The MJur/BCL: Elitism?
By Oxford Blogger 2015 in LLM GUIDE Student Blog: Oxford MJur/BCL 2015-2016 on Apr 17, 2016
In times of Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders the issue of elitism is often discussed among members here: Is Oxford University as it stands today representative of a class system or are its institutions a mere relict of the latter sticking to some traditions, but open to all social groups and backgrounds? To begin with, the elitist image of Oxford students is often conjured by popular culture, for instance movies like “Riot Club” (which alludes to the real “Bullingdon Club”). Needless to say, the extreme portrayed in said movie has so far not been representative of my life in Oxford. A recent article in the Independent, however, raises this issue. The author argues that although there obviously exist no formal class barriers, social life does indeed establish differences between the rich and poor students. The author illustrates the point by referring to ball tickets that are sold for as much as 300 pounds: And indeed, the many social gatherings and respective formalities and traditions seem to offer plenty of opportunities for distinguishing social backgrounds. Also, we haven’t even spoken about the tuition fees yet. www.guardian.com Photograph: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters However, I assume it makes a huge difference whether you are a graduate or undergraduate student. Fellow students in my (graduate) programme seem to be coming from all social classes and backgrounds. This could be on account of our applications not including interviews in person (which are said to be a gateway to the impact of social backgrounds). But even the undergrads I know don’t seem to be especially posh to be honest. Actually, just the opposite: Everyone seems to be super tolerant and voting for Labour (and its current leader). I once asked a good friend from another university here in the UK why he didn’t apply to Oxbridge. It just had never occurred to him that he would ever stand a chance to get in because of said social barriers. It seems, however, that Oxford University is increasingly working against this perception. To conclude, it might well be the case that class matters more in terms of college-choice. Some of the colleges traditionally have an „aristocratic“ student body (Christ Church apparently being the most conspicuous example) and thus are richer than other colleges. In this, Oxford University might somehow be representative of a class society indeed.
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