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The time of every bright child having Oxbridge as first university pick ended quite a few years ago. Not accurate that parents are saying this either, the chang

The time of every bright child having Oxbridge as first university pick ended quite a few years ago. Not accurate that parents are saying this either, the change has largely come from parents who are often people doing hiring and have seen the change over the past few years. The very top aren't applying there any more at all, you don't need to: Stanford, Harvard, MIT, all better. Oxford, in particular, has made their bed. They have made a willful choice to be worse. I am not sure why anyone wouldn't take them at their word.

growse 1y ago
> The very top aren't applying there any more at all, you don't need to: Stanford, Harvard, MIT, all better. The only people applying to those from the UK are the wealthy. If by "very top" you mean "richest", then maybe. But I'm not sure we care about that?
- ralph84 1y ago
  The network value of knowing a rich person far exceeds the network value of knowing a smart person.
  - odyssey7 1y ago
    How are we valuing the network? There are doors that many wealthy people would not be able to open and vice-versa. On the other hand, someone both smart and wealthy... Sam Altman comes to mind, as well as a number of other figures of historic importance.
  - programjames 1y ago
    If you're measuring the value in dollars, it would be very surprising if people maxxed on the INT stat rank higher than those on the USD stat. But, for example, if your goal is to secure a professorship at a top university, or do the most cutting-edge research at a national lab, I think the network value of knowing a smart person far exceeds that of a rich person.
  - OhMeadhbh 1y ago
    Kind of depends. Attending a service academy in the states is a VERY GOOD IDEA if you want to make being a military officer your career. But yes, I take your point for the general case. However... some of the best business contacts I have came from teaching at a trade school in Texas. But I'm just selling solutions into SMEs, I'm not baby-sitting kids with VC funds.
  - btilly 1y ago
    This is why https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2015/10/29/our-first-ever-college-rankings https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2015/10/29/our-firs... concluded that the best university in the USA is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_and_Lee_University https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_and_Lee_University. For this they measured the gap between what graduates made, and what they would be expected to make based on high school record, test scores, and choice of major. In other words, "How much do you earn because of the university you went to, rather than your own virtues?" That university won because it has a network rich people who could help people's careers get a good launch.
- skippyboxedhero 1y ago
  No, you can get a scholarship. Again, this is really the best of the best, those with the highest merit. If you have that, why would you study somewhere that has no people of merit? All they had to do was convince a bureaucrat their life was hard (usually based on rather unobjective criteria), everyone else has to pass exams. If you can't get the grades, you don't have merit. Debase the currency, surprised when it has less value? Lol.
  - growse 1y ago
    > No, you can get a scholarship Of course! So easy! What percentage of foreign students applying get aid or scholarships? > Again, this is really the best of the best, those with the highest merit. You're assuming that "the best of the best" are applying. This is not true. "The best of the best who are encouraged to apply and/or have the means", apply. This is not the same population. > All they had to do was convince a bureaucrat their life was hard I don't know who this "bureaucrat" is. When I interviewed at Cambridge I was seen by 3 fellows, all members of the relevant departments. > If you can't get the grades, you don't have merit. Nobody's this naive, surely?
    - krastanov 1y ago
      While I sympathize with some of your arguments, you are wrong about scholarships. Getting financial aid as a foreign student at an institution like Harvard, Yale, or MIT is the norm.
      - Retric 1y ago
        Some financial aid isn’t the same as being able to afford to go to a college in another country across an ocean. Collage loans seem like a great solution when you’re entering a highly lucrative career, but that’s not true for every top student.
        growse 1y ago
        Not least to say that most kids don't want to go to university thousands of miles away from their family, friends, and support networks.
- OJFord 1y ago
  I applied to MIT from the UK 15 years ago, I'm fairly sure I'm not among whom you mean by 'the wealthy'. (I failed the alumnus interview; failed STEP mathematics exam to meet accepted Cambridge offer; went to Imperial.) Not to say I'm (nor was) 'the very top' either - I just liked the idea of MIT for the same reason Imperial appealed I suppose.
checker659 1y ago
> The very top aren't applying there any more at all Do you have a source to back this claim?
- nextos 1y ago
