Colorado College vs Oxford Uni for History/Undecided

College Search & Selection
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I’m looking for some outside perspective on what has proven to be a tough decision. I’ve been accepted to Colorado College and received an offer from Oxford(Brasenose College, specifically). At Oxford, I’m tracked to study History & Modern Greek, and would likely do something similar at CC.

Of course, these are vastly different schools, and they’ve come to represent a sort of crossroads for me. For context, I’m very outdoorsy(skiing, rock climbing, backpacking, etc), and would love to be able to spend more time on my passions outside of school, after having spent the last four years at a fairly rigorous prep school. CC is obviously academically challenging as well, but seems to offer some more work-life balance. Then again, I know I’d thrive academically at Oxford, and the interview process was incredibly fun. My parents, especially, are considered about the “prestige” element, and while this isn’t among my priorities at all, I’m not blind to the power that the name holds.

There’s also the financial piece: I received a rather generous aid package from CC, and would be paying a fraction of the International Fees for Oxford. Is it worth the added debt?

I’d love to hear from people with experience with either school, or really anyone, I’m seriously at a loss here.

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This recent topic, in which a student intends to transfer from Oxford to a U.S. college to study classics in a more flexible curriculum, may be of interest: Transfer to Pomona, Georgetown, Northwestern, UPenn, Swarthmore etc. from Oxford in the UK.

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Oxford has 8 week terms which will be very intense work wise, with multiple essays for your tutorials, plus lots of reading - and a lot of this will be done on your own. Your holidays/ vacations will also require extensive self studying for exams the following term. Whilst students obviously do manage this plus other activities, it IS intense.

I’m a parent now, but I was accepted to Oxford as a 17 year old British student and turned them down. I knew it would be an endless slog for me, I didn’t have the natural brilliance of some of my peers who were also accepted. I went to St Andrews precisely for more work /life balance - AND to study a wider range of subjects.

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Oxford for academics; Colorado College for outdoor activities.

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I think Colorado College has a little more to offer than just outdoor activities. :roll_eyes:

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I think @Publisher simply meant that Oxford has the edge in academics. Colorado College is a pretty good LAC, and its academic system is relatively unique (aside from Cornell College), but academically it is by no means a peer of Oxford, especially in humanities disciplines like history.

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Both are ‘fit’ universities. The most recent CC student I know was frustrated by the relatively low % of academically intense students.

Oxford is super intense- but for the students that it suits there is nothing like it, and you do have time for outside activities. All of the Oxford students that I know/have known have outside interests- but some of the ones that sound as if you find most interesting are not as close to campus as they would be at CC! That said, the Collegekid who did undergrad at Oxford learned to ski while she was there, starting with Varsity Trip (the annual Oxford-Cambridge ski trip) her first year.

If you need a break from prep school ask Oxford to defer & take a gap year. I really don’t see a student who thinks that they would be happy at Oxford would be happy at Colorado College. Oxford doesn’t just ‘have an edge’ over CC. It’s on a completely different level.

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So I am the dad whose daughter is applying for transfer back to the US from Oxford… Here are a few things to share from our experience:

(1) Oxford STEM vs. Oxford Humanities

My son is studying Mathematics (Year 2) and my daughter Italian & Linguistics (Year 1), both at Oxford… While Mathematics (top in the UK with Cambridge) is demanding, humanities are downright intense… My son is cruising with time for a variety of extracurricular activities, but my daughter’s weekly assignments are nearly impossible, despite the fact that she is doing quite well on her courses…

(2) LAC Academic Culture vs. Oxford Academic Culture

LACs are known to be very supportive of their students’ transition into college, not so for Ox… Their philosophy is more like “we will throw you into the deep water and see if you will drown or float”… [They believe you will (eventually) float… because they have screened you through their admission tests and interviews… They believe in their judgements and experiences…] But still, it is like breaking you down before building you back up… It takes some getting used to especially for US students accustomed to getting A/A+ without too much of an effort…

(3) LAC Professors vs. Oxford Tutors

Again, LAC Professors are known to be caring and supportive, not so with Ox… The relationship between tutors and students is mostly academic… “strictly business” (if I may say)… In addition, while my daughter’s younger tutors are mostly friendly and kind, some older and more traditional professors / tutors can be stern and even mean… My daughter is very sensitive and did not like seeing herself or her friends embarrassed or intimated…

(4) Liberal Arts Flexibility vs. Oxford Rigidity

Last summer, my daughter was choosing between Classics and Linguistics… She could choose one of the two, but not both… so she ended up with Italian with Linguistics… She would have chosen Classics if they had allowed her to study only Latin (without Greek), but the tutor thought she was too advanced in Latin and must do both Latin and Greek…

You see how rigid Ox can be? In the US, you devise your study plan (with certain requirements to fulfill); at Oxford, they decide on the study plan (with some choices in later years)…

That’s one prime motivation for her to transfer because having set aside Latin for a time, she really wants it back… together with Linguistics… She also likes sampling a variety of courses, including STEM subjects… All these will not be possible at Oxford…

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Having laid down some negatives about Oxford system, I do want to highlight one big plus about the school – namely that it is an elite university filled with students with abilities, curiosity and intensity… (and our children felt that too…)

My daughter is a pretty laid-back child with no ambition and has little regard for prestige, but she brightens up, comes alive, becomes intensely engaged when she stumbles upon things she loves… Latin and Linguistics are among those things… And when you put a bunch of kids like that… on a college campus… over a few years… It can be magical…

I grew up attending an excellent secondary school with smart and very capable classmates… But not until I got to MIT, did I realize that school could be that much fun… The collective brilliance, curiosity and intensity… shifted everything into “warp speed”… and it was breathtaking…

So while I see my son and daughter more as future “high school teachers” than “high-powered investment bankers,” I do not want them to miss out on that thrilling ride…

A couple of days ago, my daughter had an interview with an Swarthmore alum… The interviewer is currently a professor at Bucknell and has taught at a couple of other schools also… My daughter asked him how Swarthmore is like when compared to those other schools… He said Swarthmore is definitely nerdier and more intense… At the end of the interview, he said to my daughter, “Having talked to you, I don’t think you will fit in the other schools…”

I think the interviewer is right. Despite my daughter’s dislike of Oxford, we saw visible growths in her, even within a few months. Intellectually, she has developed muscles she did not even know exist, and I think she will be ready for any school back in the US. [Of course, the social fit is also very important.] We just hope that she will find the same type of student body she encounters at Oxford.

