Hi guys, I had a few questions I would really appreciate answers to. I would like a LAC experience for undergrad (small classes and not too many students) but am wary of Oxford’s location, reputation, rigor and social experience.
What is social life like at the Oxford Campus?
What are academics like?
What’s the party scene like?
Is it still a backdoor into the university or is that now not really a thing anymore?
Are the academics actually harder than Emory College of Arts and Sciences?
How is pre-med at Oxford?
Are Oxford students still stigmatized at Emory University?
Don’t know (or really care. I’m sure people still view as backdoor, but for all intensive purposes, the caliber of students in strikingly similar if not virtually the same. So those perceptions are merely elitist and not based in much fact. By asking about them being stigmatized you are basically asking redundant questions like about the academics. However, many wouldn’t be able to tell the difference and Oxford students are extremely well-represented in clubs, student government, and even well-connected to administrative apparatuses it seems. Seems that focus on leadership at Oxford pays off) about the others, so will end up only mentioning them in passing:
Can only generalize on the academics.
In many areas (especially outside of STEM), the beginning level course work wlll be tougher, but that just makes sense. it is smaller. Smaller schools that are remotely selective will likely give a higher graded workload in courses. Colleges courses are generally run based upon efficiency. So at a large R-1 where course sections are much larger, instructors (especially all the research faculty) are generally (if they teach a large course) going to settle for lower level tasks and a lower workload to make grading easier.
Pre-med is basically the same everywhere. Do you mean the science courses? That is an integral part of the experience of those pursuing the pre-med track, but it is not synonymous. I would say the lower division courses except for chemistry may be run better at Oxford and the labs across virtually all of the required STEM disciplines are certainly run better/more interesting. There is a reason why top and even the most random LACs no one has even heard of do well at producing future scientists. They are immensely helped by size.
In general, you could find the same rigor on main as Oxford, but since it is much larger and there are many more courses, it is of course less consistently rigorous. And as I said, the research mission of the university naturally interferes (though they are working on making it congruent with) undergraduate teaching. Are you looking to avoid rigor or something? Why does it matter? Your goal should be able to get a rich experience in those science courses (and others) and often that entails getting a mixture of some of the best and more rigorous teaching. If you can seek that out and do well/solidly, you will get an amazing experience and probably better rec. letters. Believe it or not, many instructors who give out a lot of As for low standards tend to write more lukewarm letters unless a student truly stood out even among the sea of As. Both schools are/can be quite challenging, but are not stifling, so don’t worry how the rigor of either will clash with your pre-med goals. If you do the work and stay intellectually engaged, you should remain competitive if that is really what you want to do. These are not engineering schools or anything like that.
And stop worrying about prestige and “stigmatization” so much. Worry about the learning and social environment. It will of course be different from a large research U (Emory has a scaled back party scene, so imagine a smaller school? Really imagine most schools that are LACs with with high achieving student bodies. There will be some parties and events, but most even well-known LACs are located in somewhat isolated places much like Oxford in hopes that the school could be more academically and “life of the mind focused”. Oxford faces having the double-edged sword being directly associated with Emory University which means that the desire to create an environment similar to well-known LACs often clashes with the attitudes of tons of pre-professional, especially pre-business and pre-meds that the Emory association attracts).
Either way, if you think a higher workload/requirements for more academic engagement and a more scaled back party scene is not for you, I would basically avoid most remotely selective LACs and hedge your bets with research universities. There should be no looking for a relatively “easy” LAC that has strong students. They don’t really exist and most who attended didn’t go in particularly concerned about that aspect. They went in more so anticipating and maybe even desiring it. If you are a more stereotypical pre-med that just needs high grades, some relevant ECs, all while maintaining an ultra vibrant social life, most LACs may not be a fit unless you consider more quirky (imagine American college movies and the hierarchy portrayed. Usually those at these LACs are not your Greeks are Animal House types in droves. They are often more like the studious, artistic, “nerdy”, and quirky folks that are barely portrayed as part of the undergraduate experience in the media) and scaled back social scenes acceptable.
@bernie12 thanks for your reply.
No, I’m not trying to dodge rigor, but as anyone on the pre-med track will tell you the GPA is of utmost importance. Yes, of course, I want a good education, but at the same time, I don’t want to sacrifice my GPA as a result. Of course, hopefully at a more rigorous place any differences in GPA between (say Emory and Iowa State or something) would be resolved by the MCAT scores. Nevertheless, the GPA is very important (I don’t want to be one of those people that goes to a really tough school and gets weeded out as a result).
