Is that true? Certainly isn't the case with the people I know who went.
Urban v's the Commentariat
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chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
Oh yes.
It was certainly true with me. My accent was probably quite broad back then. Many people there had literally never heard a regional accent before, and they just couldn't get over it. For three years.
There's a very good book called The Oxbridge Conspiracy by Walter Ellis. Came out about 20 years ago, to the predictable slagging, but it's definitely worth a look.
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
It's the case with one of the three people I know that went there. They used to pretend not to be able to understand a Yorkshire accent.
Fozzie Bear
Well-Known Member
My partner went (smartest girl in the shittest school).
There was some direct mocking, some indirect stuff about arcane table manners and also a sort of patronising pygmallion let's take you under our wing as the token pov thing.
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
Not just in Oxbridge, and not just students. I've stories that I can't share right now about the "gentle ribbing" that teachers from ordinary backgrounds working in these environments get...
Three As they wanted off me.
Heh, I've just pulled down my copy of The Oxbridge Conspiracy. I'd forgotten how funny it is. Here's Ellis in the Preface to the second edition, talking about the book's reception:
"Gerard Kaufman... was typically abrupt in his verdict, delivered in the Sunday Times. My statistics of an Oxbridge-dominance of English society were no doubt impeccably accurate, he wrote, but proved nothing. The doughty socialist then deduced that my problem could easily be summarized: "Baby, It's Cold Outside." Such is socialism today."
There's plenty more in the same vein, he chooses his targets nicely.
"Gerard Kaufman... was typically abrupt in his verdict, delivered in the Sunday Times. My statistics of an Oxbridge-dominance of English society were no doubt impeccably accurate, he wrote, but proved nothing. The doughty socialist then deduced that my problem could easily be summarized: "Baby, It's Cold Outside." Such is socialism today."
There's plenty more in the same vein, he chooses his targets nicely.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Beware Owen, ellis was chased around the world and his book sold 200 copies due to exposing what no one knows about.
No, it sold a lot more than that. You're talking about the hardback.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
I am - a hardback that cane out after the original paperback was dumped at the last minute. How many more than 200 did the later paperback sell?
It's ranked 700,000 in Amazon today, 20 years after publication, and it was widely reviewed--always negatively, but that doesn't matter--so it probably hit five figures.
It should have been many more. And it's probably true that Ellis's career has suffered as a result of writing it. As he's admitted, the title was unfortunate--of course it isn't a conspiracy, and that gave reviewers something to slag off.
el-ahrairah
forward communism, forward gerbils!
my missus went to oxford and therefore is my go to person for insider information. she has told stories about this sort of thing, proper blatant stuff, rude to people's faces about their accents or the perception of whether they were privately educated or not. it's very segregated by class as well once you get there, apparently - with the upper classes not really mingling with the smaller amounts of lower classses. my missus says that most of the public schools are basically preparing you for oxbridge, the language, the behaviour, the expectatins and the clubs and dinners and all that shit you don't know about if you didn't go to Eton or Rugby or whatever. Those upper class kids already know how it works, but the Compehensive school swot has no preparation or understanding of those worlds. non brits tend to hang around in clusters of immigrants and not mingle too much i am told. ethnic minority brits tend to hang around with the non-brits, because they are all treated like the help by loads of the really posh kids.
equationgirl
Respect my existence or expect my resistance
You still have to pass your exams though. They do matter.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Not to her. Or her life transition.
equationgirl
Respect my existence or expect my resistance
Sadly true. Anyway, she's off to Harvard.
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
I don't see where I said that someone didn't have to pass their exams and/or that the exams didn't matter.
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
...or to people like her.
Things that lessen the importance of exam results for these kinds of people include:
- "scholarships" and the like.
- Private universities where you can simply buy your way in.
- Getting a job via family and friends.
- Living off inherited wealth.
It's all utterly rigged.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Of course it is, and those of the ruling classes who know it is rigged are generally those who argue loudest that:
a) It isn't rigged, and/or
b) that they got there on merit, it was everyone else who had a silver spoon.
Cunts, the lot of them.
weepiper
I fix the machines that fight climate change
Indeed, as evidenced by my dad failing the entrance exam when he had passed his eleven plus aged nine, been a straight A student at grammar school and never failed any exam in his life before or since. He lived in a council house and his dad was a joiner though so no special considerations for him.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
What a fucking parasite.
Yeah, 'cos we never have days of rioting after the police execute another young black man in London.
equationgirl
Respect my existence or expect my resistance
St Louis is a good way away from Harvard, so I don't know why she's freaking out so much. It's not like race riots are a new thing in the US or here anyway, and it's not like they only started happening since she applied to go study there.
weepiper
I fix the machines that fight climate change
equationgirl
Respect my existence or expect my resistance
A guy in the year above me did take the entrance paper, and passed it. They said at interview he would also have to sit an S grade paper in Maths, which he did and passed as well. He then got his offer, 3 'A's. But he got 2'A's and a B for his 'A' levels so they said no to him. He was pretty devastated - and his Dad was a bank manager.
The next year I was offered the chance to do the Oxford entrance exam in mathematics. I had a look at some past papers, and decided it was too much extra work (maths teacher reckoned 3-4 hours additional tutoring a week) for no guaranteed place at the end of it. So I said no and have never regretted it.
The next year I was offered the chance to do the Oxford entrance exam in mathematics. I had a look at some past papers, and decided it was too much extra work (maths teacher reckoned 3-4 hours additional tutoring a week) for no guaranteed place at the end of it. So I said no and have never regretted it.
equationgirl
Respect my existence or expect my resistance
It's also difficult to take her fear seriously when she posts things like this the day before:
Laurie Penny @PennyRed · Aug 13
Please please somebody create a street riot scene out of gingerbread. #tgbbo
DaveCinzano
WATCH OUT, GEORGE, HE'S GOT A SCREWDRIVER!
Hey, go easy, it's been a tough week for Laurie, what with Robin Williams selfishly topping himself, A-Level results coming out and now the Ferguson farrago, all triggering bad vibes for her (and overshadowing what should be her jubilant odyssey across the pond).
muscovyduck
Good IT skills and food hygiene competent
Molly Crabapple pointed out that Laurie was being a dick re: race riots on twitter. I do have slightly more respect for her than Laurie tbf. Only slightly
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