How much do applicants to Oxbridge really miss by rejection? My interviews for Oxford were not that terrifying, but as a mediocre classics student I was taught by people whose style ranged from benignly eccentric to barking mad. Most made it clear that my intellectual gifts were not such as to retain their interest. I left with a huge inferiority complex.
The "curse of Oxford" is not uncommon, I have discovered. But one dubious benefit we victims enjoy is to let our status emerge from time to time to annoy pompous academics who believe they should have gone there instead.
Mary Louise Brown
Aberdeen Business School
Robert Gordon University