A Liberal Arts College for me is important because I would like a school that doesn’t have an overwhelming amount of students and so that I can maintain close relations with professors. You also mentioned that there won’t be a massive party scene there, and whilst I’m not looking for the scene other top southern universities have (say at Vanderbilt University, University of Miami or Tulane University) I am looking for occasional parties to go to say every other weekend.
Another thing that I am concerned about is “weeding out” that happens at some colleges/universities. I’ve heard places like Vanderbilt and Emory curve to a B- in science classes. Does this apply to Oxford College as well? I’m not sure if Oxford is included when people mention Emory. Now Oxford also has INQ designations on several pre-med courses, how would this effect coursework in these classes? Would it add rigor? Now, of course, you may say that I shouldn’t be trying to dodge rigor, but my point is I don’t want to add unnecessary rigor on top of an already rigorous track.
The last question I had is what is Oxford’s relationship with Emory University? I understand it’s one of Emory’s nine academic division and one of the two entry points to the university, but people often say “Oxford or Emory” (rather than say “Oxford or Atlanta”. This may seem like a minor thing, but I’m curious as to how the culture at Oxford differs from Atlanta and if it attracts a different type of student body to the Atlanta campus/
@gapyearapplicant Yes, but if you are overly concerned about performing, then a selective school should be off the table. You should believe that you can perform in such environments and just “do it”…There is really no need to be concerned unless you are attending the selective engineering schools. It should not be the first thing to come to mind when choosing among schools, you know what I am saying. Go in with the confidence that you can get that part down almost anywhere you are considering and consider the fact that most privates, even so called “stringent grading” ones, have a solid level of inflation through various means. Let that be a concern once admitted somewhere and then think about how you will work efficiently to do well without sacrificing the quality of education you receive. STEM grading across most non-engineering privates (even most selective) is fairly uniform, and you’ll generally have to work to stay afloat, but that should be okay. I’m just saying don’t go into the search process with your future GPA in mind. If you do the work and don’t overload your schedule with overly rigorous courses and a mixture of intensive ECs, you should be able to perform if you do the work.
If you can tolerate a scaled back party scene or the simple existence of an “escape” through partying, Oxford or main should be acceptable.
Weeding happens in many shapes and forms in STEM and is unavoidable. If not the INQ classes at Oxford, then the chemistry courses at Emory which are great, but rough (or physics, where they just give you research faculty who could care less). Again, if you are worried about this, you should cross LACs off, because good LACs are going to have that type of INQ curriculum (those courses were run like that before the INQ designation came along and I have seen syllabi and course material for other known LACs, and they stick to a similar style. A lot more graded work than most R-1s). And it also depends on how you define rigor. If I am a pre-med (I wasn’t), I would rather have the INQ style rigor than Emory main’s rigor because at least your grades are more evenly distributed and do not ride on a few high stakes quizzes and exams PLUS, in cases like biology, you get to technically learn more skills helpful for the MCAT (like reading primary lit as a freshmen). All types of additional rigor are not bad. On main, you are more likely to run into professors that write extremely tough exams for a subject and most of your grade rides on that. They teach well and you may learn to problem solve, but the preparation for the problem solving is not graded so you sort of do things on your own with little feedback as you go along. At Oxford it looks like they get a lot more graded work in some courses, but it is educationally meaningful and is not followed by insane exams in most cases. You shouldn’t be worried about raw rigor and having to do deeper thinking so much as your grades. I would argue they are roughly the same across lower division and intermediate STEM courses at both schools. In that case, it is probably more beneficial to take the “richer” experience which may involve more graded assignments. When you take the best instructors on main, you are often basically riding a curve and are in less control of your fate.
It depends on how you learn. Generally people learn and keep up better in difficult courses with more accountability (several types assessments and not just tests and quizzes). Without that, students tend to struggle with time management, fall behind, and get screwed. This happens a lot on main campus despite the lower graded workload.
Again, you won’t find significant differences in grading across private schools and lower division STEM courses, those have remained pretty stable.
