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Picking colleges is easy,but how do people decide between Oxford and Cambridge?

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ProzacNation

Well tis true we cant do a language with English (other than joint honours) but am gonna sign up to the language centre this term, which offers loads of courses in different languages, some for free and some for small sums, and you can get a qualification at the end, which is also helpful for job applications.

Face it Cantab, we beat you at the boat race, English and generally being the bestest ever this year.

"We're sexy, we're hot, we're everything your not!" :p:

you're not there yet so your opinion is null and void.
(if you were there you would know the boat race actually means very little to most students, it's the reserves race which is more representative! But I don't know what the scores are on that one)

Reply 41

Narcissus

Prozac is a current student...And come on, you're a boaty and so know that the reserves more truly represents the quality of the uni but the actual Boat Race is still more popular with students as well as the public...

Reply 42

ProzacNation

Willa

you're not there yet so your opinion is null and void.

And you're a moron.

For your information I have just completed my first year at Oxford, and even if I hadn't who the hell are you to tell anyone that their 'opinion is null and void'?

Its idiots like you who put potential applicants off and give Oxbridge a bad name.

Reply 43

$Avatar for sTe\/o$

sTe\/o

Willa

College rowing is stronger at Cambridge. Who cares if Oxford's recruits win the boat race? :p:

Reply 44

Clueless?

I don't know why but I never really considered Cambridge, I never even thought of specific unis (merely agonising whether I'd be able to do Medicine - squeamishness sucks :frown:

) until the end of lower sixth when we had to fill in a form saying where we'd apply the following year. I guess I'd always thought that Oxford was the best, so I applied there, though apparently Cambridge is much stronger for the sciences, still after visiting both (not specifically for the unis however) I'm sure that I'd have applied to Oxford without any of my subconscious bias.

Reply 45

Cirsium

I ummed and ahhed about it for years. (Yes I mean years... i have a much older friend who went to Oxford when i must've been about 6 and convinced me that Oxford was the best uni in the world... literally)

What it basically came down to was simply that my sister brought me back a Uni of Ox prospectus when she went to a higher education conference (Yes she's 2 years older than I am :blush:

) and thanks to that and the website I pretty much fell in love with 1 college. It didn't matter whether it was at Oxford or Cambridge: I just knew (or thought I knew) that that was where I wanted to be

As it turns out I definitely made the right decision because I never wanted to go too far from Newbury and then oh look my parents decided to move... hehe :smile:

Reply 46

Elles

sbailey

College rowing is stronger at Cambridge.

that's rather definitive. dare i ask why you've reached that conclusion...? :smile:

Reply 47

H&E

Willa

if you were there you would know the boat race actually means very little to most students, it's the reserves race which is more representative! But I don't know what the scores are on that one

Willa, why do you forever repeat this? Do I really have to point out every single time that your opinion is heavily skewed by the fact that in your only year at Cambridge, and your only year of involvement with rowing, the "best ever" Light Blue Boat got beaten by clear water while Goldie smashed Isis by 5 lengths in (by far) the quickest ever reserve race? Do I have to point that Goldie was largely filled by foreign grads again? That Isis was the only crew with a majority of undergrads? That even in non-Olympic years, there are hardly any genuine college rowers in either Goldie or Isis, and that the number of grads in the reserves crew isn't a huge amount greater than it is in the Blue Boats?

No? Well I'll just say this, which'll blow your assertion out of the water once and for all. The majority of students don't even know there is an Isis-Goldie race. The majority of students know nothing about rowing outside of Summer Eights / May Bumps. They hear about the boat race (which is outside term time) through the national media, which cares so little about Isis-Goldie they prefer to have Crackers blathering on for 40 minutes rather than actually show the race. The only people who may objectively care more about Isis-Goldie are those in the college rowing community, which is a significant but nonetheless small minority of both universities. This is because they may feel related to Goldie/Isis, as one of their number makes it into it every few years.

It's getting silly now. This year, Oxford won. Just get over it.

