Rich Kids in Royal Holloway

hey guys

I headed down to a Royal Holloway applicant day a couple weeks back. Really lovely area and campus, and the course for English/History looks very nice too. Plus it's one of the most highly rated unis that I can get into with my mediocre grades.

The only problem, for me, is how posh it felt. I couldn't shake the feeling of it seeming like a rich kid's school. Of course, Royal Holloway will have a lot of rich people attending; it's a rich area in general and accommodation prices are huge (people staying in huge rooms with double beds lol). Even in a speech during the English application day, the person giving the speech explained away the less-than-100% employment rate from the course by joking that "quite a lot of our students are wealthy, so just sit around on beaches after graduating" or something along those lines.

I know that I'm generalizing outrageously and coming across as bitter and irrationally scared of rich people, but it's really not a group that I want to be around them exclusively for my student life. I live near to Wellington college, and dislike most people I know from there, which doesn't help. I don't want to be sheltered from the real world of all economic climates by being around them exclusively.

I don't think I have any idea what atmosphere I want in a university now. When I headed down to East Anglia, I was thinking "ohh I wish this was a little nicer". When I headed down to Royal Holloway, I was thinking "ohh I wish this was a little more scummy".

So I guess my (slightly weird) question is, do you, as a Holloway student, feel like the amount of wealthy students outnumber those from any other economic climate? Does everybody there come from a private school? I understand that you can find most types of people in a University, but I'm worried that I'll be missing out on certain demographics who simply cant afford the living costs.

Reply 1

kazhas93

Hey,

I did my undergraduate in Geography at Royal Holloway, I came from a state school and it was also something I noted at my visit day but in reality that was probably the first and last time I thought of it as an issue.

I think unless you attend some of the elite institutions, universities generally have people from such a variety of different backgrounds.

Because of the kind of institution and its location I think it's fair to RH does attract some fairly wealthy students but the only time this was apparent to me was when I saw a few nice cars on campus. Beyond that my friendship group and coursemates were from very diverse backgrounds so if you are looking to meet people from many different demographics you definitely have opportunities to do so.

If it really is something you're worried about I know you can find data on student demographics here.

Rich Kids in Royal Holloway

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