically inferior, or that all work and no play breeds an Oxbridge alumnus of dull Jacks, but perhaps while the latter may be acclaimed for academic excellence, the former may excel in assisting the development of a fulfilling non-academic life, free from parental shackles, that students have been bursting to start ever since opening The Times’ Good University Guide. Students graduating from Oxford’s Merton College (where gowned dinner attire is worn more often than not) may even find themselves alienated from friends and colleagues post-degree.
This week the Research Excellence Framework has published their first analysis in six years, indicating a developing pattern (contrary to that entrenched in the British consciousness) of London universities surpassing those institutions of the South East. The London School of Economics demonstrated the highest research quality of all universities analysed, University College London attained a higher overall research rank than Cambridge (and a higher proportion of “internationally excellent” research than Oxford), and Imperial approached Cambridge’s quantity of “world leading” tier research.
However, the extent to which these analyses on London Universities may cause the Nation’s Oxbridge fanaticism to wain is uncertain. It may never happen that grad-scheme recruiters are unimpressed by the words “Oxford” and “Cambridge”, and for many students the legacy of these institutions may outweigh marginal relative losses in objective measures of academic quality. However, students hoping to pursue an academic career in research beyond an undergraduate degree will benefit from a liberal perspective on which University may benefit them the most, both academically and on a personal level.
To all of our students waiting to hear from Universities (Oxbridge and non) – we wish you the best of luck, and emphasise that success, ability and worth cannot be defined by a tick or cross from a single applications administrator, but by hard work, determination and a positive attitude.
Written by Sophie Valentine
A MyTutor EPQ Tutor
Image: pixabay http://pixabay.com/en/cambridge-architecture-monument-449209/