Trinity term at Oxford University is defined by wisteria, wild swimming, and warmth. Students find themselves torn between revelling in weather that is finally outdoor-seating-at-the-pub acceptable and piles of revision notes, the unwelcome signal of incoming examinations.
During our unexpected (but lovely) heatwave in late April, my friends and I found ourselves on the quad, writing our essays and solving our equations in the presence of the blooming tulips, blissfully unaware that the grass was slightly too damp. The sun was out and so, naturally, were we, making the most of spring amidst our workloads. Our quad, the backdrop of Balliol’s history, became the court for impromptu games of catch, the talk-show-armchair for our shared anecdotes, the concert hall where we blasted our premature summer playlists. The quad was no longer simply the quad. Nature had taken hold, beckoning us to stay a while, and, in doing so, transformed the square of grass into a stage, each of us performing our part. Real-life theatre occurring in real time.
Open-air performances capture this sincerity, whether it’s the authenticity of a conversation between friends or an argument between lovers. When the wind riots around the actors on stage, when the hubbub of city life strikes as a character storms offstage, there is no greater confirmation of how honest theatre can be in relaying the human condition. Last summer, I was fortunate enough to see ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ performed at The Globe. There is certainly a difference between reading a play and performing it, perhaps most profoundly understood when perceiving Shakespeare’s works in their intended form. Costumes in their full vibrancy and certain words of certain lines enunciated just so. I remember the warmth of the day, the humidity of late July blanketing the onlookers within the circular playhouse, a comedic scene timed perfectly to an airy breeze, sending a wave of cheer and relief across the audience.
While there is wonder in being enclosed in a small, dark room or a grand, embellished hall – especially in our winter months – with the performance happening in front of you, there is something deeply spirited about theatre that occurs around you. The same breeze entangling in your hair as the actors’, who are portraying characters hundreds of years old. Within Oxford, open-air performances are most frequently found within colleges. A quad, however big or small, once enveloped by the produce of spring, is the most serene backdrop. When paired with the surrounding architecture, to watch an open-air production in our city is to be truly awestruck by your surroundings, and (as a result) to surely miss the first few lines of the play, absolutely enthralled by the pleasant mix of the setting sun, violin strings, and the familiar chime of Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter.
Returning to Oxford this term, the final term of my first year, was an overwhelming feat. The eight weeks stretched ahead of me, days bookended by examinations and dogeared by a homesickness that had already settled in my bones. There is no immediate cure to this condition; Trinity term is known for its dichotomy. Mercifully, Oxford offers an olive branch in the form of outdoor theatre and open-air performances. Whether it be an established ensemble in a college’s gardens, or a conversation between friends splayed on the quad, theatre is everywhere in Oxford. If you are fortunate enough to be relinquished from the hold of examinations, even just for an hour or two, be sure to seek out open-air theatre. Its spirit will be sure to carry you through to summer.
Many schools across the country dream of sending just one student to Oxford. For some, though, it’s an expectation.
The image of Oxford as a training ground for the elite has somewhat withered, and the stereotype of the likes of Eton and Harrow as feeder schools is arguably less persistent. This can, in part, be put down to the drive for equality of opportunity, recruiting the most promising students from a range of backgrounds. If this is true, however, why is it that of the 3,721 offers given out by the University of Oxford last year, over 10% came from just 14 schools?
The 14 schools that make up over a tenth of Oxford’s offers are comprised of eight private schools, with the likes of Eton College and Westminster School, of course, placing highly. Cherwell’s analysis of data from recent Oxford admissions cycles reveals an unsettling trend, where a few powerful institutions have a chokehold over the entire recruitment process.
The top schools
Westminster School topped the list of schools with the most offers, an infamous fee-paying institution that has educated the likes of Louis Theroux, Nick Clegg, and Helena Bonham Carter, to name a few. Westminster received 38 offers last year, having submitted over 100 Oxford applications – its offer rate sits at 37%.
An alumnus of Westminster School, currently studying at Oxford, explained to Cherwell that “there is definitely a widespread feeling that Oxbridge is the goal. If you’re sitting in a classroom, either you, the person to your left, or the person to your right is likely to get in, statistically”.
The student told Cherwell that the admissions process for Westminster School itself is somewhat geared towards Oxbridge admissions in the first instance. Prospective sixth-form students sit a TSA, the same style of admissions assessment that Oxford uses for many of its courses, like PPE and Economics and Management. When it comes to university admissions at Westminster, students are supported by regular sessions alongside others applying to the same course, interview practice, and general preparatory aid.
Another one of the schools with the most offers was Harris Westminster, a state school situated just down the road from the aforementioned Westminster School. The school was founded in 2014 with the aim of achieving the same Oxbridge rates as its neighbour, which has supported Harris Westminster for the past decade. It is highly selective and students are chosen through a rigorous interview process.
The school had an impressive 32 offers, which amounts to more than the more traditionally prestigious Harrow, Rugby, Charterhouse, and Sevenoaks combined. One Harris Westminster alumnus who is currently studying at Oxford told Cherwell that “from my experience, the support was extensive but also quite high pressure. Unlike regular sixth forms, it was mandatory and scheduled into our weekly timetables for us to partake in societies as well as ‘cultural perspectives’ – two extra classes on a specific academic topic, such as feminist philosophy.
“As much as it was a privilege to partake in these, our days were already roughly 8:30-5 including (a half day of) saturday school in Year 13. A lot of teachers really pushed coming off as ‘well-rounded’ for our personal statements, but the timetables that we were on meant most people were generally exhausted and burnt out.
“There was certainly also a cultural dimension of the preparation for Oxford – our terms also had silly names, we grew accustomed to weekly assemblies in Westminister cathedral, and were held to a certain level of professionalism that I haven’t understood to be the case from any friends attending other sixth forms.
“The culture around Oxbridge was uniquely cut-throat at Harris – it wasn’t just that we all went to a selective school, but that many of us were low-income, first-gen, or generally from underprivileged backgrounds – we had the academic expectation of a private school but very often without the safety net of a well-off or suportive family.”
Another Harris Westminster alumnus, currently in their first-year at Oxford, told Cherwell that during the admissions process, “a lot of resources are available. Mentors are assigned, and you have talks about applying.” However, the student did not believe that there was pressure to apply to Oxbridge, and their form tutor even said that “Oxbridge was not the be-all and end-all.”
Harris Westminster benefits strongly from its relationship with its pricier neighbour – the former sends students to take A-Levels in the latter, in subjects that it cannot offer due to having less resources. Even on their website, Harris Westminster’s Executive Principal, Gary Savage, describes Westminster School as “the solid ground [they’re] built on”, and states that without their support, Harris Westminster would be “less scholarly [and] less confident”. Where, then, does that leave the thousands of other sixth forms that don’t have equal resources?
