is TSR too obsessed with oxbridge?

what do u think?

Thinking is one thing, obviously there’s a big cloud of vfm around oxbridge, and many genuine questions from the students & parents. (vfm … Value For Money)

but as a scientific engineering person, I don’t mind a little experimentation. Not perfection, just simple. Let’s do a word frequency count “oxbridge” against an antithesis, I did it blind, no preselection - just chose somewhere sensible up-north.

https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/search.php?query=Oxbridge
Search Results. Showing 1 to 20 of 115223

https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/search.php?query=Manchester
Search Results. Showing 1 to 20 of 309895

Nope, TSR isn’t disproportionately oxbridge focussed, as a first approximation.

Reply 2

Anonymous #1

OP

Original post by LuigiMario

Thinking is one thing, obviously there’s a big cloud of vfm around oxbridge, and many genuine questions from the students & parents. (vfm … Value For Money)

but as a scientific engineering person, I don’t mind a little experimentation. Not perfection, just simple. Let’s do a word frequency count “oxbridge” against an antithesis, I did it blind, no preselection - just chose somewhere sensible up-north.

https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/search.php?query=Oxbridge
Search Results. Showing 1 to 20 of 115223

https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/search.php?query=Manchester
Search Results. Showing 1 to 20 of 309895

Nope, TSR isn’t disproportionately oxbridge focussed, as a first approximation.

hey that's quite cool
can you try 'oxford' and 'cambridge' individually?

Reply 3

vapordave

Debate & Current Affairs Helper

20

https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/search.php?query=Oxford
Showing 1 to 20 of 378329

https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/search.php?query=Cambridge
Showing 1 to 20 of 500667

Original post by LuigiMario

Thinking is one thing, obviously there’s a big cloud of vfm around oxbridge, and many genuine questions from the students & parents. (vfm … Value For Money)

but as a scientific engineering person, I don’t mind a little experimentation. Not perfection, just simple. Let’s do a word frequency count “oxbridge” against an antithesis, I did it blind, no preselection - just chose somewhere sensible up-north.

https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/search.php?query=Oxbridge
Search Results. Showing 1 to 20 of 115223

https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/search.php?query=Manchester
Search Results. Showing 1 to 20 of 309895

Nope, TSR isn’t disproportionately oxbridge focussed, as a first approximation.

Reply 4

LuigiMario

19

Yes, I edited the url to replace the Oxbridge directly with Manchester, so you can add anything
As a second test, I repeated the search and noticed the TSR count for oxbridge had gone up by 5, so it’s probably accurate, live results!

This sort of analysis comes from basic cryptography, word or individual character frequencies are important

Reply 5

LuigiMario

19

And the combined scores shows that individually they do outnumber several to one the Manchester (multiple uni’s) scores, we’d have to factor in sentiment (I hate xxxx) but that’d probably even out.

So yes TSR is a great resource for finding answers on some world class universities!

Reply 6

confuzzledteen

16

Depends what you mean by 'obsessed.' From what I've seen, the demographic of people who use TSR is usually skewed towards high-achieving students, who are predicted high grades. Thus, inevitably, as Oxbridge is within their reach, they are going to want to apply there - meaning there are many posts & threads about Oxbridge.

TSR is mostly a student forum, and so naturally it tends to attract more able students (who may be thinking of applying to oxbridge), so threads and posts get created about it as seen above!

The ‘oxbridge or nothing’ mindset is almost part of TSR’s brand now but it’s more of a long-running joke than anything else!

Reply 8

Alienated.

15

All you bloody see is straight A** students crying about the fact they think they won't get into Oxbridge. It's bloody everywhere mate.

Reply 9

gtty123

22

No, but they are very obsessed with using Anonymous all the time...

Reply 10

04MR17

Volunteer Section Leader

22

Only from October - December :smile:

Reply 11

StriderHort

21

Well it's not like we get dozens of threads each week asking 'Should I get a Toyota? Should I get a Fiat? Should I get a Skoda?' Nah, they ALL want the friggin Audi to flex and show off their 'individuality' :tongue:

Reply 12

Ivartheboneless

13

Original post by LuigiMario

Yes, I edited the url to replace the Oxbridge directly with Manchester, so you can add anything
As a second test, I repeated the search and noticed the TSR count for oxbridge had gone up by 5, so it’s probably accurate, live results!

This sort of analysis comes from basic cryptography, word or individual character frequencies are important

They used this to crack Nazi code because they say 'hail hitler' but that's because it is one way encryption like a hash. Apparently they won't acknowledge hack public and private key encryption. Do.you study this?

Reply 13

cloudy.skies

20

I don’t think TSR is “obsessed” with Oxbridge, I do however think that certain individuals on the site are extremely opinionated on universities and try to persuade everyone to go to Oxbridge!

Reply 14

LuigiMario

19

Original post by Ivartheboneless

They used this to crack Nazi code because they say 'hail hitler' but that's because it is one way encryption like a hash. Apparently they won't acknowledge hack public and private key encryption. Do.you study this?

Samuel Finley Breese Morse, invented a ‘code’ early 1800’s, mixture of dots and dashes of increasing length. He based Morse Code attribution on the frequency of characters in the European Telegraph system. Most common letter = e = single dot, next most common letter = t = single dash etc

Reply 15

BlueIndigoViolet

19

Original post by Anonymous

what do u think?

Yep, but hey, what else is new

Reply 16

RogerOxon

21

Original post by pepsimaxcherry

I don’t think TSR is “obsessed” with Oxbridge, I do however think that certain individuals on the site are extremely opinionated on universities and try to persuade everyone to go to Oxbridge!

I went to Oxford, and know lots of Cambridge graduates (having lived there). The problem that I see is people being disuaded from applying by stereotypes and uninformed opinions.

Reply 17

cloudy.skies

20

Original post by RogerOxon

I went to Oxford, and know lots of Cambridge graduates (having lived there). The problem that I see is people being disuaded from applying by stereotypes and uninformed opinions.

That’s understandable, but there definitely is users commenting under some university threads trying to convince others to go to Oxbridge, even when they’ve expressed that they do not want to go for their own reasons. I just wish people would respect others choices, even if they don’t necessarily agree with them! Not everyone has to go to Oxbridge and many people may thrive better elsewhere.

Reply 18

RogerOxon

21

Original post by pepsimaxcherry

That’s understandable, but there definitely is users commenting under some university threads trying to convince others to go to Oxbridge, even when they’ve expressed that they do not want to go for their own reasons. I just wish people would respect others choices, even if they don’t necessarily agree with them! Not everyone has to go to Oxbridge and many people may thrive better elsewhere.