balliol college

apologies if mispelt.
would you recommend applying here? is it friendly, is it lively, is it good for history, is there a good magazine for aspiring journos, is it relatively near to the city centre?
Thanks for any advice.

Reply 1

the_sHaDe

amphibian

It definitely has a central location and i think no.4 on norrington table this year which is not bad at all, although i dont think it offers accomodation for all 4 years.

Reply 2

BazTheMoney

It depends what you mean by friendly; as a college it's very open, has a huge GLaB society and loads of international students, so it's not as oppressive as Oriel is and most of the students are friendly, open minded and generally wonderful. But being very academic, it isn't like other college where students go out on the piss every night, there is an expectation that you will do all the work and if your social life suffers for it so be it; you're there to work. Like a softcore version of Merton I like to say. :wink:

Very lively, the Entz committee are really active and the JCR is the biggest in Oxford, thus having a massive turnover, about £360,000pa. There's always something going on, whether it be college-wide or organised by different societies. There isn't a ball but there's the Summer Event every May, which is like an informal Ball that takes over the whole college, really good fun, even if the management and organisation was a little dodge this year. :redface:

Trips are organised every year, normally to London or something. Oh, and the Bar is really cheap; but students run, so crap. And even if you get bored of the college about another 15 colleges are within 10 minutes walk.

Balliol's fairly strong for every subject it offers, so it's a fairly safe bet. There's a good few history Tutors, 4 I think. I Haven't heard many complains, it probable isn't the "best" in Oxford; Christ Church and Wadham are known to be pretty strong, but it isn't the worst either. I think they admit about 15 Historians a year in all forms (History, History and Economics, History and Politics, ect.) Not that many people apply either, the application ratio is about average.

Jorno stuff is manly done at the university level, OxSt or the Cherwell, so it probable dosen't matter too much about the college.

Reply 3

amphibian

sounds good...cheers!