The inequalities
Of the 14 schools that constitute over 10% of offers, all but two are in the south of England. In fact, the school situated farthest north is King Edward VI School in Stratford-upon-Avon, just south of Birmingham, and the only other non-southern school is in Singapore. Six of the fourteen schools are in London – this can be, in part, blamed on population density, but the concentration of such powerful educational institutions in and around the capital points to a deeper problem – the disproportionate allocation of elite educational resources to the affluent south.
Oxford’s feeder schools are not inherently private, but rather, they are overwhelmingly southern, selective, and embedded in networks of privilege. This results in a de facto regional divide, where promising students from the north, regardless of talent, face a tougher climb to higher education. Oxford’s access efforts may be well-intentioned, but they continue to overlook structural disadvantages facing entire regions of the country.
Cherwellfound that parts of the north of England were underrepresented in applications to the University, with applications from Yorkshire and the Humber making up only 5% of applications and 8% of the overall population. Moreover, Cherwell revealedthat colleges’ outreach programmes did not reflect the regional underrepresentation in applications, with more colleges being linked to London and the South East than any other region, despite these regions’ overrepresentation in the statistics.
These inequalities have only deepened in recent years, and after 14 years of Conservative government, 70% of schools in England in 2024 had less funding in real terms than in 2010. Given its reputation for elitism and historical ties with the establishment, it is no surprise that Oxford comes under scrutiny for its access and outreach efforts given it lags behind the national average number of state educated students by over 20%. In fact, in 2021, it had the seventh lowest proportion of state educated students in the Russell Group. Within these abstract percentages, there lies an even more pressing issue that is difficult to solve – how Oxford guarantees diversity within the state sector itself.
The University has implemented outreach programmes like the UNIQ programme and Opportunity Oxford in the last two decades, and each college has their own outreach programmes in order to combat these issues. However, Cherwell found through Freedom of Information requests that despite individual colleges increasing their outreach to state schools, applications from state schools have barely increased, and admissions from state schools have stayed the same.
Education and the government
Secondary education in Britain received sustained investment under New Labour, whose top priority was ‘education, education, education’. When Blair came to power, schools were renovated for the first time in a quarter of a century, class sizes shrunk, and money spent per pupil doubled from 1997 to 2008. Blair had a vision – he wanted to transform all state schools to the point that even those affluent enough to send their children to private school would choose not to.
Blair took inspiration from a Swedish model of education, where schools are largely autonomous units that compete to be the best. A large proportion of the Labour party was still wedded to uniformity, and the word ‘choice’ shook the core of the party. The likes of John Prescott, Deputy Prime Minister until 2007, feared that the Blairite vision of academies would make them into grammar schools with a different badge, as the label of ‘good school’ is strong enough that middle-class competition becomes rife.
The left of the Labour Party were therefore wary of creating a ‘two-tier’ schooling system by introducing academies, though a multi-tiered system did already exist given the influence of faith, postcode, and region within the state sector itself.
One key figure in shaping New Labour’s education policy was David Blunkett, who served as Blair’s inaugural Secretary of State for Education and Employment until the next general election, when he was promoted to Home Secretary. Blunkett told Cherwell that when he was put in charge of education over 25 years ago, one of his missions was to “challenge the very narrow access to colleges at Oxford and Cambridge from across the UK”.
Blunkett explained to Cherwell that instead of providing funding to individual colleges, it was decided that the central University should be responsible for overall finance and developing access policies. Since then, all universities have been asked to develop such programmes, overseen by the Office for Students, which was set up under the Conservative government back in 2018. However, Blunkett lamented that “sadly, things have not worked out as intended!”
He told Cherwell that “gestures have certainly been made in the direction of engaging with very specific schools, ticking the box of ethnicity or deprivation, or both. In other words, to be able to say, that the University, and specifically individual colleges, have reached out to recruit students from sixth forms or sixth form colleges in the state sector, and to display just how well they’re doing.”
However, for Blunkett, these attempts to widen access have merely been a facade, improving the chances of just small numbers of young people. “Unfortunately, this is all smoke and mirrors. Whilst some young people have benefitted – almost wholly from the south of England – the same old procedures continue to favour a slightly wider group of private schools than was true of the past, and a modest improvement in access from those educated in state funded secondary schools.
“But the overarching message remains the same. If your family has a historic connection with the University, if the school has built up a direct link with the University, and if you live south of Birmingham, then your chances of getting a place will be substantially greater than an equally bright young person from a different background living somewhere else.
“It is not that admissions tutors don’t care, nor that the University haven’t tried. It’s just that it’s built into the DNA. If you think you’re doing the right thing, you can justify, in your head, just about anything. That is, of course, if psychologically, as someone employed at the University, you’ve made the necessary adjustments to affirm your own pathway to success, and the position you now hold.”
Next steps
The Student Union (SU) told Cherwell that these admissions statistics demonstrate the inequalities across the UK “that Oxford has not only been shaped by, but has historically upheld. While the University has made some strides in advancing access, the disproportionate number of offers going to a handful of highly resourced schools shows how far we still must go in dismantling systemic inequality”.
The SU also highlighted that “it is crucial that Oxford continues to publish more granular admissions data, especially to distinguish between different types of state school. Transparency is fundamental to accountability and reform, and is something that we should encourage across the sector.”
An Oxford University spokesperson told Cherwell: “Oxford is committed to ensuring that our undergraduate student body reflects the diversity of the UK and that we continue to attract students with the highest academic potential, from all backgrounds. We know that factors such as socio-economic disadvantage and school performance can make it difficult for some students to access their full potential before applying to university and therefore use a range of contextual information to help us to better understand students’ achievements.
“Oxford also offers one of the most generous financial support packages available for UK students, and around 1 in 4 UK undergraduates at the University currently receives an annual, non-repayable bursary of up to £6,090. In 2023, 511 UK offer-holders participated in Opportunity Oxford and OppOx Digital, our academic bridging programme developed to support students from under-represented backgrounds in their transition from school or college to our university.
“We continue to build on and expand our access and outreach activities in support of equality of opportunity for all talented students, and last year launched new initiatives in regions of the UK where fewer students currently go on to Oxford. We have also published a new Access and Participation Plan, approved by the Office for Students, which provides a renewed focus in attracting and supporting students currently under-represented.”
For many schools, an Oxford offer still remains a distant hope. The University can preach meritocracy, but as long as its doors are open only for a handful of privileged schools and remain shut to most others, that meritocracy remains a major work in progress.
“The costume smells like vinegar. I don’t know why; it just does.”
