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Magdalen Oxford gets rejection letter from student

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Well, I suppose in the US you have so many other top class institutions that some students are able to feel they can easily turn down MIT. Also they can apply to as many as they like, unlike here.

For some reason, that letter is so much better than the one on this thread.

Did you apply this year? I thought about applying this year but in the end decided the SATs and essays were too much of a hassle. did you get in?

The cool thing with higher education in the USA is you're probably going to get a solid undergraduate degree from any college in the top 100. At the very least, they are a very safe bet and I wouldn't be surprised if others would say "top 200". Things get a little tricky if one is seeking a lot of financial aid/scholarships (in my case, I would definitely need close to a full ride to attend - anything more than 8k USD/year would be a huge strain on my family) and there are not too many colleges who're willing to offer them to internationals but they do exist.

I started the process but changed my mind in the end. I only went as far as writing my MIT essays and doing the interview. I am taking a gap year of sorts. One really needs to put a fair bit of time on the essays and getting all the documents together. It's a very painful process.

If I were you, I wouldn't worry too much about it. I'm guessing that if you were looking at MIT, your A-Levels were good, in which case you probably have an offer from a decent UK uni.

Edit:

Haha, you can't possibly go wrong with Cambridge or Durham. Good on you man!

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 701

Mike93L

Original post by Lilium

I like the idea of so much flexibility in America but then I questioned if it would be worth the extra fees even if I got into one of the best since I'd need to do a master's anyway to specialise.

I gave up on the process very early haha. I decided if I didn't get into any unis in the UK I would take a gap year, focus on ECs and SATs and reapply to the States which I don't need to do now luckily and in hindsight it was a really good decision. :smile:

Harvard seemed to be saying they offered full financial aid to those who had a certain income or less, regardless of whether home or international? I'm not sure though.

Reply 702

jonnythemoose

Would be interesting to know if Oxford had intended on giving her an offer or not...

Reply 703

ray_charlene

lol she's from my college

Reply 704

Ham_Sandwich

I don't really get why she applied there in the first place. Everything she's complained about is pretty common knowledge anyway, you don't need an interview to work it out.

Reply 705

awais590

Original post by ollie82

totally stupid.
clearly she hasn't got the maturity to be attending university - she's going to be one of those pathetic melodramatic ones who thinks uni's a right laugh and going on about her 'rights'

i hope she gets 5 rejections.

I thought exactly this!

Reply 706

tehforum

Original post by ray_charlene

lol she's from my college

I hope everyone is giving her jibes.

Reply 707

username402722

Why there may be a lot of truth in what she wrote, and especially her comments about the legal profession in her letter to the Guardian, it may harm her career.

She could have simply withdrawn her application saying that after visiting the college it turned out not to be somewhere she would enjoy studying there.

Reply 708

ByronicHero

Irrelevant, frankly, and the rejection letter would actually be a rejection if it was in response to an offer letter. But it wasn't. The 5 minutes will be over soon, she will get on with her life having what she assumes is an amusing anecdote to tell people ad infinitum and for the rest of us life goes on quite as it did before. I really don't get why people care so much and it really isn't news worthy. Good luck to her in her career etcetc but I think she may look back at this in the future and regret it - not because it's Oxford (because who cares) but because it is immature and pointless.

Reply 709

CraigKirk

Original post by ray_charlene

lol she's from my college

Curious/needlessly nosy: How did your college take to her doing this? Or did they keep out of it?

Reply 710

Tomatochuckers

Why are people still talking about this? She did it for a joke and although I don't agree with some of the points she made, I don't see why some people have taken this so seriously

Reply 711

fudgesundae

Original post by I Kant Spall

I actually think it'll have the opposite effect. All this attention from the media will help her when it comes to university admissions and future job opportunities... unless of course she comes across a touchy Oxbridge alumnus (who unfortunately will be no more than a stone's throw away from most university's law departments).

At least, that's how it works here in the USA. If a student does something particularly bizarre that isn't necessarily harmful, this allows them to stand apart from other applicants who may come from an academically similar background.

Seeing as how we are all stoics in this country, I don't think this will help her. It just isn't the done thing tbh in Britain.
If it were any other subject I think that it wouldn't really have an effect, but seeing as it is Law (a profession dominated by Oxbridge), I do have a feeling it may hinder her when applying for training contracts etc, especially if she is going for a big city firm.

Reply 712

CraigKirk

Original post by Tomatochuckers

Why are people still talking about this? She did it for a joke and although I don't agree with some of the points she made, I don't see why some people have taken this so seriously

It's a marginally engaging procrastination activity to talk about pointless news.

Reply 713

whatsername2009

I think she's done more harm than good. If bright students from working-class backgrounds aren't encouraged to apply to Oxford and Cambridge, the stereotypes become self-perpetuating.

Fair enough if she thought she wouldn't be happy at Oxford, but I hope she hasn't made people in a similar situation to her decide not to apply because they think it's too grand and imposing or that only private school pupils have a chance of getting in.

Reply 714

turkish-delight

Original post by ray_charlene

lol she's from my college

Please tell her on my behalf that she is an immature little girl (not for rejecting Oxford, as people do this every year, but for the way in which she has gone about doing it ... attention seeking drama queen).

Reply 715

LiveFastDieYoung

and UCL is such a meritocratic bastion of the working class made-good.

What a tool, I come from a working class northern background and the tradition of oxford was alien to me, but I sucked it up and adapted. She's just a numpty with a chip on her shoulder.

Reply 716

RP-MRU.

I'm unsure what to make of it if I'm honest. On one hand, I agree with some of what she says, but on the other I think that in the current climate, a degree from Oxbridge - especially in Law - is what separates you from the rest.

Reply 717

Clare~Bear

Original post by jonnythemoose

Would be interesting to know if Oxford had intended on giving her an offer or not...

They gave her an offer but she then sent the letter saying she didn't want to get there anymore, assuming we're talking about the girl who I read about in the guardian I think . . .

Reply 718

weirdnessandcoffee

It's her choice, her life- her mistakes.
Sure, I'd jump at a chance to go and be an Oxbridge looney.
She gave a justified view, just because it's Oxford doesn't mean we should cower down to all their rules, she has a voice- it should be heard.