Also, my wonderful history teacher (who walked out of Oxford with a 1st, no less, and went on to make a certain website that a lot of history students use) said, and I quote: "Oxford is a bloody dump once you leave the centre." (And he should know: he comes from Telford.)
Cambridge didn't offer the same course. I also loved spending 3 days at interview getting to know the other applicants whereas friends that applied to Cambridge enjoyed it far less.
Ahh I just negged you when I meant to pos rep you, I'm sorry! Feel free to return the favour Pretty sure I've posted somewhere on this thread before, but oh well. Basically I applied to Oxford because I didn't want the pressure of having to get an A* in history. Which was a very good decision also...inspirational deputy head did history at Oxford, went on a uniq summer school and fell in love with the place (whereas I got rejected from all the Cambridge equivalents that I applied for...), and just generally my school had a relatively bigger history of sending people to Oxford (we now have 5 in the last 5 years vs 1 at Cambridge ) so there was a sense that Oxford was more achievable.
AAAAAAAH those head2head things were SO GOOD! Ah Y9 history ah the memories! It must be something with Oxonian history teachers and creating AMAZING history sites...
For a long time I wanted to do Classics with Oriental Studies (which you couldn't do at camb). And when I decided to just do straight classics i never even thought to consider Cambridge also one of my teachers and a family friend who both went to Oxford were influencing me
Generally speaking...Oxfordonions smile with a warm heart Cambridge folk seem hollow, misty, unreachable even - and not in a good way. A humanity of sorts attracted me to Oxford.