Matted, white fur is draped across my upturned arms. I take an experimental, cursory whiff: vinegar, body odor, stale caffeine, and a hint of mint. Easter Bunny, my ass—this is a medieval torture chamber.
“And, don’t ask for a spray. It is a tried and untrue method. You’re just gonna have to deal with it.”
My new boss gives an unapologetic, “sucks-to-be-you-but-what-can-I-do” shrug. He adjusts his name-tag—a metallic clip-on with engraved “Benjamin (Ben) Moore, Public Relations Manager” —with all the double-edged arrogance-insecurity of a workaholic. Wasn’t an “empathic disposition” a prerequisite for this job?
“The school arrives at noon, with the scavenger hunt beginning at one, so the morning will be slow. But, don’t expect to be sitting around doing nothing. The moment the costume goes on, you’re on, understand?”
I give a firm nod, satisfying Ben who proceeds to explain the scavenger hunt event in more detail and the associated duties and ethics of donning The Easter Bunny Suit.
In the life of a broke and aimless recent college graduate (in English, no less), the Easter Bunny life didn’t choose me; I chose it. Living with my parents, with no prospects or lofty goals, and equipped with the lexicon of someone who has read a bit too much Victorian literature, it is safe to say that I needed to fill all this free-time somehow. And, as my father insisted, I might as well earn some cash before actually making money.
So, an opening at Riverside Playland—a small and local amusement park at the edge of town—for costume characters was perfect.
After we leave the office, Ben stations me next to the bumper cars and reiterates my responsibilities, with a dash of public-relations wisdom. I am instructed to stay energetic (“you’re the goddamn Easter Bunny; I wanna see some spring in your step”), stay alert (“kids are ruthless and will grab your tail”), and stay professional (“five minutes: wave, hug, picture, egg, next”). In the case of an emergency, I should let my handler Carla, a freckled and muscled middle-aged woman whose sharp and smile-less face reads more bodyguard, take the lead.
Ben ends his spiel with a stern “Don’t lose the basket” before hurrying off to the Easter Chick manning the log-flume entrance.
Now unsupervised, I am tempted to engage Carla in some polite conversation, but she quickly averts her gaze in a clearly “not-interested” way, so I mollify myself with the very astute observation that rabbits do not talk, anyways.
Thus begins my 10-hour shift: in silence. Since the crowd of scavenger-hunting children will not arrive until the afternoon, I spend the morning bored and jittery. I trace the cracks in pavement until they are too blurry to follow; I count the number of times the coaster crests; I watch, from my periphery, the bumper cars spin and collide. Every now and then, a kid visiting with a parent or grandparent comes up for a picture, as do a couple of giggling teenagers. I play the enthusiastic Easter Bunny as best I can, which consists of exaggerated waves and hops, a predilection for hugging, and a repertoire of poses (hands up, hands down, hands on the hips, hands chest-height and flicked down). Carla monitors the situation, interceding only when one six-year-old is determined to scale my back and yank my ears.
By the time 1pm rolls around, I feel comfortable, if not confident, in my suit and skills. The smell, once overpowering and nauseating, has faded into the background, nearly negligible, and I had managed to draw a smile—well, a twitch of the lips—from Carla. So far, smooth sailing.
When Ben returns to remind us that the scavenger hunt will begin shortly, I am prepared for a slight increase in attendance. What I am not prepared for is chaos. Who would’ve thought that a Wednesday afternoon—the Wednesday after Easter, no less—at some local, low-cost amusement park would draw such crowds. Hordes of children, all sporting St. Vincent’s Prep uniforms, swarm me; they grab at my tail, shove snot-covered fingers into my egg basket, and wrestle each other to get the closest to the Easter Bunny.
However, we manage to survive the next couple of hours, and it is as the crowd thins, the clouds becoming overcast, that an unassuming girl (pig-tail braids, freshly ironed skirt, and soft smile) walks up to Carla and promptly vomits on her. Without a word, she rushes to the bathroom, and I am, for the first time, alone.
“I know you’re not real.”
It comes from behind, a boy no more than seven with rosy cheeks, fiery orange hair, and glasses perched crookedly on his nose. Like his classmates, he wears a blue St. Vincent’s Prep shirt and beige cargo pants. He stands cross-armed and glaring, forehead pinched and chapped lips ready to castigate any pretensions I might have had to be the real Easter Bunny.
I am in a predicament. Such cynicism demands retort, which I would have readily delivered if not for the fact that I, as Bunny, must remain silent. He waits for an answer, and I resort to shrugging my shoulders and covering my mouth in mock confusion and shock.
He is unmoved, repeating, “I know you’re not real,” and adding, “So, you’re lying, and it’s a sin to lie.”
Slightly panicked, I look around for Carla and, hell, Ben, but the park is desolate save for a few families and a group of high schoolers smoking by the Snack Shack. And, the boy must have detached himself from the rest of the school because I spy neither staff nor students in the vicinity. I rack my brain for some public-relations protocol for dealing with juvenile contrarians but turn up empty. Screw it—time to ad lib.
I squat down, leveling myself with the boy and put on a sweet, airy voice. “Now, why do you say I’m not real? I’m right in front of you!”
That must have been the wrong thing to say, because his jaw clenches and then starts to wobble, bravado turning into petulance. “You’re not real, and I know it!” His eyes go glassy, and he sniffles, “You never came to my house.”
At the sight of tears, I am momentarily paralyzed. This is probably a good time to get help, but Carla and Ben are still MIA and now the boy has started kicking my shin. He whines successive “You never came,” and I am forced to gently grab his shoulders and put some distance between us. His rosy cheeks have gone red with the exertion; he has fogged up his glasses.
My first instinct is to apologize, which I do. “I’m really sorry I missed your house. Even the Easter Bunny can make mistakes.” Then, to start some non-violent conversation: “What’s your name?”
Some of the angry energy has dissipated, and I feel his body deflate in my arms. “Eric,” he croaks, before continuing, albeit softer and more somber, “There were no eggs.”
My throat tightens. “Well, Eric, I apologize for missing your house this weekend.” I grab my basket I had placed on the ground. I dial my enthusiasm up. “But, see here, I have some eggs now for you! They’re for you—please take some!”
There are distant, muted screams as the coaster crests; another round of chattering people enter the bumper car track. Eric gingerly grabs two eggs, one red and one blue, in each hand. He traces the plastic, the ridge that divides each egg into two halves. “Red is my favorite color,” he says.
I lightly tap the other egg. “And, blue is my favorite.”
That makes him smile. “So is mommy’s.” He then shakes the egg, jelly bean rattling from within. I encourage him to crack the egg open, to have some candy, but Eric resolutely refuses, protectively bringing both eggs closer to his chest.
