The Student Room Group

Choosing an Oxford college

Hey all,

As you can tell from the threads springing up about it, it's that time of year when many people are looking into Oxford entry and picking a college - especially with so many colleges holding open days at the end of June. Bringing some much-needed help to the process, I'm in a group of students who've just finished producing a guide to choosing an Oxford college. Unlike the alternative prospectuses around, it is actually independent! Check out http://www.uneek.biz

Unfortunately, as you'll see, we are trying to get some recompense for our time, so we can't give it away free. But we think it's a fair price - and if you're skint, talk your school into buying a copy instead and reap the benefits for free!

Happy to answer any questions in this thread. Except questions along the lines of "what does it say about XXXXX college" - buy the Guide for the answer :wink:

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Reply 1
ThePants999
Hey all,

As you can tell from the threads springing up about it, it's that time of year when many people are looking into Oxford entry and picking a college - especially with so many colleges holding open days at the end of June. Bringing some much-needed help to the process, I'm in a group of students who've just finished producing a guide to choosing an Oxford college. Unlike the alternative prospectuses around, it is actually independent! Check out http://www.uneek.biz

Unfortunately, as you'll see, we are trying to get some recompense for our time, so we can't give it away free. But we think it's a fair price - and if you're skint, talk your school into buying a copy instead and reap the benefits for free!

Happy to answer any questions in this thread. Except questions along the lines of "what does it say about XXXXX college" - buy the Guide for the answer :wink:

So independent that it's written by Oxford students :wink: So it's not going to be loaded towards the Colleges you lot are at then? :wink: :tongue:
Reply 2
Indeed it isn't. We always had impartiality as our goal from the very start, so we were keen to make sure we were just as neutral about our own colleges. I didn't write the report on my college, but had I done, it would have been pretty negative!
Reply 3
ThePants999
I didn't write the report on my college, but had I done, it would have been pretty negative!

That's not very impartial.
Reply 4
Yes it is. My college has a number of negative points about it. An impartial report isn't one that comes up with an "average" result - it's one that comes up with a result that reflects the college. Lincoln suffers for its accommodation and living costs (ranked second from bottom on OUSU's "value for money" table), mediocre computing facilities, lack of a 24-hour library and insularity. When I say "pretty negative", I mean on balance - it still has plenty of positives to offer, like the superb food, its beauty (including NO 60s/70s concrete blocks, quite a rarity) and its decent bar and common room facilities.
Reply 5
ThePants999
Yes it is. My college has a number of negative points about it. An impartial report isn't one that comes up with an "average" result - it's one that comes up with a result that reflects the college. Lincoln suffers for its accommodation and living costs (ranked second from bottom on OUSU's "value for money" table), mediocre computing facilities, lack of a 24-hour library and insularity. When I say "pretty negative", I mean on balance - it still has plenty of positives to offer, like the superb food, its beauty (including NO 60s/70s concrete blocks, quite a rarity) and its decent bar and common room facilities.

OI!

There ain't nowt wrong with concrete (with the exception of Catz - how on earth that became listed is beyond me :wink: )
Reply 6
Go take a look at Brunel University and tell me there's nothing wrong with concrete :wink:
Reply 7
ThePants999
Yes it is. My college has a number of negative points about it. An impartial report isn't one that comes up with an "average" result - it's one that comes up with a result that reflects the college. Lincoln suffers for its accommodation and living costs (ranked second from bottom on OUSU's "value for money" table), mediocre computing facilities, lack of a 24-hour library and insularity. When I say "pretty negative", I mean on balance - it still has plenty of positives to offer, like the superb food, its beauty (including NO 60s/70s concrete blocks, quite a rarity) and its decent bar and common room facilities.

oh, i thought you were pretty negative with it from experience.
Reply 8
ThePants999
Go take a look at Brunel University and tell me there's nothing wrong with concrete :wink:

Wolfson Col isn't too bad!

Brunel is a little ugly!

To quote the Izzard for the second time today..

'ha! ha! ha...!
Block of Concrete!'

Fx
Reply 9
Fluffy
OI!

There ain't nowt wrong with concrete (with the exception of Catz - how on earth that became listed is beyond me :wink: )


Not just listed but Grade One listed, and described by Pevsner as 'a perfect piece of architecture' (on the other hand the Seeley library in Cambridge won architectural prizes despite being virtually unusable).
Must go and see it some day and see if my prejudice against concrete is justified,
It's actually a very reasonable price, I would be tempted to take advantage of the USP and push prices up a bit. (Ok, more than a bit...) Do you have a distributor out of interest? I'll have to find someone who has a copy to see what was said about Balliol.