Also, don’t assume all STEM courses and instructors are rigorous. Some aren’t (even if they should be). Some departments and instructors tend to focus on high school level memorization but with more content (some biology teachers have this approach virtually anyway), Most high achieving students are used to this so do not find it particularly hard. If you got this, plus additional workload, this probably adds to the chance of a high grade (like in HS where many instructors may weight non-test/quiz components highly).
virtually anywhere* (so basically many schools, no matter how good they claim to be will have a couple of biology instructors who are not up on modern teaching and testing methods and it will look like a glorified high school course, maybe not even AP/IB level thinking, but with extra content). And when I say not rigorous, I mean they are often not rigorous in the “correct” way.
As for “culture”, one is a small town in suburban metro Atlanta (SE suburbs) and one is Atlanta"ish" (it will likely be annexed into Atlanta proper). It seems Oxford attracts a lot of the same types at main (like I said, lots of overlap in career goals), but with some more quirky and intellectual types (these may be those who didn’t apply to main or did, but outside of main applied mostly to LAC like schools or much smaller universities and colleges) and ethnic, and geographic demographics support this. The evidence that they may attract a more concentrated amount of intellectual types on top of the pre-professionals that main often attracts is the fact that Oxford seems to send a higher proportion to graduate school programs (not professional, but like MS and PhD). So they get many more of the “I not only like this subject as a major, but will pursue it as a career” types whereas main seems a lot more like: “This major is common to those pursuing this somewhat related career path”. The differences are lesser so from location I bet and more so from a difference in size and mission.
I wish @BiffBrown could come comment and give you some insight. The best analogy to me about Oxford STEM versus Emory is kind of like comparing VU to WUSTL (and by extension Emory…the philosophy of STEM teachers at Emory main and WUSTL seem more similar). The first two formers tend to have classes (best or not) that “land” at a certain average and will definitely not be curved. The latter two in each set have top and mid-level instructors who know they will write exams (they may put several items that are a reach for the normal student in the class or even the top students…basically stuff they didn’t directly teach or even indirectly teach. You must derive it. This is normal in math and physics, but not chemistry and biology. And those in chemistry and biology on main love doing this which flies in the face of how younger students think you are supposed to prep for chemistry and biology exams, memorization of problem types and processes to solve them or rote memorization of content) that will have to be re-normed or curved to some mean (could usually range from 2.7-3.0/4.0, so a B -). In the latter system you may get a somewhat higher percentage of A’s, but there will be more C’s in those same classes and the A students will have braved or succeeded on more difficult exam items to distinguish themselves from the crowd. It is more like different styles of rigor. I don’t know what most prefer. I preferred the latter as a pre-grad because the professors with the harder exams pushed me to think deeper or more creatively than what I would have otherwise although learning to have a work ethic ain’t bad either. I guess those who went to Oxford have to navigate both systems which BiffBrown is seeing now (could be especially good for pre-MDPhD folks?)
@bernie12 thanks for your replies (I was actually hoping you’d comment cause your replies are usually very insightful). I actually have been admitted to Oxford College since last year but because of a family situation I’ve been forced to take a gap year but I can return to Oxford amongst others in Spring if I wish (its a very extenuating circumstance regarding my mother’s health which is why many colleges I was admitted to including NYU and UMiami are allowing me this opportunity, though these places are starting to have less of an appeal to me didnt to my inclination towards a LAC model for my pre-med Education, I was thinking of Vassar since it’s close to home).
So basically what you’re telling me is there is more of a “de-facto curve” at places like Oxford and Vanderbilt (although I was under the impressions some Vandy profs for Biology did curve) which tends to land at B-? I’m inclined to this type of system because if you’re saying there’s are more graded assignments and less challenging finals etc it would make it theoretically a bit easier to make high grades. I guess this clears up my worries about making high grades. Though I’m still confused on what Oxford shares academically and socially with Emory. I get the feeling that they’re in essence two separate entities rather than one uniform educational/social unit
As far as parties that also does help, you did clear this up a lot for me. Now just one more question, is Oxford still a commuter school? In that, do students typically go home/off campus on the weekends? This is something that doesn’t appeal to me because it’d ruin the sense of community (that I am looking for at a LAC) and would probably render campus life relatively boring in that regard — another concern of mine. I guess I just don’t want to end up feeling constrained at Oxford socially because it’s already relatively isolated and I wouldn’t want the campus to be basically half empty on weekends on top of that!