Something troubles him still. In a soft voice, a near whisper, he outlines a rudimentary logic: “No eggs means no Easter Bunny. No Easter Bunny means it’s not real.” But, of course, I pose a problem, and he looks at me and wonders, “Who are you?”
He continues to stare, as if piercing through the matted, white fur and vinegar stench, as if searching for an answer. I see his mind whirling: the divot between his brows; his pursed lips; his scrunched-up nose. Then, he states: “I haven’t seen Mommy in a while.”
I am, strangely, at this moment reminded of high school English—figurative language, the power of metaphor, meaning and meaning-making inscribed on our very tongue—and I almost blurt out a butchered, Faulknerian “Your mom is the Easter Bunny,” when footsteps sound behind us, and I whirl to see a young women rushing over. Carla speed-walks behind her, shirt wet with sink water.
The young woman—a sticker name-tag reads “Ms. Walker” —crouches down next to Eric. He shyly turns into her arms as Ms. Walker softly chides (“You can’t go running off like that”) and soothes (“Everything’s going to be okay”). She grabs his hand and whispers a quick “Sorry about that” and “It’s been a tough time for him” before walking back to join the group of St. Vincent’s Prep children watching wide-eyed.
Carla asks, “What happened?,” and I, silent Easter Bunny once more, just shrug. When Ms. Walker and Eric finally rejoin the school, he turns to me, blue egg in hand, adjusts his glasses, and waves.
I grab my own egg—this one yellow—and wave back. And, as a gentle chill glides across the pavement, we each cradle an egg in our hands. We protect them from the cold.
There’s a particular theatrical magic that comes from two people simply talking in a room. No stage tricks, no elaborate plot devices – just language, chemistry, and the slow unveiling of character. Juliet Taub’s An Anthology of Pairs leans into this stripped-back power, offering three duologues that still feel more sprawling and expansive than many plays with a full cast and multiple set changes. What begins as a conversation between lovers blooms into a meditation on faith, culture, womanhood, and the hard-earned wisdom of generational conflict. It is a masterclass in intimacy, both emotional and theatrical, quietly echoing the kind of psychic architecture Virginia Woolf spent her life mapping – the way rooms, and what’s said inside them, shape who we are.
We open with Rach and Tai – university students wrapped up in the sweet, familiar mess of early love. The scene unfolds in Rach’s student accommodation (the university itself is never specified). The audience’s position feels almost voyeuristic – like we’ve wandered into the living room of two real people and haven’t yet been asked to leave. Rach (Caeli Colgan) and Tai (Ezana Betru) have an undeniable spark that makes the early back-and-forth jokes about boring essays and awkward professors feel improvised, even lived. But Taub’s script knows exactly where it’s going. The lightness curdles slowly, and before we realise it, we’ve stumbled into a minefield.
Rach, culturally Jewish but spiritually adrift, bristles at Tai’s relationship with Islam, which she sees as selective, even convenient. Tai shoots back, accusing Rach of weaponising the very people-pleasing persona she claims is just self-effacing. The debate is painful in its realism: not polished, not didactic, but jagged, like all good arguments are. They circle questions of compromise, of who is allowed to change and why. The most powerful tension isn’t between their religions but between how religion lives inside each of them: part inherited, part chosen, all tangled.
Then it happens – they say they’re each other’s favourite person. For a second, you believe that maybe this is the part of the story where things work out. But Taub is far too honest for that. Love, An Anthology of Pairs reminds us, is not always enough to outrun difference. They break up, and you’re left dazed in the silence that follows, like the moment after a door clicks shut. Familiar, final, and oddly private.
A scene change jolts us: we’re in an airport. A new pair, a new room. Rach’s mother, Sarah, played with aching restraint by Lorna Campbell, is crying next to a stranger – the character of Mike (Luke Bannister). Mike is a witty, slightly jaded gay man who introduces himself as a freelance journalist, though we suspect the “freelance” part might be doing a lot of heavy lifting. The scene begins like a setup for a joke: woman crying in an airport, man offers tissues, and yet what unfolds is a beautifully paced unravelling of Sarah’s life.
Campbell’s Sarah is a study in contradiction: devout but disillusioned, maternal yet deeply lonely, fiercely intelligent but emotionally stunted by years of silence. Her line, “I love my husband the same way I love the colour of my childhood bedroom” is a tiny detonation – equal parts nostalgia and resignation. Mike, with his outsider status, becomes the unlikely confidant she never knew she needed. Bannister keeps the tone light without ever flattening the stakes; his charm masks the same bruises Sarah carries, just arranged differently.
This middle scene is the play’s most formally traditional, even a touch sentimental in its “strangers sharing secrets” dynamic. But it earns its pathos. As Mike gently prods Sarah, asking the quietly devastating, “Do you like your daughter?” we begin to see the cracks that stretch far beyond the mother-daughter disagreement over God or culture. Sarah’s religious life is both her shield and her shackle. Her children don’t speak to her. Her husband won’t talk about her affair. The silence between them is deafening, and its weight hits all the harder now that we understand the agonising roots of Rach’s own estrangement.
In the final scene, five years later, Sarah visits Rach in a new apartment. Time has passed, but the wounds haven’t scabbed over entirely. This is no Hollywood reunion. There are olive branches, yes, but also barbs. Half-sincere jokes about dietary restrictions, failed relationships, and what it means to believe in anything. Sarah, still devout, wonders aloud whether she still has a place in Rach’s life if Rach no longer believes in God. It’s the play’s central question, and perhaps its most quietly devastating one. If our parents represent the foundations of our world, what happens when we remodel? Can love outlast the scaffolding?
Visually and technically, the production leans into its minimalism: two chairs, a single bed, some austere stage lighting, and the occasional offhand sound effect. It doesn’t need any more; the conversations are the spectacle. In an era of high-concept theatre and maximalist sets, An Anthology of Pairs embraces the quiet and lets it resonate. It is, above all, a play about dialogue. Not the performance of talking, but the real thing, the kind that’s hard, unfinished, sometimes cruel, often necessary. It reminds us that conversation can be an act of love, an act of violence, or both. It shows us that outgrowing our parents is not a victory or a betrayal. It’s just growing. And growth, as this play so tenderly shows, is rarely tidy.
What makes An Anthology of Pairs truly remarkable is that it never seeks to answer the tough questions it raises. Instead, the play sits with them. Leaves them to breathe and ache. Juliet Taub doesn’t offer neat resolutions, nor does she romanticise despair. Her characters are flawed but never trivialised, each trying to do their best with the tools and traumas they’ve inherited. The play doesn’t moralise or proselytise. It listens. And in that act of listening, it becomes quietly radical.