  I think this statement is a bit of an exaggeration. There is undoubtedly some competition from US, but Oxbridge still attract a lot of the top talent. This is reflected in quantitative rankings like ARWU, where Cambridge and Oxford are always in the top of the pack, and often #1 in some subjects: https://www.shanghairanking.com/rankings/arwu/2025 https://www.shanghairanking.com/rankings/arwu/2025. ARWU is biased towards research, but nevertheless Durham is currently #201-300 and St Andrews is #301-400. So the post is a bit sensationalistic as well. However, as someone in Oxford, I reckon the university has serious structural issues that need to be addressed if they want to stay at the top of their game. Unlike Cambridge, Oxford doesn't have a post equivalent to Assistant Professor. In many divisions, appointment as an Associate Professor often occurs by internal promotion and this has created really toxic dynamics that scare off top talent. Furthermore, in many fields, Junior Research Fellowships are no longer attractive compared to e.g. a Lecturer position at Imperial or an Assistant Professor position overseas. Failing to attract and retain junior faculty has devastating consequences in terms of teaching and research quality. Undergraduate admissions have experienced lots of recent changes. It is great that anti-state school bias is no longer present, but some faculty I know have expressed concerns about admissions becoming too subjective and often taking in students that are gaming the system by creating a false narrative of overcoming learning difficulties and minor disabilities (vs considering true disabled students, for instance). I find this very unsettling. With that said, some courses (e.g. Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science) are outstanding and more isolated from these issues. IMHO, they still offer terrific value at the Home Fee rate (£9k), even if you need a mortgage. A rigorous and timeless no-nonsense education that is greatly valued by top employers.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
OhMeadhbh 1y ago
Is this the same across all classes? (legit asking, not trying to make a snarky comment.) I grew up in the states so the UK class system is a little weird to me and I don't quite get it. But if you told me Cambridge and Oxford are still very popular amongst upper-middle and upper class types, but everyone else just goes to where they can get the best education and be in close proximity to the most impactful researchers, I would completely believe it. But what the heck do I know... I went to grad school at Liverpool.
sealeck 1y ago
> They have made a willful choice to be worse. Do you mean that they've accepted more state school students? Because you'd expect to take quite a good number of them if you're selecting the "best"!!
pyuser583 1y ago
Plenty of ambitious Americans dream of the London School of Economics.
rando001111 1y ago
You're talking like Oxford is some school for shitdogs now. I went to an unranked school here in Canada for electrical engineering and graduated this year. I did a couple co-ops, won a couple engineering competitions and had my EIT job lined up for me after graduation. Started work a week after classes ended. Rankings are not the end-all be-all for uni.
- nine_k 1y ago
  On one hand, fair. On the other hand, an MIT or Stanford graduate is more likely to be immediately hired by Google, or NVidia, or Barclays, or something else top-notch, without having to make intermediate career steps.
  - nextos 1y ago
    DeepMind and top firms from the City of London have recruiters chasing Oxbridge students in CS, Math, and Statistics before graduation, sometimes even a year or two ahead. You hear more about MIT or Stanford because you are based in the US. Ranking or prestige-wise, in case that matters (I think it's just a lazy filter), they are indistinguishable: https://www.shanghairanking.com/rankings/arwu/2025 https://www.shanghairanking.com/rankings/arwu/2025
  - saghm 1y ago
    My perception is that the further you get from the time of graduation, the less it makes a difference where someone went to school. A year or two, I felt like where I got my degree might have made a difference in terms of my ability to find jobs, but coming up on a a decade since I graduated (which is a pretty small portion of what I expect will be a decades-long career), it might as well be entirely irrelevant. Amusingly, I said something similar to one of my colleagues recently when we were discussing the level of stress their teenager was having around their upcoming college applications, and they agreed, mentioning that no one cared that they didn't even have a degree, which was clearly true since I had absolutely no idea that was the case! It never came up in the past despite us chatting fairly regularly about our personal lives because it ultimately just didn't matter to either of us, and while it affected their initial attempts to break into the software industry, it pretty quickly stopped mattering even to their prospective employers compared to their actual work experience. Obviously there are some industries where degrees are necessary (law, medicine, presumably academia, although I'm not certain), but outside of those, the limiting factors of how far you can go are independent of where you graduated from. There are some places where the initial hiring process will be mostly filtered by where someone graduated, but in the long term, most people will either hit a point of diminishing returns regardless, or they'll be able to make up the difference.
lazyasciiart 1y ago
Let’s pretend what you say is true in the slightest. What does it have to do with the ranking of universities in England? You are arguing that the best undergrad students in England are now at Durham?
maest 1y ago
> Stanford, Harvard, MIT Those are not in the UK? Anyway, you are making some bold statements and have zero substance backing them up. Please refrain from spreading nonsense.
StopDisinfo910 1y ago
I would (and did) take Oxford in front of any American university. You can stay in a sane country for one and you don’t have to deal with the US absurd elective system. Also Oxford is like ten times less expensive. Frankly speaking, the only advantage of US universities is how much fund they have for postgraduates.

