Decision help: Oxford or Columbia?

<p>^You are right Azabhu.<br>
It is impossible for an ED school to assure a F-1 visa for any international student. ED Agreement cannot restrict a student from applying to other schools outside of USA. A student can keep his options at a non-USA school while holding to a ED choice school. However, the student should honor the ED agreement and withdraw the applications from other US schools.</p>

<p>I graduated from both Columbia College and Oxford (Lincoln College). Here’s an essay I published in the Columbia Spectator back in 1995; it compares both experiences and may give you some perspective. </p>

<p>Any followup questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. </p>

<p>Good luck, </p>

<p>Tom</p>

<p>==============================================</p>

<p>I embarked to read law at Lincoln College, Oxford University, with the usual Brideshead Revisited-based fantasies—swanning around medieval quadrangles swilling champagne, punting languorously along the Cherwell, engaging tutors in arch repartee, etc.</p>

<p>I also wondered: Were Oxford undergraduates as bright and sophisticated as my old Columbia University classmates, if not more so? Did the Oxford tutorial system provide as good an education as Columbia’s classes?</p>

<p>In some ways, they were, and it did. British high school students concentrate early in their best subjects, so by the time they at arrive at university they study one subject, usually for three years and occasionally four. It therefore wasn’t unusual to come across first-years who knew as much about literature as any middling Columbia English major like me.</p>

<p>But while they may leave the university with a deeper understanding of their subjects than I did leaving Columbia, Oxford undergraduates necessarily lose in curricular breadth what they gain in rigor. </p>

<p>Weekly tutorials with college fellows (called dons or tutors, about equal in rank to U.S. professors) are the main format of instruction at Oxford. Tutors assign a substantial reading list and an essay to write, which students read aloud then talk about at the next tutorial. There is little coddling—students must master basic concepts quickly, then be prepared to discuss their more arcane ramifications. </p>

<p>This intimate setting (usually the tutor and two students) allows issues to be covered in considerably more depth than in a typical college class. Moreover, tutors wouldn’t let me get away with the facile responses I often tossed out at Columbia. Once they knew I was on the right track, tutors pried, socratically, with ever harder questions. When I had prepared well, tutorials were exhilarating—elevated exchanges that revealed complexities and refined my naïve conclusions.</p>

<p>Columbia might benefit by making occasional use of tutorials. They improve one’s articulateness and let teachers address enigmatic issues in great depth. Rarely did I find such teacher-student rapport at Columbia, except in small seminars where students hit it off exceptionally well with the professor. The weekly essays at Oxford also honed my writing in a way that sporadic Columbia term papers could not. Finally, I found Oxford dons to be much more sparing in praise than the average Columbia instructor, which raised my self-expectations. In short, Oxford’s teaching method, though time-consuming for teachers and implicitly expensive, is hard to match if depth and precision are the main pedagogical goals.</p>

<p>Oxford’s curricula are nothing if not traditional; Anglo-Saxon is mandatory for those reading English, as is Roman Law for law students. Such requirements leave little time for indulging cross-disciplinary interests, which was nearly always encouraged at Columbia. Indeed, at Oxford, straying from one’s subject can be frowned upon. I recall once referring to Plato during a criminal law tutorial only to be dismissed with a quizzical look…my remark would likely have excited a Columbia instructor to stray even further afield.</p>

<p>The British also consider our grading system rather lax; by its nature, theirs is more stringent. Skim reading before a test doesn’t work at Oxford, where the only grade that really counts is one’s “class” in Final Exams. Your academic class is based on your composite score in a week of essay-only exams (taken in quaint bow ties and black gowns), for which you must know over two years of cumulative material.</p>

<p>Despite this holistic approach, I don’t remember much more from Oxford than I do from Columbia. Yet I more thoroughly understand how various facets of my Oxford courses fit together. Still, the Oxford system can unjustly reward those who do little for tutorials, yet do well on comprehensive exams. At Columbia or any American university, there’s always the chance to redeem oneself after a bad semester, which seems instinctively more fair (though again, a bit lax…preparing for Finals at Oxford made even my toughest exam periods at Columbia seem easy).</p>

<p>One indisputable advantage of Oxford is that students may attend virtually any lecture in any subject they wish…they need not register for or consistently attend a set number per semester, as in the U.S. Thus everyone has access to the stars of each faculty. Compare this with the anxious flight to get into desirable classes at Columbia, even in one’s major.</p>

<p>But at least each Columbia course was a discrete academic experience, usually with a clear path to success: take good notes and study hard for the exam and/or write good papers. At Oxford, one must constantly juggle tutorials, lectures, and revision for Finals. Full understanding of your subject and good results must be approached along disparate roads—a quality I sometimes found disjointed. </p>

<p>Quite a few Oxford dons cultivate a benign aloofness toward the academic fate of their students; those who do little work are ignored as often as reprimanded. Yet this does compel you to become self-sufficient fast. It’s almost totally up to the student to make something of his education.</p>

<p>Another virtue of Oxford is its organization. The university is a federation of thirty-eight colleges, each with about 100-700 students. Though colleges can become village-like gossip-mills, their relative intimacy makes tutors accessible and eliminates the horror of big-university bureaucracy. Registration hassles, for example, are minimal compared with the Kafkaesque nightmare I recall at Columbia. Still, in some ways I preferred the anonymity of the Morningside Heights part of Manhattan and the vast city beyond, which discouraged the insular socializing common at smaller U.S. schools (and in some Oxford colleges). </p>

<p>Politically, Oxonians tend to be liberal, yet scholarly methods are usually more conservative than those at Columbia. Many dons find amusing the American fixations on multiculturalism and political correctness—they quaintly think universities are intended for education rather than political activism or social engineering. And although these days it is more merit- than class-based, elitism remains entrenched at Oxford. Envied their place near (at?) the top of the British educational heap, Oxonians can be self-satisfied. This made me miss the unpretentiousness of most Columbians. </p>

<p>I finally think the two systems cultivate different intellectual qualities at different times. Columbia provides a well-rounded generalist base from which a student can move on to graduate study or a job. Oxford fosters depth, but at a time in students’ lives when they are just forming their intellectual tastes. Yes, Columbia’s programs are sprawling and sometimes dilettantish, but so were my interests when I was eighteen. I’m grateful for the broad knowledge I acquired at Columbia before refining my thinking at Oxford. </p>

<p>A version of this essay first appeared in the Columbia Spectator on January 24, 1995</p>

<p>Law school in the UK is undergrad. So apps to Yale aren’t important.</p>