@gapyearapplicant : I think Singleton at VU curved because he used to give more “applied” exams than the other sections, but I don’t even know if he teaches 1510 anymore and the most recent times he did, it appears he went more towards the more memorization oriented style of others. It may depend at VU. Like it seems the memorization oriented instructors will maybe have a low scoring (maybe low 70 or high 60) exam and then several high (let us say high 70s or low 80s) scoring exams so there may be some scaling to compensate for the lower scoring exam at the end. A challenging instructor (usually the tops) on Emory main (not sure any exist for intro. biology there anymore, but at least all try to focus on experimental biology and applications when possible so despite the relative ease of grades, you learn the right things. Emory has a lot of super bio inclined folks too so that may be why averages are high. You’re talking a school with like twice the amount of pre-healths or more that tends to draw more “pointed” students in terms of EC qualifications aligned with majors typically associated with pre-med track Much of those probably have AP 4/5. Apparently as early as the 90s, like 30% of bio 141 would have AP credit and then a solid chunk of those have serious research experience in biology…so despite the focus on application, especially in 142, the averages stay high) will usually give more than one low scoring exam unless they are “up to something”.
Again, these low scores come from not the content but the problems they put on the exam being a bit advanced versus covered material. At some places, chemistry and bio exams with low scores seem like they result from a time crunch or “trickiness” (as in wording of close-ended items such as multiple choice, true/false, fill in blank). At Emory if the score is low, it is because items went on there that the instructor did not intend for many people to get. In former case, A’s will go to the hardest workers/those who keep up and can test fast enough, but in the Emory cases I refer to, you are often in competition and hard work may gain you some headway (say a B/B+), but the toughest problems are reserved to be done by some very talented or experienced folks or those who go a bit of an extra mile in studying. Like McGill last year put on a gen. chem exam what I thought was a cool problem that got students to analyze something usually reserved for the second exam in organic chemistry sections. Soria this year apparently put a problem asking students to derive a concept on his exam that is discussed in WELL-DONE organometallic courses (so like an upper division organic chemistry course-and some organometallic instructors mainly just do counting electrons of metals and basic shape considerations, but they may not deeply delve into mechanisms or how molecular orbitals contribute to some phenomenon). Mulford likes to put involved mathematical logic (or regular logic) problems that mess many up. Think about the fact that many students in general chemistry expect basic concepts and plug and chug.
The question is for folks in such sections, is one the type of person who is a) very talented in chemistry, b) has so much exposure to chemistry that they can reach these concepts with much less work than even an AP/IB student (and believe me, Emory main gets these folks. Chemistry is more popular there than most comparably sized schools. There are actually a decent amount of folks taking 150 with the IB organic course or even research in chemistry or physics under their belt), or c) will find additional resources to get themselves to the level where they can anticipate those curveballs. Most people do not fall in any of those 3 categories. However, many do fall in the category of: “I’ll do the work you give me and find the time to practice and prep for a somewhat challenging exam with no real curveballs”. It appears that schools like WUSTL and Emory (as well as many other elite research universities) go the route of having several instructors (some easier folks who won’t find time in their day to do that exist, but if one takes them for the first part of a sequence and then only tough instructor(s) shows up for second half, students who went the easy route have a clear disadvantage) who try to also challenge the AP/IB credit granted students in intro. courses beyond just giving them new content to memorize. And then other places (including some elites) pitch more to the middle and may reserve an honors for AP/IB who do not want to take organic (or name any advanced/intermediate course in a STEM subject). The only time the AP/IBs do not do as hot in the latter paradigm is when they get bored or far over-confident (technically the two attitudes are really the same).
Oxford was a commuter school? That sounds impossible. I believe it has a residential requirement. And very few of them come from Georgia (demographics nearly identical to main). Where would the freshmen live other than campus? I imagine it would be hard for them to find housing, but either way, I am pretty sure it is (or was) nowhere near a commuter school. That doesn’t make much sense.
http://oxford.emory.edu/life/residential-education/index.html
Yeah, most live on campus. I can see GA residents leaving for home, but that is such a small proportion. I imagine most folks will stay on campus, go into town (maybe main), w/e on weekends, but most won’t have a home in georgia,
@bernie12 thanks so much for clearing a lot of this up and giving me insight into Oxford. I may private message you if that’s alright yeah? I really need to make a hard-headed decision on whether or not I go in for Oxford and really think your knowledge and insight would be very helpful.
