The long boat game

[Panjandrum]

If you don't readily understand my point, see Panjandrum's post below (he's an Oxford graduate and puts it better than my red-brick attempt!)

Cambridge, Beef, please!

[MrGongGong]

By "open" I mean open to anyone who meets stringent entrance criteria. I don't know what your 'A' level grades were, teamsaint, but back in the day you needed 3 straight As at 'A' level to get in; or take an entrance exam. If you had those kind of grades, at least one of the colleges would find room for you. A read of Brideshead Revisited or A Question of Upbringing will provide ample evidence that those from humble backgrounds have always been admitted to Oxbridge, provided they had the academic potential.

OR if that all seems far too much trouble

make sure you look like this

http://usportt.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/prince_edward.jpg

[Beef Oven]

Like Prince Edward did you mean ?

(that's a joke by the way)

things like the Royal Family getting waved into Universities don't really help the argument that its meritocratic .............
Thinking about Music for a moment , Cambridge (for example) has a great department BUT it's a bit dull compared to some other institutions. Sandy Goehr is a wonderful man and a great thinker about music but very much in the mainstream. If THAT is what you want, great , and i've worked with some wonderful Cambridge Undergraduates , there are other areas of study for which this institution (like RAM etc ) would be useless at


What is a bit tiresome is the received wisdom that this (and the other) University are uniquely outstanding in everything, for every subject, all the time ........ suggesting otherwise seems to be seen as equating a 3rd in Golf Course studies from the University of Slough with a 1st in Theoretical Physics from Oxford ! which it clearly isn't !

Come on GG, he's a prince for Godsakes! He's bound to get the odd nudge and wink here and there. It all balances itself out in the end. For example, I get my car serviced and MOTd for nothing through my connections. If a prince went there, they'd rob him blind Also, he's lost all his hair, he's only young. What would you rather have, a 2:2 from Cambridge or a full head of hair? Life is a wonderful thing and everything evens out along the way

[teamsaint]

By "open" I mean open to anyone who meets stringent entrance criteria. I don't know what your 'A' level grades were, teamsaint, but back in the day you needed 3 straight As at 'A' level to get in; or take an entrance exam. If you had those kind of grades, at least one of the colleges would find room for you. A read of Brideshead Revisited or A Question of Upbringing will provide ample evidence that those from "humble" backgrounds have always been admitted to Oxbridge, provided they had the academic potential.

a few have always got in.
Its the number overall that matters.
since you ask, I got good enough grades,at age 17(took them a year early, and they weren't A's) to be given a place at the LSE without interview.
I was encouraged to apply to Oxbridge, but didn't think It was for me.
I strongly suspect that around that time , late 70's, you didn't need straight A's for Oxbridge, since LSE was admitting on a lower than that.
(actually just remembered I think the entrance exam was compulsory then.).

[MrGongGong]

Come on GG, he's a prince for Godsakes! He's bound to get the odd nudge and wink here and there. It all balances itself out in the end. For example, I get my car serviced and MOTd for nothing through my connections. If a prince went there, they'd rob him blind Also, he's lost all his hair, he's only young. What would you rather have, a 2:2 from Cambridge or a full head of hair? Life is a wonderful thing and everything evens out along the way

Evens out along the way ?
you've obviously not seen what happened to Lemmy when he was booted out of Hawkwind ! (now Dave Brock didn't go to Oxford as far as I'm aware ?)

[Beef Oven]

a few have always got in.
Its the number overall that matters.
since you ask, I got good enough grades,at age 17(took them a year early, and they weren't A's) to be given a place at the LSE without interview.
I was encouraged to apply to Oxbridge, but didn't think It was for me.
I strongly suspect that around that time , late 70's, you didn't need straight A's for Oxbridge, since LSE was admitting on a lower than that.

I did not apply to the LSE, but my best friend did. His offer was three Cs. By the by, he went to Bristol.

