I remember one of my first formal dinners at the University of Cambridge. I was apprehensive about attending after I turned up to a previous dinner woefully underdressed in a smock dress. I had forgotten to pack my gown, or indeed, even purchase one.
It was during one of these early candlelit meals that a tutor reached across the table to me. “You have to use the cutlery from the outside in,” he informed me and gestured towards my plate. I smiled and thanked him, embarrassed that he was drawing attention to me and bemused by his assumption I wouldn’t know how to use my tableware. This moment stayed with me, because it revealed something deeper about who these spaces were built for.
This week, it was revealed that Trinity Hall, Cambridge, is seeking to increase recruitment from elite private schools such as Eton College, Winchester and St Paul’s Girls’ School in a bid to raise the “quality” of students. Despite widespread criticism from the likes of Alastair Campbell and academics from across the country, the college has not yet backed down.
This is deeply offensive to an alumna like me. I attended Magdalene College in 2012, after attending state schools and receiving a generous bursary that made studying at the University of Cambridge possible. I achieved exactly the same A Level grades and met the same entry requirements as peers educated at Eton, Winchester or St Paul’s.
I came to the UK as a child. My family experienced homelessness, and I moved through multiple state schools before being identified through a gifted and talented scheme linked to the law firm Clifford Chance, which introduced me to Cambridge for the first time.
During my mid to late teenage years, I fell in love with the TV show Gilmore Girls. In the American series, Rory Gilmore studies at Yale University and lives out her dream of becoming a journalist.
And it was then that my own dream was born. Like Rory Gilmore, I, too, could study at an elite institution and start a successful career as a journalist. I thought my path was clear. In my naive young mind, I believed that once I walked through the hallowed doors of Cambridge, the only thing that would matter would be my intellectual ability.
Very quickly, I learnt this was not true. During my time at Cambridge, I became aware of just how much my background made me stand out. I didn’t make many friends but I had a core group. On one occasion, my friend and I were sat in the common room in the History faculty when we overheard someone loudly lamenting the fact that pupils on bursaries receive “so much money” and how “unfair” this was. We didn’t challenge his views, but simply looked at one another knowingly.
Tutors frequently assumed I had limited basic knowledge. During the first term of my first year, I had a supervisor who was possibly one of the most condescending and dismissive people I have met to date. I had submitted a weekly essay with a typo in it. My sin was that I had capitalised the wrong letter in my 3000-word essay. He then felt the need to lecture me on how and when we use capital letters. “I don’t know if you are aware, but in the English language….” As though I didn’t know how to use basic grammar.
Of course, I wasn’t just working class, I was also Black and Muslim, so I faced a lot of unwanted comments from my peers. We had our version of a catered hall, and during one of these meals, one of the girls in my year asked me if the reason I didn’t eat pork was that we worshipped pigs in Islam. She laughed and laughed as she said it.
It is clear to anyone who attends that Cambridge still exists in an echo chamber for a privileged minority. In my first year, I developed a reputation for myself as someone uncultured because of a lack of “life experiences”. I once reduced my fellow pupils to tears of laughter because I thought sloe gin got its name because it was brewed slowly.
While I don’t feel like the way I was treated affected my academic performance, I do feel it significantly affected my confidence and contributed to a strong sense of not belonging.
Trinity Hall has claimed that measuring diversity using the number of state school students is “crude” and raised concerns over “reverse discrimination” against private school pupils.
But private school students are already significantly overrepresented at the top universities, making up 29-33 per cent of Oxford’s intake and 29 per cent of Cambridge’s in recent years, despite educating only seven per cent of the UK population.
To suggest that privately educated students are being unfairly excluded is not only blatantly untrue but also dangerous. Limiting access for state-school students to elite universities under the guise of “quality” is a form of social cleansing.
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This debate goes far beyond Oxbridge. It is widely recognised that graduating from Oxford or Cambridge dramatically increases access to high-paying jobs, elite professions, and social capital. Framing privately educated students as more “deserving” of these pathways is a blatant attempt to gatekeep this privilege.
The language we use matters. When we start talking about “quality” in ways that exclude people, we aren’t protecting excellence. We’re deciding who these opportunities are for.
In my own case, attending the University of Cambridge changed the trajectory of my life and I will forever be grateful. To think that other students from a similar background to me might not be offered the same chance is deeply troubling.
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