cliques at Oxford?

I think this thread could REALLY put people off applying to Oxbridge. .

hiya! yup i did post this thread in the general university discussion forum, but i was just curious, specifically for Oxford, is the university is generally characterised by cliques? as in the 'nerds' and the 'jocks' etc. as school often is - or do ppl generally socialise according to their courses, or where they're from, or the clubs they belong to?
ive heard in imperial, that ppl often form very tight groups based on their courses and their lecture buddies...
and are these social groups usually formed within the college or do ppl tend to have friends from other colleges as well? because clubs n societies are sometimes college-based right?
i'm sure there must be quite a mix and it may not be possible to generalise, but just as a sort of superficial overview - who do ppl tend to hang out with and based on what?

thanx!

hiya! yup i did post this thread in the general university discussion forum, but i was just curious, specifically for Oxford, is the university is generally characterised by cliques? as in the 'nerds' and the 'jocks' etc. as school often is - or do ppl generally socialise according to their courses, or where they're from, or the clubs they belong to?

The place is very cliquey indeed - people group themselves based on interests, and in some cases social class, but not so much by course. People lead entirely different lifestyles based on the contrasting clique they're in - for example there's boaties and rugby players who do pub crawls, Tory wannabe politicians with their slate parties, the posh 'rahs' who have champagne-fuelled nights at Green, the indie/alternative kids who do Zodiac/PT, the Oriental and Asian cliques, and lots who just stick with friends from their college. For example last night there was an invite-only party (Piers Gaveston) for the 'rahs' fuelled with cocaine, an orgy tent, etc... Before being slammed for putting people off, I'm just telling it as it is.

The place is very cliquey indeed - people group themselves based on interests, and in some cases social class, but not so much by course. People lead entirely different lifestyles based on the contrasting clique they're in - for example there's boaties and rugby players who do pub crawls, Tory wannabe politicians with their slate parties, the posh 'rahs' who have champagne-fuelled nights at Green, the indie/alternative kids who do Zodiac/PT, the Oriental and Asian cliques, and lots who just stick with friends from their college. For example last night there was an invite-only party (Piers Gaveston) for the 'rahs' fuelled with cocaine, an orgy tent, etc... Before being slammed for putting people off, I'm just telling it as it is.

Agree those cliques exist, although decreasingly so, but I'm not sure they are anywhere as near dominant as you suggest. For most people you have a bunch of mates in your own college and whilst you might also be involved in other groups it's the former who are usually the people you find yourself with at the kebab van at 2 in the morning. It may vary from college to college.

Yep completely true. The majority of students here form friendship groups from their own college, and this is primarily the people they associate with. Even there there's a bit of a class war though, in 1st yr my college seemed to split between the 'rahs' and 'commoners'. It's just after breaking away from college this year I've realised how prevalent the non-collegiate cliques are.

I can't speak for people at non-collegiate universities, but to my knowledge people often tend to just make friends with the people in their halls of residence, with the ones not in halls eager to make friends in the lecture hall. A few I know at Warwick said it's a bit crap really, that they only really know 15 people in a university of thousands.

I presume when you say rah's and commeners, you mean private schools and comprehensives?

I presume when you say rah's and commeners, you mean private schools and comprehensives?

Schooling isn't really an issue - you don't exactly wear a badge saying what school you went to. On the whole (in my experience) people don't ask and don't know.

Lol, back to the 19th century with social classes. Sounds a bit weird, I guess it's on attitude more than wealth though, we were just given a talk about how we'll all end up poor with no food at university.

Ha, someone got ripped to shreds for wearing his public school blazer to president's drinks at the union