Taking the long walk out through the Long Room at Lord’s is a dream that the vast majority of cricketers can barely even imagine. For those of us who thrive in the college, or village, scene it seems a whole world away. But for the elites of Oxford University Cricket Club, it’s an opportunity that comes around once a year. With just 20 overs each, barely more than three total hours, you’re tasked with leaving an imprint on a ground that’s seen World Cup victory, Ashes victory, and 111 years of passing greats. Joe Root, Tammy Beaumont, Jimmy Anderson have all taken to those same steps, perhaps even with the same feelings that pulsate through our athletes now. Cricket is a game of big players, and even bigger moments – where one player can come in and take over a game almost single-handedly. For this year’s Varsity matches, which saw two pretty convincing wins split between the universities, Oxford and Middlesex’s Hannah Davis starred with a stunning 55 off 37 with the bat; and 4 for 9 off of her four overs.
The women opened the day with an 11am game, and Oxford headed out to bat first. Hannah Sutton and Annys Thirkell-Jones played their way in patiently, allowing Cambridge to rack up the extras with some loose bowling. But as Cambridge’s spinners applied the squeeze, Thirkell-Jones fell to a smart catch from the Cambridge captain at cover. In came Davis, with Sutton already somewhat established, moving along calmly. The two would consolidate, allowing the spinners Payne and Robinson to end their spells with some fairly economical figures. Hofmann and Brown were not quite so lucky. Davis took a particular liking to Hofmann, depositing some wayward straighter balls a good few rows back in the Mound Stand with some ease, eventually leading Oxford to 129-4.
The defence would be comprehensive to say the least. In just the first over, both Cambridge’s opener and their captain would be back in the shed, courtesy of some beautiful bowling from Evie Mayhew, and with some help from her opening partner Sutton, the pair would rip through the top order. At 27-5, it couldn’t have gotten much worse for Cambridge. Their top order was decimated, Mayhew had ended on 4 for 13 from her spell, and the game looked over already. But then it got even worse. Davis came on and terrorised the middle and lower order somehow even more than her predecessors had done. Her four wickets all came clean bowled – accounting for just nine runs at the same time. She had four attempts at the Cambridge number eleven to clinch her fifer, but was thwarted in her attempts to secure the landmark that would typically land you on the Honours Board: “I think it is difficult for anyone who has taken four wickets to not have a five wicket haul in the back of their mind… credit must go to the Cambridge number eleven who had a solid defence. More importantly in my mind at the time was the match winning wicket. But it worked out well in the end with Sophie taking the final wicket. Sophie has been a very consistent bowler for us and a lovely person to have in the team so I was very pleased for her to get the wicket she deserved.”
Off the back of this momentous collapse that would have put the Holy Roman Empire to shame (and some great pressure at the pavilion end from Bea Jones), Sophie Goodman wrapped up the Cambridge innings before any of their bats could accrue even seven runs individually.
Cherwell caught up with Hannah Davis after the game:
C: What was the plan heading into the game?
H: Firstly, we had decided as a team to bat first and try to set a total. We knew we are stronger at defending scores with our bowling attack than chasing so it was a good toss for us to win. One of our main plans was getting some runs on the board to put us in the best position to defend. We were focused on playing ourselves in, knowing that some bad balls would come and we would be ready to capitalise. We were aware that Cambridge had some consistent spinners and were not worried if we did not take too many risks against their better bowlers as we were confident that we could use the short boundary to our advantage to increase our scoring rate towards the end. In terms of bowling, the Cambridge captain, Ciara Boaden, was our key wicket. We felt that if we could get her out quickly we would be in a strong position to win the game. We aimed to keep things simple, bowling tight lines and good lengths to make it difficult to score.
C: More specifically, how did you plan to utilise (for yourself) and negate (for Cambridge) the short leg side boundary at the pavilion end?
H: When batting, I was very aware of the boundary dimensions. When facing from the pavilion end, I planned to hit leg side, stepping across my stumps to access this area if necessary. Conversely from the other end, I planned to give myself some room to hit off side, knowing that a strong cut shot would probably score 4 runs. I also knew that it would not be too difficult to hit a 6 over this boundary so I planned to adapt my game which usually involves playing the ball along the floor (due to not being the strongest batter!) to having the confidence to hit the ball in the air over that side. Defending the short boundary in the field was certainly going to be more challenging. We carefully planned which bowlers would bowl from the pavilion end, with most of these selected bowlers swinging the ball away from the bat or bowling consistently well outside off stump. We planned to place our best fielders defending this boundary and force the Cambridge batters to take a risk in order to hit a 4/6 on the leg side.
C: Having joined Middlesex, does the feeling of coming through the long room ever change?
H: No – I don’t think the feeling of walking out through the Long Room will ever change! Lord’s is such a special place to play cricket and even though I might be fortunate enough to get a few more opportunities to play there for Middlesex, I don’t anticipate the feelings of excitement and anticipation fading.
C: As captain last year, did you get any second hand nerves for Elodie?
H: Yes definitely – I remember being very nervous last year. There is a great deal of behind the scenes organisation and training as captain so I think the build-up to Lords seems bigger. However, it is also an honour to captain at such a great ground and so there is plenty of excitement too. Luckily I think Elodie held it together better than I did last year – it was nice to have such a calm presence leading us on the pitch!
C: After a slow but steady start did you feel some pressure to come in and hit big?
H: I think that Hannah and Annys, the opening batters, got us off to a great start. We were determined not to let Cambridge take early wickets, so the partnership between those two was perfect for us. There was some pressure coming in to increase the run rate, but I knew that on such a good wicket and with a short boundary on one side, there was plenty of opportunity to score runs if I could stay at the crease. During my partnership with Hannah Sutton, we spoke about getting to 120 and running hard between the wickets to pick up extra runs whenever we could, which I think we started to do very well. We knew that we could run 2 or 3 when the ball was hit towards the bigger boundary and could take singles to most fielders on the ring. This certainly took some pressure off to ‘hit big’ as we were slowly increasing the run rate without taking too many risks. Towards the back end of the innings I was trying hard to hit boundaries towards the short boundary but we knew that anything above 120 would be challenging to chase as long as we bowled and fielded well.
The men’s side didn’t quite warrant as much attention from an Oxford perspective, although they put up considerably more of a fight against Cambridge than Cambridge women did against ours. So call it an overall Oxford victory?