And good innovation, print is yesterdays medium.
Reply 11
JUSTaGIRL
How are you able to be impartial about colleges which you might have very little experience of? It seems a bit silly to me.


It's more than one person isn't it?
Personally I think it's an excellent idea. If people are prepared to pay £100 to that OxfordCambridge company, then a group of actual students asking for £!0 is a bargain.
Reply 12
Thanks for the comments guys!

Baz - we haven't really gone for traditional distribution methods. We were planning to market directly, but now we expect the vast majority of our sales to come from our partnership with Tutor2u, the educational e-tailer, who are selling site licenses for the Guide. Already over 25 schools and colleges have bought site licenses from T2U, including the likes of Eton and Tonbridge, and a few international schools.

JUSTaGIRL - we conducted interviews with current students from each college to get the facts. Face-to-face interviewing allowed us to challenge opinions they expressed and explore deeper to find out whether they really were substantiated or whether it was just bias on their part.
Reply 13
I think a project like this would be useful to schools who are inexperienced in sending students to Oxford- I was the first from my school and I'd have liked something like that. Although I'm happy with my choice I did use a method of "ooh, let's look at the colleges with the nicest, most non-threatening names" to compose a short-list, which wasn't the wisest way to do it! There's a group in Oxford who aim to give information to schools with inexperience of Oxbridge admissions, right? Would a link with them be plausible? If they go to a lot of schools it could be useful to them and lucrative to you!
It will be very popular in the international and private sector, and with Eton already getting hold of it; Westminster, Harrow, St. Paul's will be soon to follow. And by using the tutor2u brand, which from what I heard is one of the market leaders in e-learning the possibilities are almost endless. I'll certainly be mentioned it to my schools Economics department when I go back in a few weeks.

And at £30 a go, they can't really lose.
Reply 15
ThePants999
Thanks for the comments guys!

Baz - we haven't really gone for traditional distribution methods. We were planning to market directly, but now we expect the vast majority of our sales to come from our partnership with Tutor2u, the educational e-tailer, who are selling site licenses for the Guide. Already over 25 schools and colleges have bought site licenses from T2U, including the likes of Eton and Tonbridge, and a few international schools.

JUSTaGIRL - we conducted interviews with current students from each college to get the facts. Face-to-face interviewing allowed us to challenge opinions they expressed and explore deeper to find out whether they really were substantiated or whether it was just bias on their part.


Will tell Careers department at my school tomorrow, fairly confident they'll buy it.

NB - you might want to create an "extra detailed version" and market it directly to public schools at £500. This version won't need to contain any new information, but public schools will throw any amount of money away if they think it'll give them an advantage other schools simply can't afford. And given that Eton have recently lost £4,000,000 in high risk investment, £500 probably wo'nt matter too much.
Reply 16
They're not the right schools to market to, surely? If you have a former pupil in each college why would you need to pay someone else to tell you about it?
Reply 17
d750
They're not the right schools to market to, surely? If you have a former pupil in each college why would you need to pay someone else to tell you about it?


Public schools are all about paying to increase your chances of success. This would be exactly the same thing. Of course, to less priviliged schools, it would be much more useful; but public schools don't cut corners - they cost enough to ensure that have to get every advantage possible, however small.
Reply 18
H&E
Public schools are all about paying to increase your chances of success. This would be exactly the same thing. Of course, to less priviliged schools, it would be much more useful; but public schools don't cut corners - they cost enough to ensure that have to get every advantage possible, however small.


I'd be surprised if many public schools would buy something like this, 'though. A guide may be useful to a school which doesn't send many people to Oxbridge, but public schools wouldn't need one and nor would their pupils. In any case, Oxbridge applications are influenced by making sure people don't double up at the same colleges too often, or by informal links with colleges etc.
Reply 19
The big independent schools have been the quickest to jump on board and buy it. The head of Economics at Eton is a tutor2u director and was one of the first to buy it, and thanks to the element of competition between the top independent schools, others seem not to want to get left behind. With 3,900 sixth forms in the UK, however, we've got a long way to go yet, so my sincere thanks go to those like H&E who would mention it to their schools.