Negatives of Oxbridge

The holidays are too long.

Well, that correction's very controversial, even for a prescriptive grammarian. Why should the first part of the clause take precedence in determining the case?

I'm working on the assumption that there is more than one 'vacation' a year I'm not sure though! Holidays and vacations are pretty much the same thing afaik, so I'm pretty sure he should have used plurals
It's more because of personal hatred for him that I changed it...not that I hold grudges or anything...and I'm not immature

ISA: You don't understand until you see it. I saw levels of social retardedness that were absolutely stratospheric, including extremely poor levels of English from internationals who have allegedly passed English tests in order to go to Oxford, 25-year-olds with the social skills of 15-year-olds, and people who don't know how to park bicycles.
And yes, when I said it was difficult to get involved with university activities, I did include the student journalism etc in that. Can't speak for the Union as I was never interested in being a member and was advised by others that the joining cost wasn't worth it.

You strike me as being someone besotted with the Oxford dream, which doesn't much match the reality. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed my year there well enough, but more fool you if you've bought into all the shiny advertising. I think you want to go there for all the wrong reasons, and this will only show if you ever have an interview there.

1. The workload is very intense. Seriously intense.
2. We don't get weekends
3. There's no hiding or procrastinating because we have regular small group (max 3) meetings with academics
4. The town is really quite boring once you've gotten over the initial excitement
5. The food is awful and there are limited self-catering facilities
6. Shopping and food are really really expensive because of the tourists
7. We don't get a freshers week, people often get set work in the first 3 days (I was set work on my second day)
8. There are tourists everywhere, you end up having to barge through crowds and be in inadvertant pictures, especially on the Clare bridge


~

I could name another 100 if I could be bothered.

2. We don't get weekends

I'm working on the assumption that there is more than one 'vacation' a year I'm not sure though! Holidays and vacations are pretty much the same thing afaik, so I'm pretty sure he should have used plurals
It's more because of personal hatred for him that I changed it...not that I hold grudges or anything...and I'm not immature

No, we are expected to work in the vacation and not to treat it like a holiday. We were explicitly told "the word vacation means to vacate your room, not to stop working".

The impression I get is that there are quite a few regulations (especially at older colleges), but most of them make sense somewhat in terms of academia. There is a sense that some items (such as a drinking restriction at college formal dinners at my college last year) belittle us as young adults, but this is why we have JCR's (college-level student unions) that will fight these issues. Taking the drinking restrictions as an example, this year we've managed to get them relaxed to the extent that's it's pretty much a non-issue anymore.

There are too many stairs.

Threatening someone with expulsion because of how they choose to manage their private life is treating someone like a child, in my book.

Can't they let you make your own decision? Of course, there is work involved, but shouldn't they step in if they start to fall behind, and trust their students?

Also, I fend for myself much more at UCL: self-catered, no bedsheets, etc.