It was the Cambridge spinners that really did the damage in the Oxford innings – Spanish international Seb Hughes-Pinan picked up two crucial wickets to swing the game in Cambridge’s favour but the pick of the bowlers was Tom ‘Skezza’ Skerrett who picked up three wickets, including that of captain Justin Clarke, and a run-out in to keep Oxford at an indefensible 106 off of their 20. For a moment, the indefensible almost looked defensible as Norman lobbed the first ball of the Cambridge innings to Vivek Narayan on the short boundary, but it was little more than a fleeting hope. Kottler, pushed up the order for the T20, hit a brisk 52 off 35, including three sixes, one of which nearly taking my poor, unsuspecting dad’s head clean off. His 52 accounted for Cambridge’s 68 runs at the time, but the damage was already done. Ferreira and the suitably named [piece of] Cake would walk Cambridge over the line in just 15.1 overs, with eight wickets still in hand.
The transformative nature of Oxford, coming from a state comprehensive, and his commitment to “bringing the best people here irrespective of background” were all focal points of Hague’s interview with Cherwell. Ironic, I would argue, for a Tory who sat complicit through the austerity years, who voted to raise tuition fees, who – in his own briefing notes – refused to promise that school funding would not be cut. William Hague may proclaim his ambitions and his “objective” for Oxford (it sounds very good in a press release), but he is betrayed by his own voting record. If Oxford hopes to move forward, Hague crying out “State school! In Yorkshire! Really I am very normal!” (paraphrased) to all who can hear is perhaps less effective than voting for someone who has shown an ounce of care and compassion towards our nation’s education in the past three decades. It is Oxford who suffers by being fronted by a spiritless politician. When Hague proclaims his main qualification as ‘state-educated Oxford grad’, it undercuts the years of work that makes this as a normal situation. Hague is out-of-step with the University, making hollow statements and conveniently skimming over his voting history.
Hague’s largest spring into educational reform was as Leader of the Opposition, when he aimed to “sweep away the barriers” between state and independent education. This is an aim many, I am sure, can support. Why should the wealth of your parents dictate the quality of your education? And we are not speaking of the expansive sports fields and state-of-the-art pianos. Why should some children have to grasp multiplication from the back of a rowdy class of thirty, while others have careful tuition from day dot?
To spend a Chancellor campaign telling anyone with ears that you attended a state school (as if it’s some kind of special skill) when you have shown no regard for them while in government is disgusting. Hague is a politician, no doubt about it, and the general public use ‘politician’ pejoratively. He has shown no interest in education, no interest in bettering the lives of those who come after him. He cares for a Tory safe seat, he cares for a foreign secretary job, a peerage, he cares for the Oxford Chancellorship. It is not a crime to want those things, it is not a crime to have ambition and to play a political game. I have no doubt he will make a good Chancellor, he will funnel questionably sourced funding into our programmes, he will appease donors and say the right thing at the right time, as he has been doing since 2010. Yet, nothing he says will be of any substance, for a glance over his track record will reveal a politician who has won a game and little more.
Oxford’s Chancellor should be intelligent and open-minded. When Hague voted to maintain the ban on the promotion of homosexuality in schools through Section 28, he demonstrated that he lacked those qualities. Some may argue he was voting with his time, or with his party, but this is incorrect. The vote was overwhelmingly in favour of removing the ban, and a significant minority of Conservatives supported it. Hague voted that schools should not teach the “acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship”. Someone who thinks like this, even twenty years ago, is not suitable to lead an institution in this century. I know, in spite of the stereotypes, the people of Oxford are accepting and deserve to have a Chancellor who reflects that. It is not an outrageous demand. It is damaging for the University’s reputation and reinforces the idea that Oxford is stuck in the past.
Hague lacks the ability to fight for something. “We are going to need to keep expanding those sorts of things [scholarships], particularly in an environment where fees are probably going up,” he told Cherwell. Has this been weighing particularly on Hague’s mind? Since when, I wonder? It did not seem to bother his conscience when voting to increase tuition fees. While I am sure some readers are screaming ‘he was following the whip, he was toeing the party line’. There was scarcely a gun to his head. Should it have bothered him so greatly, I imagine as Foreign Secretary an excuse can be feigned. Hague is a hypocrite. I, personally, believe the focus regarding access and finance should be around living costs rather than fees – a nuance that seems to have passed our Chancellor by – but the point stands.
Hague can scream from the rooftops that he was state-educated, he can speak about access to Oxford, he can push for scholarships, but none of this undoes his work when he had tangible political power. For years, he sat in Parliament and approved austerity measures that disproportionately affected children. This is inexcusable. To have him in the highest position at the country’s best University is embarrassing. Hague is a poor representative of Oxford. Either his strength of character is lacking and he just stumbled along with the votes, or he is morally disdainful. Oxford deserves better.
Oxford University has incurred over £360,000 in costs as a result of pro-Palestine protests and OA4P encampments, according to figures recently obtained by Cherwell through a Freedom of Information Request.
The costs, which span from the beginning of Trinity Term 2024 to March 2025, include damages, repairs, ground restoration, and security expenses linked to various protests, some of which involved the occupation or vandalism of University buildings and lawns.
In total, the overall figure spent by the University on the clean-up of pro-Palestine protests to date is £366,874.99, according to information obtained by Cherwell. Many of the listed figures are exclusive of VAT, and the University has indicated that some costs remain estimates or are subject to final confirmation.
The single most significant cost was £250,000, attributed to vandalism at the Blavatnik School of Government in February 2025 by Palestine Action, a group not officially affiliated with OA4P. Protesters had sprayed red paint on the entrance of the building, and smashed several window panes on the outside.
A spokesperson for Thames Valley Police told Cherwell that a “28-year-old man from Oxford arrested in connection with this incident is on police bail while enquiries are ongoing.”
Vandalism of University offices at Wellington Square in October 2024 was another significant expense, with the University spending over £25,000 on repairs. A total of £4000 has been spent on removing graffiti from university buildings, the Saïd Business School and Examination Schools.
OA4P encampments at the Natural History Museum and around the Radcliffe Camera in Trinity 2024 amounted to £44,699 and £19,771 respectively, in most part due to grounds maintenance and returfing. At the Natural History Museum, over £500 was spent on repotting and caring for plants, lasting for six weeks.
Security measures added a further £11,848 to the University’s bill, mostly covering overtime for Oxford Security Services staff managing the protests.
Responding to the high costs incurred, OA4P told Cherwell: “The University has paid their own private security overtime to monitor students, called the police on students peacefully protesting, built fences around both the Radcliffe Camera and the Pitt Rivers Museum, erected barricades at Wellington Square, and bulldozed the memorial garden in the Pitt Rivers encampment all on their own dime.”
A University spokesperson told Cherwell that all repairs were “carried out to a standard appropriate to the damaged properties”, though no further detail was provided.