Reply 48

thecustardqueen

vellerindombur

I love Stephen Fry but am not sure it's a good idea to make a university choice based upon where he went.

oh yes it is. he went to Queens' College.

Good choice :smile:

Reply 49

killerbee

cambridge for science
oxford for arts and regular spottings of thom york

Reply 50

Willa

ProzacNation

i apologize, for some reason i got myself under the impression that you were a fresher. I should have checked but it was late and I was tired, I take it all back.

and the null and void thing i think has some stance because i do think that freshers can't truly know what it's like until they get there, so their minds are clouded with expectation.

Reply 51

Willa

H&E

Willa, why do you forever repeat this? Do I really have to point out every single time that your opinion is heavily skewed by the fact that in your only year at Cambridge (where you've become very involved in rowing), the "best ever" Light Blue Boat got beaten by clear water while Goldie smashed Isis by 5 lengths in (by far) the quickest ever reserve race? Do I have to point that Goldie was largely filled by foreign grads again? That Isis was the only crew with a majority of undergrads? That even in non-Olympic years, there are hardly any genuine college rowers in either Goldie or Isis, and that the number of grads in the reserves crew isn't a huge amount greater than it is in the Blue Boats?

No? Well I'll just say this, which'll blow your assertion out of the water once and for all. The majority of students don't even know there is an Isis-Goldie race. The majority of students know nothing about rowing outside of Summer Eights / May Bumps. They hear about the boat race (which is outside term time) through the national media, which cares so little about Isis-Goldie they prefer to have Crackers blathering on for 40 minutes rather than actually show the race. The only people who may objectively care more about Isis-Goldie are those in the college rowing community, which is a significant but nonetheless small minority of both universities. This is because they may feel related to Goldie/Isis, as one of their number makes it into it every few years.

It's getting silly now. This year, Oxford won. Just get over it.

i guess my opinions needed more elaboration.
Firstly my opinion that the reserve race is more important is not an expression of bitterness towards oxford winning it this year, not at all. I think that on this forum I did mention that I considered the reserve race more important than the main race BEFORE the races took place (i stress that I think I did...either way I assure you that that was my opinion BEFORE the races). Although I think you indeed have a valid point that I should not take this as a rule thatevery year the reserve race DOES matter.....I think you are right in saying that the goldie boat did have foreign grads in it, and so it's significance at beating isis may be lessened, but I still stand firm by my opinion that the reserve race is closer to representing the standard of rowing at each uni (at least the standard of training at the uni boat clubs).
Further to this, it may just be the people I talk to (who aren't all rowers by the way) but they all seemed aware of the reserve race, and all agreed it's importance due to it's closer representative status these days. In my original post on this thread I did point out that I wasn't aware at the score for goldie vs isis, I would actually be interested to know which has beaten which more times, especially in the past few years! If it turns out to be oxford, then I honestly think that oxford must have a better overall standard of rowing then.

I assure you I am not being bitter at all, this is not something I conjured up to make cambridge look good despite this years result....to insinuate such a thing is in itself rather childish and actually makes me rather angry. I know I falsely judged prozacnation's opinion, and I apologised for that, I would hope that you can apologise for this reaction to my comment, since I feel you yourself persistently make little digs at cambridge all the time in our forum which we just tolerate, although on occasion I at least have made a little snap back, but not on the level which others have. Perhaps that's just the freshers around, who are feeding these petty arguments....and I was wrong to think prozacnation was a culprit of this. There's a difference between petty rivalry and valid opinion....and I thought my boat race comment was a valid opinion, sorry if that came off wrongly, but I stand by it! And I will probably for my entire time at cambridge.

Reply 52

Cirsium

*cough* thread-whoring *cough*

Reply 53

H&E

Willa

I still stand firm by my opinion that the reserve race is closer to representing the standard of rowing at each uni (at least the standard of training at the uni boat clubs).
Further to this, it may just be the people I talk to (who aren't all rowers by the way) but they all seemed aware of the reserve race, and all agreed it's importance due to it's closer representative status these days.