P.S. this was 1978

[teamsaint]

I did not apply to the LSE, but my best friend did. His offer was three Cs. By the by, he went to Bristol.

P.S. this was 1978

Well we have proved grade inflation at least, since Briz with 3 C's isn't going to happen these days !!

(my grades were better than your mate's so there !!)
Anyway, i think the point remains that in the late 70's, you didn't need straight A's for Oxbridge.

Also, what about those stats I linked to.
Surely worthy of comment ?

[Beef Oven]

Evens out along the way ?
you've obviously not seen what happened to Lemmy when he was booted out of Hawkwind ! (now Dave Brock didn't go to Oxford as far as I'm aware ?)

GG, you kill me!!

[Nick Armstrong]

Like Prince Edward did you mean ?

(that's a joke by the way)

I was around the relevant educational establishment when he was admitted. At around the same time, there was an evangelical Christian lecture or seminar series being promoted in posters all over the place saying WHAT DOES JESUS OFFER?

A number had the following appended in marker pen: TWO Cs AND A D TO PRINCES.

[Beef Oven]

I was around the relevant educational establishment when he was admitted. At around the same time, there was an evangelical Christian lecture or seminar series being promoted in posters all over the place saying WHAT DOES JESUS OFFER?

A number had the following appended in marker pen: TWO Cs AND A D TO PRINCES.

[John Skelton]

I did not apply to the LSE, but my best friend did. His offer was three Cs. By the by, he went to Bristol.

P.S. this was 1978

Many of the London colleges, including UCL, had a policy of making offers like that based on the impression they had formed of the applicant at interview. In 1979 I was offered two Cs by UCL, accompanied by a letter saying that they expected me to do much better (which I did). In those days it was still possible for universities and colleges to adopt a more leisurely approach to the process of making an offer to a student. The two Cs offer was intended as a recognition that success at university wasn't necessarily the same as success in A levels, but principally it was designed to even out the differences between candidates who were at schools with a record of exam success and those who weren't.

And some way of recognising that highly intelligent candidates who don't go to schools with 90% or whatever it is university 'standard' grades are less likely to get the grades for admission to certain universities is what's needed, IMO. Instead the so-called 'elite' universities (including UCL) have their heads deep buried in the tuition fees trough, have spent their time lobbying for a removal of the tuition fees cap, and regard idealism as a rude word.

[Resurrection Man]

Well interesting to see that Fenton-Trenton has now deleted any form of negative comment on his Facebook page. Also all negative comments have been removed from his Twitter account. Any attempt to post a negative comment is blocked on both. Lastly, the one remaining avenue for dissent ..the Comments section of the Thoughts of Chairman Trenton blog..has been totally deleted.

So this is the brave new world that Fenton-Trenton is advocating. Total suppression of any form of dissent. Seem to have been here before. Stalin? Hitler? Assad?

[Mary Chambers]

Well, I applied for a research fellowship at Oxford (can't remember which college - Worcester?) and a University lectureship at Cambridge and was rebuffed by both. This could be interpreted in many ways ...

I applied for a lectureship at Oxford, also can't remember which college, but it might have been St Anne's. I was shortlisted, but didn't get it. I knew I wouldn't after staying in the college overnight......I was just too frivolous, and couldn't compete with the very earnest women I met. I kept wanting to laugh. This was in the days when women's colleges were very like boarding schools. I'd have been miserable as an academic there.

In spite of this, I'm very pro-Oxbridge for those it suits.

[MrGongGong]

So this is the brave new world that Fenton-Trenton is advocating. Total suppression of any form of dissent. Seem to have been here before. Stalin? Hitler? Assad?

Cameron ? Clegg ?

[Resurrection Man]

Cameron ? Clegg ?

Quite possibly but why not address your comment to the point that I made and not try and deflect the issue, which I have to say based on other threads seems to be your modus operandi, whenever things get awkward for you.