I can see your point but academic dress is used at many institutions. The only difference here seems to be there are more occasions in Oxbridge where people ar

I can see your point but academic dress is used at many institutions. The only difference here seems to be there are more occasions in Oxbridge where people are required to wear it. You also say ...but can potentially make people feel that Oxbridge students are strange and different..., which I completely understand. However, I get the impression that Oxbridge gets a lot of attention and people almost look for the idiosyncrasies so they can point them out. I've never heard of anyone being fined bottles of port at Cambridge but I wouldn't be surprised if there were such rule written down somewhere in the last 800 years. It's akin to strange rules like commoners not being allowed to drive sheep through London. It might still be illegal but no-one pays it any attention (nor can they be bothered to repeal it).[1] (Disclaimer: Grad school at Cambridge) [1] I have no idea if that's true and I've heard variations that involve tolls and geese. My point is that although such outdated laws exist, no-one really goes looking for them.