Hmm. Well, that has changed my mind. I stand by the fact that your opinion that most people care about the Blue Boat race is completely wrong. But it's clear to me that's because of your huge involvement in college rowing, which leads you to view the BR fundamentally differently to me. You view it as representative of college rowing, whereas I view it as representative of the university. My view means it is perfectly valid, and indeed to be expected, that the university's elite teams will be represented by unusual and exceptional people. Whereas your view sees it as the pinacle of a structure whose foundation is made up by college rowing, so if it is perceived that the Isis/Goldie race is more representative of that, that'll be the one people with your background care about.

This is all in itself fair enough. However, as I said before, college rowers are in a distinct minority, and therefore I think your view is the exception rather than the rule. I might also add I don't think Isis/Goldie are particularly representative of the college rowing - even the very cream of college crews, such as your crew, get very few oarsmen into either boat. I may point out I recently spoke to an ex-Oxford coach who told me that a few years ago there was a perceived "college rowing gap", where the Oxford coaches were worried that so few college rowers made it into the BB/Isis, and started researching why the Tabs were more successful in getting college rowers into their BB/Goldie. The coaches discovered that in fact, Cambridge got even less college rowers into university boats, and decided that instead of setting up a massive development squad their time and money would be better employed recruiting in America.

Apoligies for bitterness accusations. I think my time on a very bitch rugby forum's made me a bit suspicious.

nb when do I make (serious) digs at Cambridge?

Reply 54

Socrates

Back in the day when I was doing my GCSEs and (naively) thought I had a chance in hell at Oxbridge, I chose Oxford. Why? Because my English teacher kept going on how good Cambridge was :biggrin:

Reply 55

H&E

Bekaboo

*cough* thread-whoring *cough*

What the hell does that mean?

Reply 56

killerbee

i thought i was oxbridge material - then i spent a week at cambridge on a sutton trust thing and realised that, although nice, most people on the course shared none of my interests - only one person had any dynamism
then one of my mates went to oxford and came back a changed man - a bit strange and distant
however putting down oxbridge as a uni choice gives you a bit of motavation - i slacked off when i decided it wasn't the place for me

Reply 57

Willa

H&E

nb when do I make (serious) digs at Cambridge?

And I have already said that I can't tell when you're being serious or not any more :p:

(and a non-serious dig is still a dig, in some cases worse if it's a rather petty and subtle one)

and as a final response to the boat race issue. To the public the reserve race means nothing I agree, but I still think that lots of students understand the importance of the reserve race. Nearly everyone at cambridge knows someone who rows I reckon, and so I still reckon most will know about the reserve race. Yes the main race has all the glory attached to it and that's why i said that only current students would appriciate the opinion that the boat race isnt representative at all these days....that's why I had no problem with someone's comment earlier about choosing where to apply on the outcome of the boat race....which was an acknowledgement that it's a result that amounts to very little regarding which is better...it's almost like a flip of a coin! I only have a problem with when students think that this type of result has any significant value...i didn't say the reserve race did either, but I think it carried more value than the result of the main race. I can't really bitch at current students, imo they should know better. But I don't like freshers using it in their arguments because they haven't got an experience of uni to base it's importance on. I only jumped on prozacnation because I thought he was a fresher doing just this. I've mostly ignored these types of comments because I too was guilty of it myself last year, but you obviously understand that rowing is just a little bit special to me, and needs putting in it's place when comparing the two universities

Reply 58

Drogue

ProzacNation

Oh, and if it'll swing the vote at all, Oxford have a Cheerleading Squad (go team).
Well, Univ has a cheerleading squad that we occasionally lend to the university :wink:

A few of them are hot though, and their ability to do Eric Prydz still cheerleading/aerobics at bops is always appreciated :redface:

Reply 59

Two Tone

For me, it's easy, because I live in Cambridge. I know it back to front. I see students come, I see them go, and I see them never going past the train station! I'm picking Oxford simply for the fact it not Cambridge, and somewhere different from the place I've lived for the last 16 years.

Picking colleges is easy,but how do people decide between Oxford and Cambridge?

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