On the surface, Jim Yeung might seem like any other undergraduate. A second-year maths student at The Queen’s College, he got a first in his prelims, looks forward to postgraduate study after his degree, and spends much of his free time playing the piano.
Only one thing sets him apart from his peers: he started studying at Oxford when he was only 15 years old. According to a Freedom of Information request made by Cherwell, that makes him one of the 237 Oxford students aged 17 and below.
Most universities in the UK permit undergraduates of any age – although under-18s are prohibited by law from engaging in the clinical contact required in the first year of most medicine degrees. Usually, however, universities put plenty of safeguards in place. Oxford Brookes, for instance, frequently offers deferred entry to students who apply for courses not ‘appropriate’ to their age; at the University of Bristol, underage students are barred from holding ‘positions of responsibility.’ Oxford does things differently. As Ruth Collier, then spokesperson for applications, told the Guardian in 2005: “If you’re the best student for the place and are 14 years old, then the general attitude is ‘so be it.’” Jim told me that tutors, lecturers and other students treat him the same as they treat his coursemates – exactly the way he wants it.
What few restrictions Oxford does place on underage students are usually the result of UK law. Students under the age of 18 are defined as children by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child; colleges do not act in loco parentis(‘in the parent’s place’). To study at Oxford as a minor, you’ll need parents or other trusted adults living in the Oxfordshire area. You can also pay for a service like Oxford Guardians. For £945 a year, along with a £1,000 deposit and £170 registration fee, the Guardians will carry out most of the student’s logistical work for them, as well as granting the parents a termly visit and monthly updates. Underage students are also barred from living in student accommodation, due to the understandable worry of having children sharing bathrooms and kitchens with adults twice their age – particularly when those adults are not subject to detailed DBS checks. In Jim’s case, there was one easy solution to both these problems; his family purchased a home in Oxford and relocated from Hong Kong, where Jim lives with his parents alongside his studies.
But does Oxford go far enough in protecting the children among its student body? Alcohol can often pose particular problems, as college bars do not routinely check students for their ID. Usually, barmen are given a list of underage students from that college they are prohibited from serving before the academic year begins. But this system is far from perfect. One student who started studying when he was 16 told Cherwell he found an easy solution; going to other colleges’ bars, where he was seen as just another undergrad. His bod card was usually all he needed to get into college bops and club nights.
Student societies, meanwhile, often have no safeguards in place at all. Back in 2015, Oxford University Labour Club reached national news after a 17 year old got so drunk at an event he threw up on college property, shouting ‘Vote Labour’ and reciting Latin, before ending the night unable to walk. This incident was especially embarrassing since also in attendance was then Oxford East MP Andrew Smith.
Researching them, it’s hard not to notice just how many former child prodigies go on to reach not spectacular heights of achievement, but instead deep craters of despair. Not only are young geniuses disproportionately likely to have developmental conditions like autism spectrum disorder and mental health issues like depression, they can often find the unbearable pressure of high expectations too much to handle. Socialisation can be a particular issue; burying your head in GCSE textbooks from early adolescence might be good for your grades, but it’s rarely as positive for your social abilities. As one former prodigy put it: ‘I regret all the ways I never got to be a child because I was too busy being a child prodigy.’
As far as Oxford is concerned, there is no child prodigy nearly as famous as Ruth Lawrence. She won a place at St Hugh’s when she was only ten years old in 1981 and went on to get a First in her finals and finish her degree a year early, making her the youngest graduate of Oxford in recorded history. She quickly became nationally famous, her face and story plastered on the pages of every tabloid in the country.
But it never really seemed like she was in control; instead, her father, Henry Lawrence, was the one in the driving seat – literally, as he took her everywhere in a tandem bicycle. He went with her to lectures, classes, tutorials, and social events – at least until he was banned by St Hugh’s JCR from their common room. Even after she followed up her undergraduate degree with a DPhil in Mathematics, he went with her to Harvard University, where she became a fellow at 19 years old.
Ruth hadn’t even been Henry’s first attempt at creating a child genius. He had tried the same with the children of his first marriage, but his first wife found his overbearing methods too much, leaving him and taking their three kids. He remarried and Ruth’s birth soon followed. His second wife was more accommodating to his authoritarian methods which included a ban on the young Ruth having friends of her age, out of a worry that their ‘trivial conversation and pointless playing’ would stunt her academic development.
Ruth finally left her father behind in 1997, when she married Israeli mathematician Ariyeh Neimark and moved to the Jewish state. She became religiously observant, and now lives in relative obscurity as an Orthodox mother of four, working as a Maths Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Perhaps understandably, she has been reluctant to say much about her relationship with her father. All we do know is that her style of parenting is much more relaxed – she has publicly stated her wish for her children to be ‘normal,’ and mature ‘naturally.’ But Henry still remains unrepentant about his unorthodox methods, telling the Daily Mail in 2015 he raised Ruth properly: ‘The idea that it’s a time to mess around and do whatever they like is absolutely wrong. Childhood’s not a time to be playing around, but a time to be developing.’
But Ruth says she still enjoyed her time at Oxford. When I asked her about whether she thought that Oxford did enough to protect students like her, she said: ‘It’s a complex topic, and probably best that I don’t get involved in answering. I was very happy with my experiences at Oxford, but… Depending on how young the student and the situation of their family, there are clearly potential dangers, and it is not clear whether the university or colleges want to get involved.’
One child prodigy whose time at Oxford was unambiguously unhappy was Sufiah Yusof. She won a place studying Mathematics in 1997, when she was only 12 years old; one year later, her 12 year old sister and 16 year old brother began studying at Warwick. That made them the youngest group of siblings to ever study at university simultaneously. The news of Sufiah’s admittance was greeted with cheers, particularly in Malaysia, where she had distant ancestry – Sultans and ministers alike toasted her success, and countless teachers used her as an inspirational example for their pupils.
But after she took her final exams, she disappeared. It took the police 12 days to track her down, eventually finding her working in an internet cafe in Bournemouth. She refused to return to her parents, describing her father as having created a ‘living hell’ for her with his tyrannical disciplinarianism. She accused him of a litany of abuses – allegedly, for instance, he had forced her to work in freezing temperatures, since the cold supposedly better stimulated her brain.
For the next few years, she remained out of the media spotlight – until, in 2008, a journalist from the News of the World tracked her down, and found she was working as a £130 an hour prostitute in the backstreets of Salford. Posing as one of her clients, the journalist solicited her services and wrote his experiences up in the now defunct newspaper. Even by the standards of the Murdoch press, this showed a flagrant disregard for journalistic ethics.
It is hard to imagine just how traumatising all of this must’ve been for Sufiah. Fleeing abusive parents and ending up as a sex worker would be immensely difficult for almost anyone – but even worse when the whole affair is playing out across the pages of the national tabloids.