I don’t know enough about Colorado College to comment… How important are academics to you? How hard do you want to work? Academically and in terms of student body, is Colorado College closer to Bucknell or Swarthmore or Oxford? I think it is worth thinking through…

I don’t know if you ED Colorado College or just EA… Do you have other decisions coming up? Hopefully you will have some choices between CC and Ox…

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That is a great post, @kin514- it does a good job balancing the specific experiences of your specific kids with some useful nuance.

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Thank you so much for that thoughtful response! I EA’d CC, and will be hearing back from Vandy, Bowdoin, and Williams by April 1, I believe. As @collegemom3717 pointed out, I don’t know if any of the schools on my list will really provide a comparable rigor. Am I willing to give some of that up for more flexibility, both in my education and my free time? I’m not sure. Nonetheless, these responses have been incredibly helpful.

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Of the ones you list, Williams would be the best alternative to Oxford- and not just b/c they use tutorials!

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I have a daughter who graduated form Oxford’s PPE (Politics, Philosophy and Economics) programme and a son studying STEM at Stanford.

In terms of academics, her PPE course offered a lot of flexibility but that is unique to this course. It is the closest to the liberal art education in the US. For other courses there is not much flexibility. This can actually be a plus if you love your major and want to go deeper in it. In comparison, a quarter of the classes my son has to take are random general ed classes that have nothing to do with his subject. They may or may not expand his thinking skills but they surely make for a lot of busy work.

The workload that my son encounters in US is more than the workload my daughter had in Oxford. Stanford are on a quarter system, and each quarter he takes 3-4 courses all of which have HW, midterms, final exams. A lot of exams and grading. Everybody aims for an A and there is academic pressure. In Oxford, there are prelim exams in the first year (which are pass/fail, with fail being you drop out), no exams the second year, and finals at the end of the third year. The exams are high stake but there are much fewer of them. Getting a “2-1” (B to A-) is considered a good outcome. My daughter had more time for clubs and ECs than my son in her first and second year. The final year, you spend a lot of time in the library preparing for the finals.

The social life in Oxford is great. My d’s friends that I met are not stressed, are genuinely interested in their subject and with a lot of other unrelated interests. ECs are pursued mostly for fun. My d produced a play and was involved in the “Champagne and socialism” debate club. In Stanford, there is a lot of resume building and some clubs are very difficult to get into. My son told me some kids are trying to build “connections”. It sounds a little fake. Oxford kids seemed more genuine.

Outdoors - my d is a runner so she was fine. There was a walking club but she wasn’t impressed. It’s a flat country and it rains a lot. Visiting continental Europe is easy - skiing in France, etc but it is not next door.

People - maybe my D has a thicker skin but she has not reported mean professors. They appear more distanced at first but it is not unusual to go to the pub with them or be invited to dinner. She found the English to be very nice people. Some colleges may be more snobish, don’t know. Hers was more laid back. She submitted an open appication and they placed her there, and it was a good match.

I am sure Colorado College will be less intense than Stanford.

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There are many, many student run clubs doing these sorts of activities at Oxford. I was at Cambridge and ran an outdoor activities club while there. I went climbing, caving, skiing and backpacking and even got money from the college to help fund overseas expeditions and buy gear. There’s not much near Oxford (and even less near Cambridge) but we would go to Wales, northern England or even Scotland for a weekend, and organized week long trips during vacations.

The highlight was a four week summer expedition where we were the first independent overseas group to trek across a particularly remote mountain range (sufficiently obscure that most of it had no decent maps available in the days before GPS and Google Earth). And we organized it all ourselves as 21 year olds.

There’s no question that all this is more accessible in Colorado, but you make your own opportunities at Oxford.

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CC has had a tough time navigating Covid. Go to Oxford.

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If it might matter to you, Williams and Bowdoin have commonly appeared in my posts as recommendations of strong schools for history to students on your level, such as in Need help finding schools and Best colleges and universities for History and Political Science major.

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Btw OP- keep an eye on your reply date! You don’t want to lose your Oxford offer by missing a deadline.

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Can you clarify on what you mean by “CC has had a tough time navigating Covid”?

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Update: I was accepted to Williams as well! I’ve heard that William’s does offer a year abroad at Oxford, which I could definitely see myself doing. Does anyone have experience applying for that year abroad/with William’s history?

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Congrats!!! I have no experience with Williams’ Oxford program, but know of someone from Stanford who did an exchange with Oxford and had a terrific experience. Again congrats!!!

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According to my Oxford son - his HS classmates who did the Stanford program there had a little different experience than the typical JYA. There is a “Stanford House” where the students stay as opposed to a traditional Oxford college. I believe they also take Stanford designed courses that are taught by Stanford faculty, not standard Oxford academic department courses with Oxford college tutors.

It appears that Williams offers the more traditional JYA approach at Exeter College. Exeter will look very familiar to Morse/Endeavour fans as it is frequently used as a location. The give away is the black & white “double zipper” looking college crest in the blades chalking on the building walls.

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