Just wondering.
(or are they the same)
Overall, the same.
Putting aside the “prestige” factor as viewed from the U.S. side of the pond, I recently read (can’t recall which publication) that Oxford is viewed in England as having lost some of its mojo. Seems Oxford’s standards are relaxing a bit while Cambridge is maintaining its high standards.
@MinnesotaDadof3 What about the “prestige” factor. Which of Oxford/Cambridge is more famous in the US?
Isn’t one of them better known for Sciences (Cambridge) and the other for Humanities (Oxford)?
The same.
It’s the difference between Harvard and MIT (or Harvard and Stanford; or Harvard and Yale).
Agreed. Even if some departments may be stronger in one or the other, both are considered, overall, equal in “prestige.”
Why do you care?
@CaliMex, that’s a 19thC shibboleth
(I heard it from a Cambridge PhD in Mathematics)
@CaliMex, to quote the inimitable Mandy Rice-Davies ‘well he would, wouldn’t he?’! From the mid 18th to the mid 19th C Cambridge had a famously tough math exam that you had to pass before you could do anything else (including humanities). But that exam is gone, and these days both unis say that there is no meaningful difference. At this point it is really course by course- Ox is ranked higher in some sciences / humanities, Cam in others.
As with US colleges, the differences in rankings are so small as to be negligible and come down to personal preference (eg, Harvard or Yale?)