She certainly hasn’t been coy when it comes to giving her opinion on those tabloids. Her website accuses the British media of releasing ‘a tsunami of spiteful, dishonest, and abusive articles and pieces’ about her.
Stories like these were what led the Blair government to consider a blanket ban on students under the age of 18 going to university. But Olivia Smith, the Deputy CEO of Potential Plus UK – an organisation that supports highly gifted children and their parents – was glad these proposals were abandoned.
‘We don’t like the idea of people being held back,’ she told Cherwell. ‘We encounter parents that are struggling, because their children are doing their GCSEs but they’re writing at degree level, and GCSEs aren’t designed to accommodate that. We’ve got to say to people to level their answers down, and stop enjoying learning… It could be that holding the child back is more emotionally damaging than letting them get on with and trying university.’ For Potential Plus, decisions about sending under-18s to university are usually made on a case-by-case basis. On the one hand, university can be far more intellectually fulfilling for them; on the other hand, ‘we’ve got to consider social development,’ as Olivia put it. Usually, Potential Plus first encourage their clients to find intellectual stimulation outside of formal universities – taking extra A-Levels for instance, or using online resources like the Open University.
Olivia was also keen to stress that, despite the stereotypes, people who go to university earlier than usual aren’t always being driven by their overbearing tiger parents. ‘Often the kids are driving it, and the parents are there having to manage their kids’ expectations,’ as she put it. Where parents do find that their children are exceptionally gifted, however, she highlighted how important it is to take a balanced approach towards them: ‘The general risks are if you create a child’s identity to be all about one thing then that is going to crash and burn at some point, because there is no room for failure. We would remind all parents to praise everything about the child. We encourage them to build life skills – listening skills, teaching skills, creativity, problem solving. It’s easy for parents to get hooked up in their specific talents. But you want people to be well rounded.’
In some ways at least, Oxford might be a better environment for young prodigies than any other university. Younger students are obviously going to need more pastoral support than most of their peers; other, poorer universities can’t hope to compete with Oxford’s welfare services. And there are certainly few other places where eccentricities are accepted as readily as they are in Oxford.
I’ll admit, before researching this article, I had a fairly crude view of child prodigies, as socially awkward eccentrics unwillingly pressed into academic excellence by their overbearing parents. Certainly, that’s sometimes the case. But talking to Jim and Olivia, I realised how plenty of Oxford’s early birds are simply enormously talented and self-driven, and find in Oxford a place they can fit in better than anywhere else.
Back in the 1990s, after Ruth Lawrence’s story brought enormous publicity to the University, colleges found themselves in a kind of arms race; who could find the youngest student to let in? Thankfully, that has mostly ended by now. With today’s greater emphasis on student welfare and mental health, the youngest students at Oxford tend to be clustered more in the 15 to 16 age range, rather than the 12 to 13.
So, should children be allowed to study at Oxford? I’d say yes. But their admittance certainly ought to be approached with caution and, at the very least, colleges ought to keep a close eye on their welfare to stop another tragedy like Sufiah Yusof’s from ever occurring again.
Coming from Vietnam, a developing country six time zones away, I had braced myself for how money would shape every experience, even before I landed. The British pound is one of the strongest currencies in the world, and Oxford is one of the country’s most expensive cities.
I recall when my program asked me to dress in black tie for Keble’s first formal. I panicked, stared into my suitcase, and Googled: “Can I wear jeans and a T-shirt to an Oxford formal?”
I did not bring any dresses to Oxford. Any.
My suitcase of clothes was packed with three pairs of jeans, two padded jackets, one sweatshirt, a large grey winter coat, and plenty of casual T-shirts. The other suitcase contained all my notebooks, stationery, and skincare products, which I knew would cost a fortune in the UK. I had imagined a quiet life at Oxford: from dormitory to library, and back again. No one mentioned I needed to dress nicely for an impromptu dinner in my college dining hall.
I was deeply anxious as I hadn’t shopped for myself in years. Most of my clothes were hand-me-downs from my mum or relatives, so the experience felt somewhat nerve-wracking. I had never “dressed to impress” and now I was expected to, just to be accepted. Still, I was lucky: I found a great white dress for just £10 and felt proud of my little victory. However, that night at the formal, feeling quietly triumphant, I realised that every other girl wore a black dress. None of us had planned it, but somehow, I was the only one who hadn’t received the memo: it wasn’t just a dress code. It was a reminder that I had missed the memo on how to belong.
There is an insurmountable gap between me and Oxford, wealth and prestige simply represented by money. The money gap divides me from my friends, my dress from theirs, the small city in Southern Vietnam where I grew up, and Oxford.
As I only had one nice dress, I barely went to my college’s formals or accepted my friends’ invitations to theirs. I also withdrew from most of the balls and black-tie events, as I knew I couldn’t afford another outfit, even if I stumbled upon a lovely bargain again.
The money gap even swept me out of certain academic spheres at Oxford. The Oxford Union’s fee of two hundred pounds per term for visiting students was the most apparent financial barrier. Two hundred pounds can sustain me for a month here, and that was just the entrance fee to dress smartly and set foot in the Union’s hall. But what matters more is the “hidden fee” of belonging: buying books, dressing smartly so you’re taken seriously, joining casual pub outings, or travelling for society meetings. All of it costs.
The money gap did not entice me to leave Oxford while I was here, but it had marked me as an “outsider” long before I arrived at the university.
I often could not engage with other students’ conversations. Money and privilege tore us apart from the beginning. I came from a country where we did not read Shakespeare or Jane Austen at school. No Greek or Latin classes were offered; instead, schools provide English language classes, which do not give us an edge in Britain. We speak English with the intonations of our homeland, not the polished manner customary here. I have never worn a suit or attended a prom, let alone an academic ball. I just cannot relate to them, and neither can they.
At Oxford, access is not just about admissions but also about being aware of unspoken codes, being able to afford full participation, and possessing a kind of cultural capital that money alone can’t guarantee.
However, at my lowest, when I nearly grew to hate Oxford and almost dropped my course, I felt at home again in the books, in the classroom, in the tutorial readings. I comfortably debate critical academic topics in my field with my peers, and my voice became more unique when discussing the subject. For example, in Philosophy of Language, my voice as a Southeastern woman speaking an Asian language would challenge all the theories proposed by Western philosophers, who curated their ideas based on their European native languages.
Though we come from different backgrounds and wear different clothes, we sit in the same group tutorial room, united in our excitement or confusion about the topic of discussion. We share the same reading lists, libraries, and even gossip about tutors.
While you can’t pay your way into belonging, but you can read your way in.