growse 1y ago

> The very top aren't applying there any more at all, you don't need to: Stanford, Harvard, MIT, all better. The only people applying to those from the UK are the wealthy. If by "very top" you mean "richest", then maybe. But I'm not sure we care about that?

ralph84 1y ago
The network value of knowing a rich person far exceeds the network value of knowing a smart person.
- odyssey7 1y ago
  How are we valuing the network? There are doors that many wealthy people would not be able to open and vice-versa. On the other hand, someone both smart and wealthy... Sam Altman comes to mind, as well as a number of other figures of historic importance.
- programjames 1y ago
  If you're measuring the value in dollars, it would be very surprising if people maxxed on the INT stat rank higher than those on the USD stat. But, for example, if your goal is to secure a professorship at a top university, or do the most cutting-edge research at a national lab, I think the network value of knowing a smart person far exceeds that of a rich person.
- OhMeadhbh 1y ago
  Kind of depends. Attending a service academy in the states is a VERY GOOD IDEA if you want to make being a military officer your career. But yes, I take your point for the general case. However... some of the best business contacts I have came from teaching at a trade school in Texas. But I'm just selling solutions into SMEs, I'm not baby-sitting kids with VC funds.
- btilly 1y ago
  This is why https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2015/10/29/our-first-ever-college-rankings https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2015/10/29/our-firs... concluded that the best university in the USA is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_and_Lee_University https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_and_Lee_University. For this they measured the gap between what graduates made, and what they would be expected to make based on high school record, test scores, and choice of major. In other words, "How much do you earn because of the university you went to, rather than your own virtues?" That university won because it has a network rich people who could help people's careers get a good launch.
skippyboxedhero 1y ago
No, you can get a scholarship. Again, this is really the best of the best, those with the highest merit. If you have that, why would you study somewhere that has no people of merit? All they had to do was convince a bureaucrat their life was hard (usually based on rather unobjective criteria), everyone else has to pass exams. If you can't get the grades, you don't have merit. Debase the currency, surprised when it has less value? Lol.
- growse 1y ago
  > No, you can get a scholarship Of course! So easy! What percentage of foreign students applying get aid or scholarships? > Again, this is really the best of the best, those with the highest merit. You're assuming that "the best of the best" are applying. This is not true. "The best of the best who are encouraged to apply and/or have the means", apply. This is not the same population. > All they had to do was convince a bureaucrat their life was hard I don't know who this "bureaucrat" is. When I interviewed at Cambridge I was seen by 3 fellows, all members of the relevant departments. > If you can't get the grades, you don't have merit. Nobody's this naive, surely?
  - krastanov 1y ago
    While I sympathize with some of your arguments, you are wrong about scholarships. Getting financial aid as a foreign student at an institution like Harvard, Yale, or MIT is the norm.
    - Retric 1y ago
      Some financial aid isn’t the same as being able to afford to go to a college in another country across an ocean. Collage loans seem like a great solution when you’re entering a highly lucrative career, but that’s not true for every top student.
      - growse 1y ago
        Not least to say that most kids don't want to go to university thousands of miles away from their family, friends, and support networks.
OJFord 1y ago
I applied to MIT from the UK 15 years ago, I'm fairly sure I'm not among whom you mean by 'the wealthy'. (I failed the alumnus interview; failed STEP mathematics exam to meet accepted Cambridge offer; went to Imperial.) Not to say I'm (nor was) 'the very top' either - I just liked the idea of MIT for the same reason Imperial appealed I suppose.

checker659 1y ago

> The very top aren't applying there any more at all Do you have a source to back this claim?

