To all state school educated Oxbridge rejects: you're not for them because they weren't made for you

I walked through Christchurch gardens, past undergraduates playing croquet as the guide said students could borrow paintings from the college collection for their rooms

Cambridge has seen a rise in applications from state school students this year (Getty)

The Oxbridge Rejects is an elite club of the not-quite-elite-enough. An understanding passes between members as you remember the hazy September you spent applying to UCAS. You tried. You failed. It all worked out in the end, probably.

After rejection you imagine all the reasons you weren’t picked to receive the golden ticket to the best education. Some people simply aren’t “Oxbridge material”. The magic formula to a guaranteed offer is something students and sixth form mentors are still struggling to find. When the email came, I laughed with relief. I knew that I wasn’t made for Oxbridge, but the sad truth is perhaps that Oxbridge simply wasn’t made for people like me.

No one is shocked that it seems easier to get into Oxbridge if you went to private school. Though independent schools educate just 7 per cent of the UK school population, they make up 33 per cent of those who achieve AAA at A-Level. However, according to the 2015 applications, independent school students made up 37.5 per cent of UK applications. This number goes up drastically to 44.4 per cent of acceptances, whereas the state school number goes down from 62.5 per cent of applicants to the 55.6 per cent who manage to fight their way in.

Nothing about state school prepared me for Oxbridge application. University barely seemed to be mentioned at my high school, where being on the local rugby team was prized above going to a Russell Group university. Extremely intelligent and capable students have consistently been produced, yet recently only one has succeeded in gaining a rare place.

On an Oxford open day, a girl chatted to me, relieved to find a familiar northern accent after a day of the RP of student tour guides echoing through the hallowed halls of the stone colleges. She admitted quietly: “I feel so out of place, I’m wearing Primark!”

We heard students mutter, “Do they really think they have a chance?” at our state school tour group, feeling suddenly like animals in a zoo. A friend’s decision to apply to Hertford College was laughed at; it was, after all, the “poor college” with a reputation for actually letting state school kids into its ranks.

The definition of imposter syndrome is a state school student walking around Oxford for the first time. The codes and Latin traditions seem almost fantastical. Words like “sub-fusc”, “bops” and “matriculation” taste clunky in your mouth. I walked through Christchurch gardens, past undergraduates playing croquet as the guide said students could borrow paintings from the college collection for their rooms. Many fall for “The Oxbridge Dream” only for it to become just that – a ludicrous dream instead of an achievable outcome.

It felt like a secret conspiracy when all four English Literature applicants from my college barely got over half marks in the Aptitude Test. How could students with consistent averages of 90 per cent fail so spectacularly? Something in all of us wasn’t there. We considered our results and wondered why we all got it so wrong.

I am blissfully happy with my university choice, and live with a mix of comprehensive, grammar and privately educated students now. But even at Warwick, where the difference is less pronounced, I am known as the token northern state school friend - saying “tea” instead of dinner, and assumed to be poor because of my accent.

I have learned dark rumours of students being rejected, only to be suddenly offered a place after a quick phone call from their MP father. A private school undergrad at another top university complained their place was probably stolen by a state school kid, who took what they believed was rightfully theirs. These are the stories that keep the state school applicants awake at night, as they read until their eyes can’t take any more.

We tried. We failed. We moved on, but the uneasy feeling of unfairness for many state school Oxbridge rejects remains.