An Oxbridge reject is someone who has been rejected from either the University of Oxford or the University of Cambridge. The term "Oxbridge" is a portmanteau of Oxford and Cambridge.
The term has received some criticism for its derogatory and elitist nature. Eric Thomas, Vice-Chancellor of Bristol University has criticised it because of the way in which it makes people view British higher education through an Oxbridge prism.
In 2000, Gordon Brown, then Chancellor of the Exchequer and subsequently Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, started a major political row about higher education when he accused Oxford University of elitism in its admissions procedures.
The Laura Spence Affair, as it became known, is one of the most publicised cases of an Oxbridge reject. Rejected from Magdalen College, Oxford to read medicine, Laura Spence went on to study with a scholarship at Harvard in the United States. The rejection was seen as discrimination because of her state-school background. She subsequently went on to study graduate-entry medicine (a 4 year course) at Wolfson College, Cambridge.
Read more about Oxbridge Reject: In Literature
Famous quotes containing the word reject:
“The individual, the great artist when he comes, uses everything that has been discovered or known about his art up to that point, being able to accept or reject in a time so short it seems that the knowledge was born with him, rather than that he takes instantly what it takes the ordinary man a lifetime to know, and then the great artist goes beyond what has been done or known and makes something of his own.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)