nextos 1y ago
I think this statement is a bit of an exaggeration. There is undoubtedly some competition from US, but Oxbridge still attract a lot of the top talent. This is reflected in quantitative rankings like ARWU, where Cambridge and Oxford are always in the top of the pack, and often #1 in some subjects: https://www.shanghairanking.com/rankings/arwu/2025 https://www.shanghairanking.com/rankings/arwu/2025. ARWU is biased towards research, but nevertheless Durham is currently #201-300 and St Andrews is #301-400. So the post is a bit sensationalistic as well. However, as someone in Oxford, I reckon the university has serious structural issues that need to be addressed if they want to stay at the top of their game. Unlike Cambridge, Oxford doesn't have a post equivalent to Assistant Professor. In many divisions, appointment as an Associate Professor often occurs by internal promotion and this has created really toxic dynamics that scare off top talent. Furthermore, in many fields, Junior Research Fellowships are no longer attractive compared to e.g. a Lecturer position at Imperial or an Assistant Professor position overseas. Failing to attract and retain junior faculty has devastating consequences in terms of teaching and research quality. Undergraduate admissions have experienced lots of recent changes. It is great that anti-state school bias is no longer present, but some faculty I know have expressed concerns about admissions becoming too subjective and often taking in students that are gaming the system by creating a false narrative of overcoming learning difficulties and minor disabilities (vs considering true disabled students, for instance). I find this very unsettling. With that said, some courses (e.g. Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science) are outstanding and more isolated from these issues. IMHO, they still offer terrific value at the Home Fee rate (£9k), even if you need a mortgage. A rigorous and timeless no-nonsense education that is greatly valued by top employers.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]

OhMeadhbh 1y ago

Is this the same across all classes? (legit asking, not trying to make a snarky comment.) I grew up in the states so the UK class system is a little weird to me and I don't quite get it. But if you told me Cambridge and Oxford are still very popular amongst upper-middle and upper class types, but everyone else just goes to where they can get the best education and be in close proximity to the most impactful researchers, I would completely believe it. But what the heck do I know... I went to grad school at Liverpool.

sealeck 1y ago

> They have made a willful choice to be worse. Do you mean that they've accepted more state school students? Because you'd expect to take quite a good number of them if you're selecting the "best"!!

pyuser583 1y ago

Plenty of ambitious Americans dream of the London School of Economics.

rando001111 1y ago

You're talking like Oxford is some school for shitdogs now. I went to an unranked school here in Canada for electrical engineering and graduated this year. I did a couple co-ops, won a couple engineering competitions and had my EIT job lined up for me after graduation. Started work a week after classes ended. Rankings are not the end-all be-all for uni.

nine_k 1y ago
On one hand, fair. On the other hand, an MIT or Stanford graduate is more likely to be immediately hired by Google, or NVidia, or Barclays, or something else top-notch, without having to make intermediate career steps.
- nextos 1y ago
  DeepMind and top firms from the City of London have recruiters chasing Oxbridge students in CS, Math, and Statistics before graduation, sometimes even a year or two ahead. You hear more about MIT or Stanford because you are based in the US. Ranking or prestige-wise, in case that matters (I think it's just a lazy filter), they are indistinguishable: https://www.shanghairanking.com/rankings/arwu/2025 https://www.shanghairanking.com/rankings/arwu/2025
- saghm 1y ago
  My perception is that the further you get from the time of graduation, the less it makes a difference where someone went to school. A year or two, I felt like where I got my degree might have made a difference in terms of my ability to find jobs, but coming up on a a decade since I graduated (which is a pretty small portion of what I expect will be a decades-long career), it might as well be entirely irrelevant. Amusingly, I said something similar to one of my colleagues recently when we were discussing the level of stress their teenager was having around their upcoming college applications, and they agreed, mentioning that no one cared that they didn't even have a degree, which was clearly true since I had absolutely no idea that was the case! It never came up in the past despite us chatting fairly regularly about our personal lives because it ultimately just didn't matter to either of us, and while it affected their initial attempts to break into the software industry, it pretty quickly stopped mattering even to their prospective employers compared to their actual work experience. Obviously there are some industries where degrees are necessary (law, medicine, presumably academia, although I'm not certain), but outside of those, the limiting factors of how far you can go are independent of where you graduated from. There are some places where the initial hiring process will be mostly filtered by where someone graduated, but in the long term, most people will either hit a point of diminishing returns regardless, or they'll be able to make up the difference.

lazyasciiart 1y ago

Let’s pretend what you say is true in the slightest. What does it have to do with the ranking of universities in England? You are arguing that the best undergrad students in England are now at Durham?

maest 1y ago

> Stanford, Harvard, MIT Those are not in the UK? Anyway, you are making some bold statements and have zero substance backing them up. Please refrain from spreading nonsense.

StopDisinfo910 1y ago

I would (and did) take Oxford in front of any American university. You can stay in a sane country for one and you don’t have to deal with the US absurd elective system. Also Oxford is like ten times less expensive. Frankly speaking, the only advantage of US universities is how much fund they have for postgraduates.