Oxford 2011 Freshers Chat Thread

Nice. Have you read The Junior Officers' Reading Club by Patrick Hennessey? Bloody brilliant memoir about Sandhurst and the recent wars. It's pretty much the entire source of my knowledge of the army today, a real eye opener. The physical training at Sandhurst, he said, was worse than fighting in Afghanistan.

Haha, you're certainly right, but remember they ARE a little funny in the Orient.

... on D&D about how...

Hi, sorry to randomly appear in your thread, I'm actually an Oxford 2012 applicant but I was snooping and couldn't help posting: I've read the JORC, it was surprisingly enjoyable, and I'm also looking at heading to Sandhurst after graduation (Paras in my case though) so was freaked out by seeing the similarities in Mickys post to my own goals...

Have you heard they're considering disbading the Coldstream Guards? Saw it a few days ago, not sure how the issue stands currently.

From what I understand it's all up in the air, but the Guards might take some pain. I doubt they'd be disbanded, but the SDSR was a ****ing joke anyway, so I wouldn't put it past Dave.

The Paras don't do much jumping now, most regiments are being used as line infantry unfortunately.

****. Not even in training?
I really don't think disbanding historic regiments is the kind of political liability the government can afford to be burdening itself with tbh, so I'm with you on that.

Out of curiosity, what are you going to read at Oxford? If it's PPE at Balliol, I'll sue you for impersonating me (or maybe I'm impersonating you )

They train for it certainly, they have to do P Coy. But they don't do it in combat any more. I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't have any planes for them to jump from really...

They wouldn't disband the Guards- we might get an RAC-type structure, where you have a Guards Regiment and then 1 GRENADIERS, 2 COLDSTREAM, 3 SCOTS, 4 IRISH, 5 WELSH as individual battalions within a parent regiment, retaining regimental traditions and uniforms etc.

I applied for Law.



At Balliol and got pooled to St. Edmund Hall.

Training's good enough for me, I just want to launch myself out of a plane at some point (not that I don't take soldiering seriously, but that is my main incentive for joining the Paras). Sad but true about the planes...if things get worse (Spain and Italy crashing and infecting the UK markets, for example) even parachutes are going to be pushing the budget...

Doesn't seem like it would be too damaging then, just a bit of a bureaucratic reshuffle.

Well we'll see if I (even) get pooled, but at least law was never on my list (starting to feel insecure about individuality here...)

Balliol is nice; make sure you ask to see the college library. It's huge.

Merton has the oldest continuously functioning academic library in the world.

You could join another regiment and to the All Arms parachute course; the Paras are competitive and often oversubscribed I think- it's an employer's market. I just hate the way the Government is putting cost-cutting ahead of functionality.

Balliol is nice; make sure you ask to see the college library. It's huge.

Merton has the oldest continuously functioning academic library in the world.

Hi, sorry to interrupt the discussion, I was wondering if anyone knew when we have to be at Oxford exactly, since I'm trying to search for airplane tickets and it's much cheaper if I buy them in advance. I have asked the admission office but again they're not replying.

Hi, sorry to interrupt the discussion, I was wondering if anyone knew when we have to be at Oxford exactly, since I'm trying to search for airplane tickets and it's much cheaper if I buy them in advance. I have asked the admission office but again they're not replying.

You got 45 in the IB, you were meant for Merton.

The rest of us mortals will have to make do with younger continuously functioning libraries

Intelligence/work places a range of five points or so in IB, luck determines where in it you fall. And position in the Norrington table can just mean one or two more people got firsts; it's hardly indicative of the overall standard. Although I admit I'm jealous of the colleges with 24-hour libraries, albeit more for the concept than because I'd actually use them.

Was that the university admissions office or your college's admissions office? I emailed the college a few months ago and they told me I'll need to be there on 2nd October

Just to clarify, I said what I said jokingly, yes, but with the utmost respect for your achievement, the internet's not a good conveyor of tone.

And while it's very modest of you to say that, luck is at most a one or two point difference.