regret applying to Oxford.

Well, I've applied to study Chemistry at Oxford, and I have the same problem as yourself. The things which worry me is the actual Oxford students - very intelligent, privileged, and I'm sure most of them live in a completely different social sphere from mine - a working-class village in rural North Wales; something's telling me there aren't many of us studying in the City of Dreaming Spires.

Also, the alleged difficulty of the work is also off-putting - I savour a challenge, and crave an intellectual course which will stretch my mental capacities to their utmost zenith. BUT - if the course is insurmountably difficult, and I spend four solid years in absolute toil with only the foggiest comprehension of the work - my whole 'university' experience could be ruined. So that's why I'm pulling out pre-interview.

Its a bit selfish if you get an offer and turn it down tbh

So why do people generally accept or turn down offers, then, if not for selfish reasons? Surely no-one accepts an Oxford offer as a tribute to all the potentially very able people who would have loved to get a place but were rejected in the process etc. etc., so why would turning down an offer be any more of an insult to those people and any more of a selfish act than accepting one?

Its selfish because loads of people REALLY want a place, so if you get the offer but just turn it down, youre preventing someone else from taking that place who wants it, and making their lives a little bit worse. (im assuming if an offer gets rejected, it isnt given to anyone else... i could be wrong). Its an insult because you would think 'what a ****' if you were going for a place, someone else gets it but turns it down when you would have accepted it.

Its kind of like being offered a meal by a starving African and throwing it in the bin.

Its selfish because loads of people REALLY want a place, so if you get the offer but just turn it down, youre preventing someone else from taking that place who wants it, and making their lives a little bit worse. (im assuming if an offer gets rejected, it isnt given to anyone else... i could be wrong). Its an insult because you would think 'what a ****' if you were going for a place, someone else gets it but turns it down when you would have accepted it.

Its kind of like being offered a meal by a starving African and throwing it in the bin.

Getting an offer and turning it down is not selfish at all. The place can be given to someone else if the offer is turned down in time. Getting an offer, accepting the offer, then ringing up on results day saying that you don't want to go anymore (which is what someone who was meant to be studying with me did) is incredibly selfish, because that place can't go to someone else

Just because someone 'really wants' a place, it doesn't mean they deserve it. There are, for most courses, no precisely fixed number of places - there's always a bit of variation. If one subject has seven fantastic candidates at a college, they may let them all in, even if they only normally take five. It also works the other way around.
If a candidate is truly deserving of a place, they will get in. Otherwise tough... you didn't make the grade.

Fair enough - but i'm sure sometimes they have to choose between two equally well qualified people - and they cant let in everyone who is able to study there (especially for very competitive subjects like medicine).

Apparently they're a bit more lenient in this scenario for the less (but not un)competitive courses, meaning that if there are two people they want they might (that's might) give them both a place (or pool them).

yay

Its selfish because loads of people REALLY want a place, so if you get the offer but just turn it down, youre preventing someone else from taking that place who wants it, and making their lives a little bit worse. (im assuming if an offer gets rejected, it isnt given to anyone else... i could be wrong). Its an insult because you would think 'what a ****' if you were going for a place, someone else gets it but turns it down when you would have accepted it.

Its kind of like being offered a meal by a starving African and throwing it in the bin.

The things which worry me is the actual Oxford students - very intelligent, privileged, and I'm sure most of them live in a completely different social sphere from mine - a working-class village in rural North Wales; something's telling me there aren't many of us studying in the City of Dreaming Spires.

Also, the alleged difficulty of the work is also off-putting - I savour a challenge, and crave an intellectual course which will stretch my mental capacities to their utmost zenith. BUT - if the course is insurmountably difficult, and I spend four solid years in absolute toil with only the foggiest comprehension of the work - my whole 'university' experience could be ruined. So that's why I'm pulling out pre-interview.

Yeah, according to rkd there were 8 set History places at his college, yet there are over 9 there this year.

Ten for straight History, five joint schools, as opposed to 8/5 standard - not, of course, that History's an uncompetitive course.

Also, OP, do come to Oxford, it's awesome, I love it, haven't met anyone from Eton yet. Seriously, I'm a comprehensive-schooled kid and nobody cares.

Yes, there may be lots of people who REALLY wanted a place and didn't get an offer, but my point is that if you did happen to get an offer, that wouldn't mean you'd somehow be morally obliged to accept it just because there are other people who wanted it. You have no way of knowing why those people weren't given offers, and there's no guarantee that if you hadn't applied one of them would have got your offer. For all you know, your college may have decided to do with one fewer theologian than usual that year (or conversely, they may have been so impressed by your application they decided to give out an extra offer which they wouldn't have given to anybody else).

As for the "making their lives a little bit worse" bit: don't get me wrong, I do believe in altruism, but I also believe that when you're making a decision about where you are going to spend the next three or four years, that's not the right time and place for it. It wasn't your decision to give you an offer and reject the other applicants, it was the faculty's/college's, and as I said before, you have no way of knowing how they arrived at that decision. There is no guarantee that if it wasn't for you, it would have been they who got the offer. You're not personally responsible for the fact that those people are feeling miserable about their rejections, and you're not going to make them feel any better about it by accepting an offer you don't really want to accept and potentially making yourself miserable - and it won't get them a place either.
I'm not saying that feelings of guilt/responsibility wouldn't be understandable in this situation, but nevertheless I think they'd be misguided.

Besides, as The_Lonely_Goatherd pointed out, if you turn down your place, it means that someone who narrowly missed his offer will be given a place anyway, so the place isn't actually "wasted".

No, it's not. Your offer is given to you by your college, not by your rejected fellow applicants.

Ye youre completely right about everything - but why apply to oxbridge, such a competetive place, only to turn down an offer?

There are so many reasons! Change in circumstances, visiting a uni you hadn't been seriously considering beforehand and realising it's the right place for you, being forced to apply and not wanting to go in the first place! I think the guy who was meant to be on my course had a sudden epiphany or something and decided he preferred a course elsewhere, which would have been fair enough had he decided that earlier on