Christ Church
Since the age of 3, I'd wanted to go to Oxford - even before I knew what it was.* I took the entrance exams the week before my 18th birthday, and - I'm told - walked them.

I'd been advised to apply to Christ Church (plus, if I remember correctly, Brasenose and Magdelene) rather than anywhere smaller; I wanted to read PPE, and someone from the year above me at school had been accepted there for the same thing, so the omens were good - plus I went to a pushy school. I was duly invited for interview.

My first error had been to accept the advice to apply to Christ Church. It's simply too big and venerable: you don't get accepted there unless you're waaaaaay smarter than I. But my other errors arose in the interview itself.

For example, I went to the wrong waiting room. It is never advisable to force your interviewer to come looking for you if that interviewer happens to be a world-leading political theorist.

Worse was to come. One of my interviewers was an economist who had just been consulted by the Armenian government concerning whether they should declare war on Russia over oil. (This was 1994, so Russia was vulnerable.)
"I see you speak Russian," he said.
"Well, some."
"Have you ever been to the country?"
"Yes - last Easter I visited Moscow and St Petersburg."
"Ah, good. What do you think of its economic prospects?"

The smart thing to do here would have been to say that I didn't know, but that it was a fascinating question and that I looked forward to studying the matter in the coming years. Instead, my world-beating response was...
"Um, well, it was the end of winter, so there were no leaves on the trees yet, and the whole place looked pretty grim."

I still have the rejection letter; it's framed and hung on the wall above my PC in the study at home so that, every time I look up, I'm reminded what a fuckwit I am. And, though the sensible part of my brain tells me that I've still done OK, I'm still very bitter at not having realised my only real childhood ambition.

/catharsis

^{* I was a peculiarly bookish child - and still am. At about the same age, I apparently used to worry about whether one went to college or university first. I explain it by reference to my mother's running a youth group, leading to early exposure to 18-year-old people. But, still...}
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 20 Dec 2007, 12:58, 8 replies)

Oh boy!
Will you have to dumb down when you visit my house.
( girlinthehole, Thu 20 Dec 2007, 13:03, closed)

No, really, I won't.
I'm good at exams. Not much else, though...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 20 Dec 2007, 13:04, closed)

How strange!
I'm good at everything else but crap at exams - we fit!
( girlinthehole, Thu 20 Dec 2007, 13:18, closed)

@BGB
You're modest too!

My type of woman!

;)
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Thu 20 Dec 2007, 13:33, closed)

.
I'm a world-leading political theorist, too. Politicians are all worthless twunts. See?
(misanthrope is so adjective he's verbing nouns!, Thu 20 Dec 2007, 14:30, closed)

Oxford
I got my rejection letter from Oxford t'other day.
Now I get ot go to Warwick where they have a brilliant Climbing wall.

Did I tell you how good the climbing wall is at Wariwck?
( AS, Thu 20 Dec 2007, 17:35, closed)

Brasenose
is fairly small, do you mean Balliol?
(LickOutTheJamsMotherfuckers!, Sat 22 Dec 2007, 3:25, closed)

I did something similar at Cambridge
I found out the hard way that when meeting the head of Computer Science and being shown into his office, saying "Ooh, very swish" is not the best idea.
(moogal has eggs, Wed 26 Dec 2007, 23:39, closed)