Black Ambition: Cambridge BBC2

There is no physical difference (although some would disagree!). If either are first generation, then clearly there is a difference in the accent.

However, the only main* noticable difference between a British born African and a British born West Indian is going to be in thier name. West Indians tend to have European names (from the slavery connection), Africans tend to maintain thier African names - although it is not unusual for an AFrican to change their name to an English name before entering the UK. So to address your question, I think there is a good chance the tutor can tell at the the interview.

* with Africans there is always such visible signs as tribal markings. But I have never known of a British born African to take part in that particular custom.

Hiya
thanks
I guessed some of that but I didnt want to assume I can't think why a tutor would want to discriminate particularly against a sub-group of black applicants (unless it was something like - I'm making this up as a guess - most of the carribean applicants came from families that came to the UK wuite a while ago, whereas it happened thta most african applicants came from families that came here more recently, and so tended to have stronger accents/more strongly different culture or something? i dont know just trying to think of possible reasons.......?)

I think really though it's just the small sample numbers...

Rosie

Sometimes it's the anonymity (sp?) of the forum that allows people to be so open and willing to discuss (although I do hope people are like this at cam!)

PPS what the hell is a "prima facie"?

I can imagine it is hard to assess them, word needs to get out that you need to be constantly thinking critically and analytically, justifying yourself, drawing conclusions etc etc, then have the guts to hold your argument down, whilst being open to new ideas and teaching. All of that is something I learnt with a bit of training, and I'm sure it helped me get my offer. They could learn it to. I do hope that the tutors do know there is a reason for it though, and are nice enough to meet them half way.

What about pakistani boys?

You're right. There's no reason that, even if the Oxbridge admissions tutors were racist (I believe that the vast majority are not. Obviously there could be a few, but the decision doesn't usually rest solely on one person (?) so I don't think it would be a major influence.) they would be this selective in it. I read a post on here that gave statisitcs that a lower percentage of black students got firsts at Cambridge, something like 5%, compared to I think 15% or over overall with Asians being the highest(going from memory here, may be wrong). This would indicate that there is no racism in the Oxbridge interview system, but you can make statistics prove anything I suppose.

I think that this is a much wider social issue. Cambridge cannot be blamed for inequality in our society. I'm sure no-one doubts that race has no bearing on ability, but a larger proportion of the black community are from working class backgrounds and have parents without H.E. Therefore I think this is more a class than a racial problem.

Well, I have Pakistani parents so I think I can give some input on this. I agree, there is a culture where there children are brought up not to disrespect elders (more muslim than pakistani culture actually, but I suppose everyone has stereotypes) and we're taught not to answer back cheekily if you know what I mean, though its not in the culture to stop children asking other people questions.

In relation to the interview, I guess they could see it as if they were being disrespectful if they were arguing with the interviewer, though if they had read the interviews at Oxford booklet, then they would have read that they are supposed to show that they can argue their point of view with an interviewer. I did ok and got an offer.

Are there alot of gay people at Oxford/Cambridge?

Are there alot of gay people at Oxford/Cambridge?

I don't know about this, but there is enough to have a gay/lesbian society

I'm normally fairly oblivious too who is and who isn't to be honest.

Do you mean to say you are gay?

*editted*

I cannot read I thought this said 'obvious'!!

*note to self: must learn to read*

I'm not aware of any statistics, but there are certainly many homosexuals around, though unlike race it isn't quite as an easy thing to judge. I'm normally fairly oblivious too who is and who isn't to be honest.

I think most colleges have lesbigay reps or elected officers, there are lesbigay friendly club nights and I think largely discrimination is a non-issue.

Having said that I believe that Clare last year rejected a proposal to bar drinking societies from our bar after a homophobic incident against one of our students from a member of either the Peterhouse or the Downing drinking society (I forget which). What the college supported instead was support for CUSU's anti-alcoholism campaign, to make the bar lesbigay friendly and to refuse to serve anyone who was being abusive etc. Although not as strong a proposal it was felt is was significantly fairer and a solitary incident needn't produce a disproportionate response, I've been told that it was only opposed by one person.

Alaric.

The question may be moot now, but no I didn't, because I'm not


Yes the ability to read will be useful at Cambridge

Alaric.

I remember that being proposed whilst I was staying in Clare. What was the actual incident? Was it a comment? Or a big fight?

erm...yes......moot(??) indeed.

I believe it was someone shouting abuse at him. Though it didn't sound very nice, it certainly isn't what one should expect in your own bar. As far as I'm aware there wasn't any fighting involved and I think the student in question was disciplined by his college afterwards.


Insignificant, of no practical relevance.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=moot&r=67

Alaric.

I believe it was someone shouting abuse at him. Though it didn't sound very nice, it certainly isn't what one should expect in your own bar. As far as I'm aware there wasn't any fighting involved and I think the student in question was disciplined by his college afterwards.

Alaric.

Are you a student of law of philosophy?

It's hard to imagine people so obnoxious getting into Cambridge in the first place.

Not really, there's always going to a few people like that around, it's usually easy to ignore them though .
I think it's probably wise that people aren't assessed on their political beliefs though, and that would be wrong, though I do suggest that people like that stay away from me if they do get in .

Generally I'm fairly happy with Clare's political climate, though obviously the person who did it wouldn't. Another bonus of the collegiate system I feel.

Alaric.

Well no, I just always thought that anybody intelligent enough to get a place is progressive enough to not be so obnoxious, and so nobody with such beliefs would want to go in the first place. Although of course, with thousands of people, it's not 100%.

Is it true King's is radical left, in its climate?

http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/2002-03/special/07/table5.pdf

Someone (Think it was Neil) posted this link as the source of data..

Now, I'm not too hot on my stats and I could well be wrong here, but if you look at the top table (2002) and look at the % success rates of people from different racial groups:

with 32% success rate Black Carribean applicants had the highest success rate of all racial groups, and Black african the lowest with 12%.

The samples are stupidly small (38 black carribean applicants vs. 8,592 white)s so the differences might not be taht significant but I still think this is an interesting thing you can see from the table?

It seems, from this at least for black carribean applicants, that teh problem is not so much racism against them in the application process (or why would they have the highest success rate?) but definitely the numver of people applying.....?

rosie

Sorry if i got it wrong