10 reasons why Durham students are ‘glad they got rejected from Oxbridge’

By Kieran Molloy

1: I didn’t actually want to go there in the first place. I know that I went to all the extra classes for the entrance exam, had all those extra tutoring sessions, pulled my hair out revising and got a neck tattoo of the college-that-rejected-me’s crest, but it was only because my parents wanted me to.

2: I’m a bit of a rebel, bit of an outsider. All of my family going back a few generations all went to Oxbridge, but I’m not like them. I’m a black sheep and very cool and bohemian, actually.

3: It doesn’t even matter that much. Durham is still a good university with good career prospects. I can be trusted on this; I spent a lot of time memorising subject rankings and graduate statistics so I could bring them up in casual conversation.

4: Oxbridge is too posh for me. I’m a down-to-earth, man- of-the-people type of guy. I just wouldn’t have fit in there. Durham just has that low-key proletariat vibe, y’know.

5: I never wanted to apply and was drugged. I went to a party and blacked out. When I woke up, someone had written a personal statement with my name on it, selected a college and course and sent it off and taken the entrance exam under my name. I was the victim of a crime.

6: It taught me a valuable lesson. Sometimes you can want something for as long as you can remember, you work hard, you sacrifice your social life, you do everything that your parents and your teachers tell you to, you try your hardest and you still don’t get what you want and that’s okay. It’s also okay to lock yourself in your room for a month and only communicate through screaming.

7: In primary school, I went to a friend’s house and stole a football. When his mum confronted me about it, I lied and said he had lost it and was blaming me to get out of trouble. My friend got in trouble for losing the ball and lying. I believe getting rejected was cosmic retribution for my crime and that I deserve it and more.

8: I’ve actually made great friends at Durham. I don’t look at them and fill with rage because I’m stuck here with them.

9: Academics aren’t everything. I’ve run with the bulls in Pamplona. I’ve swum in the Pacific Ocean, travelled across the African savannah, hiked through the jungles of South America and bathed in the fjords of western Norway. I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe. I don’t need the validation of ‘the best university in the world.’ If you do, then I feel nothing but pity.

10: There are still plenty of other universities I can look down on.