^^To any prospective students at Emory’s Oxford Campus this thread is REALLY helpful and will clear up a lot of concerns/questions you guys may have about academics/social life at Oxford.
I’ll try to answer some of your questions.
- INQ classes are meant to be inquiry based (hence the INQ). In practice, this means more writing, independent research, group-based research, field work, and presentations (to the class or in some cases to assembled faculty from the department). This is true for both humanities and science courses. You will also be expected to participate in class; your grade includes class participation.
- There is generally less grade curving at Oxford. Oxford courses - especially INQ courses - have a lot of graded assignments - homework, short papers, quizzes, lab reports, presentations, class room participation. These help make up for lower exam grades for students who don't do well on high stakes exams. The tough Atlanta campus courses will typically not involve graded homework and only a few tough exams, which because of their difficulty are heavily curved (think orgo).
- It is much harder to skate by in an Oxford course, which almost always has 25 or fewer students, has multiple graded assignments and requires classroom participation. Oxford INQ humanities courses are definitely more rigorous than their Atlanta counterparts. Oxford intro biology courses, which are also INQ, are also on average more rigorous than their Atlanta counterpart and much, much more rigorous than AP Biology.
- Socially, Oxford has a cozier feel than Atlanta according to those who've attended both campuses. Atlanta has more opportunities for frat-like parties both at Emory and at Georgia Tech. You will make some good, close friends at Oxford. Oxford has a lot of opportunities to socialize with fellow students - typically with a service based club like Volunteer Oxford or outdoors/leadership activities like Pierce. Oxford is an alcohol free zone because of the age of its students. On the weekends, a lot of students take the shuttle to the Atlanta or Georgia Tech campuses if they want a frat like experience.
- Oxford's a great place to assume leadership roles in your field of choice because of its small size.
- Oxford is farther from Atlanta than the Atlanta campus. There is a free shuttle that runs quite frequently on the weekends between the two campuses but it is a commute - about an hour long.
- The smaller campus and smaller class sizes mean you're more likely to form connections through faculty and to have opportunities at being a TA or doing research. The Atlanta campus has a much larger faculty and is close to the medical school, the school of public health, CDC, Yerkes, Emory's medical center and so has many more opportunities to do research.
- Oxford students do well when seeking outside opportunities. Last year, Oxford students wrote down what they'd be doing over the summer of 2017 on a whiteboard in the new Science building. Many were able to get offers from highly competitive summer research programs, which are very hard to get if you're not from the home institution or from a disadvantaged background. MIT's Broad Institute, Johns Hopkins Medical School, Mayo Clinic, NIH were all places that Oxford students were able to get research positions, as well as many others.
- There is a huge difference between Oxford and NYU. NYU has much larger class sizes and is situated in the middle of New York City without a well defined physical campus.
@BiffBrown : Did you prefer the more intensive workload at Oxford or the Emory system, or are you neutral/unsure? You are pre-med (though I wouldn’t say you’re a “basic” pre-med), so I don’t know how pre-meds in general feel about the Oxford paradigm (and OP claims pre-med). It seems many on main (who may be “slightly” better test takers) prefer the ECAS paradigm, but I don’t know if that is based on legit logic for learning. Like maybe if there was more accountability and other graded tasks (maybe think Soria’s class for ochem there) or projects (even if small and scaled back), more students would be forced to engage the material more frequently and optimize exam performance (especially on higher level items). The Emory system seems to allow students to fall behind (who if pushed, maybe would not) which is dangerous when a professor writes truly difficult exams. I feel like the preference for an exam based class with less of a graded workload is a preference based on “comfort” and not educational outcomes/optimized learning (or even grades). Usually folks learn more with more time on task, especially when spaced out. Without “checks”, students will probably end up cramming (the time frame for cramming varies by difficulty of instructor. I would say, with Weinschenk, it is those who start seriously studying 4-5 days before exam). However, my ideas of learning come from research and basically assumes that people want to learn. I believe that this assumption is questionable for many.
@BiffBrown so I mean I know alcohol is illegal at Oxford, but does that mean dorm parties don’t exist at Oxford? I find that hard to believe considering it’s still a college lol. And yeah I kind of want to know your response to @bernie12 about which type of system you preferred since you’ve apparently experienced both the education system at Oxford and ECAS. I myself don’t consider myself a bad test taker, I mean if anything my ACT score was a 33 and my GPA was on the somewhat lower end (partially cause I didn’t try too hard in Fresh/Soph year, so given this maybe I’d be more suited to an ECAS-type paradigm? Though at the same time I’m not sure if I’d want my grade to just be determined by like two to three tests…
I prefer the Oxford approach to teaching. It brings about greater engagement and interest on my part. I think it also makes sense to test knowledge in varying ways, not just through heavily weighted exams.
@gapyearapplicant : I mean the ACT or SAT is multiple choice so doesn’t measure the ability to take the types of exams a challenging instructor would give. Imagine your organic professor giving a test with items at the level of this International Chemistry Olympiad Exam, but requiring a higher level of knowledge and creativity (so you get the complex structures and scenarios, but then they ask you to basically “propose a model for this phenomenon” or not just to draw a structure but “propose a mechanism for this transformation” and it, like this IChO exam is likely something you haven’t learned and they just pulled from the literature or their behinds : https://www.iuventa.sk/files/documents/5_icho/past%20competition%20tasks/volume3-icho41-45.pdf
That is what you get when you take either of the two most revered instructors for it. It is nothing like an ACT. It would be like if each midterm were an ACT or something and contained the analogs of its most difficult items for a substantial chunk of the test. Scenarios and questions may be no where near as predictable as an ACT or SAT. You have to literally just sit there and try to interpret what is happening and then kind fudge things to work.
@gapyearapplicant : My son is a Freshman at Oxford and from what I’ve heard from my son, I can agree with what @bernie12 wrote. I can tell you that while there are some students from Georgia that go home on weekends, most are/do not. I know my son goes to Atlanta on most weekends with his Ox friends. The only down side I’ve seen of Oxford is that because it is so much smaller, the number of classes offered are limited and, as a freshman, you may not get the classes you really want… although, you can look at this as a good thing from a liberal arts perspective as it may “require” you to take a class in a different field to fulfill a GenEd requirement.
@nightstalker160 so would you say your son’s experience has been positive overall?
@gapyearapplicant Yes. He loves it there. He’s made a number of friends and seems very content. Likes his professors (obviously some classes are much harder than others) but likes the academic atmosphere as well as the engagement expected in the small classes. The only two issues I’ve heard from him are the issue I mentioned above with classes (he had to wait to take biology until the spring) and the food at Lil’s. We’ve been to Lil’s a couple times and the food was fine, but I’m sure any cafeteria food gets old eating there 3 meals a day.
My daughter is a freshman at Oxford. She was admitted to main and Oxford, but chose Oxford for a variety of reasons. She is pre-med (probably) with a likely major of chemistry. She is finding her classes very interesting and challenging. Her physics class is very demanding, with lots of homework and assignments. Tests take 3 or 4 hours to complete. She was an excellent student in high school, with a 36 ACT, a perfect GPA and 5’s on all AP exams, including physics I. There is no curve in the class, and an A is 94. While she would love to have a 4.0, she is unsure she will be able to get that 94. An A- counts for 3.7 grade points, so the difference between an A and an A- isn’t trivial. She loves her professor even though this class is hard and time-consuming. She’s taking the second part next semester.
Besides physics, she’s taking two humanities courses plus a foreign language, and PE. Those classes are also very demanding but she’s really enjoying them, so much so that I wouldn’t be surprised if she chooses a different major and just takes the science classes she needs for med school.
Class participation is a must and so is attendance. Small class size was one of the main reasons she chose Oxford.
There is definitely drinking at Oxford (in the dorms), and a lot of kids do go to main or to Ga Tech to go to fraternity parties. Since she doesn’t drink, she’s had to find other things to do. She’s gone to plays and attended functions put on by various student groups. She’s gotten heavily involved in extracurriculars and they keep her busy during the week. She occasionally goes to main for activities there. Oxford is having a formal dance at a hotel this weekend which sounds fun.
Dorms are nice and generally quiet. The food is so-so.
I think my daughter made a good decision. She is definitely being challenged and does not feel like a number. Students really do seem to form relationships with their professors. I think Oxford is a good bridge between high school and a larger research-focused institution. I went to one of those, and I remember feeling short changed as a freshman with mostly grad students for teachers, who couldn’t wait to leave class to get back to their research. You get a totally different vibe from the faculty at Oxford. They are there because they love to teach and they’re really good at it.
Hope my rambling helps a little!