The University of Oxford is the best university overall and offers the best facilities, a conducive learning environment, and top-notch lecturers. Oxford University is the fantastic. I must state that i advise students to attend the University of Oxford.

Yes. I hated it. Although academically it wasn’t hard for me to do well, I was constantly depressed because I couldn’t feel I fit in the local partying culture and never understood the “Oxford is so darn great and magical” mentality. Looking back it opened doors for me as well as closed some others. As a foreign student it was expensive, that it forced me to think I must take a high-paying job soon just to earn the money’s worth, rather than pursuing my passions. The only people who I know were totally happy about going to Oxford are those who are conventially successful, finding high-paying and high-status jobs quite quickly in their chosen paths. If you try to do anything else, people try very hard to make you feel like a failure.

Oxford advantages: Oxford offers the course you want to study and Cambridge doesn’t Cambridge advantages: Cambridge offers the course you want to study and Oxford doesn’t The tie break is your personal choice about which city you prefer. It’s a chance to be exposed to and taught by some of the world’s finest minds, to experience life in a student community with centuries of history behind it, and to make connections with people who will rise to prominence in fields from politics to poetry to particle physics.

If, however, you mean “is it worth besieging and conquering Cambridge?” then the answer is no; there’s more plunder in Oxford. Especially the boat sheds – make sure you sack and burn those completely, if possible before the 7th of April this year…

The university can be one of the most competitive societies you will ever be a part of: with so many undergraduates that are used to being the top dog in their schools there are not enough leadership positions to go round. Even Tiddlywinks and Poo -sticks societies can have political battles for incoming social secretary. Red in tooth and (bear) claw…

This environment can be really intense, especially in the first couple of terms when every fresher is also trying to navigate their new social status. Are you the jock or the goth? If someone else is also a jock, but is an international sportswoman, should you focus on another aspect of your identity, like clubber-queen? Which tribe is socially top at Oxford? This may be a different order to school – very few Oxford men can dance for example, but how well they row may add status points.

Im sure these experiences are common to all freshers, whichever university they attend, but sometimes it can seem like everyone you meet is already fully formed as a playwright, entrepeneur, international standard musician.

The thing to do is focus absolutely on what you are, what you are passionate about, and revel in the achievements of your college mates rather than try to compete. As soon as you do that, you are a proper member of college and will love your college Musician/weirdo, college playwright/ tart, college dim-jock / physics genius etc just as much as any member of your family!

I agree with other commenters who note that thinking about the worst aspects of Oxford is not the best way to console yourself if you don’t get in – a better approach would be what a lot of people I know who didn’t get in did, and pick another university and just go for it and enjoy it for what it is. Oxford’s not the only place out there, and for some people it’s not even the best out there. Some people get to Oxford, hate it and leave to go somewhere else.

I’m perhaps a particularly bad person to give advice on what to do if you don’t get in and decide to go somewhere else, because I didn’t get in first time and rather than accept that and go somewhere else, I tried again the following year. Which is an option you can always consider – I know a lot of people who did the same, though admittedly that mostly tended to be for arts degrees rather than sciences.

In terms of some less positive aspects of Oxford that you might want to consider and that may affect your decisions should you not get in:

As other people have said, the term-time workload is insane. One of my tutors once put it in these terms: “There are three elements to university life – Academic, Social, and Extra-Curricular. Pick two of them and forget the third. Make sure one of the ones you pick is Academic, because I don’t like it when I see the names of people I taught on the Douglas list.” (A Douglas is rhyming slang for Third Class honours – Douglas Hurd)

It’s very easy to completely lose track of life outside Oxford. This is partly due to the heavy workload, but is not helped by the fact that during term, Oxonians don’t use the Gregorian calendar like normal people. Oxford works on what day it is of what week of term. The Thursday before Full Term starts, the day by which most colleges require you to be in residence, is Thursday of Noughth, then Full Term starts on Sunday of First and you don’t think about real dates until you’re trying to book your train ticket home or telling your parents when to pick you up.
Collections (start of term exams) are just evil.

I, being originally from outer London, found Oxford incredibly white. On the other hand, people I met who grew up in the countryside found Oxford incredibly multi-racial, so it’s probably not quite as extremely white as it felt to me.

Although Oxford has short terms, the relatively long Christmas and Easter holidays (6 weeks each) mean that the university actually ends for the summer later than most other British universities. This can make it difficult to get some internships, and outdoorsy types who want to go and work at American summer camps are quite limited as to which ones they can go to, and even with the ones that start late enough they generally have to fly out on Saturday of Eighth of Trinity (the last day of the academic year) which can mess with some of the end of term socialising.
While you’re a student, it’s incredibly difficult to answer people’s questions about where you go to university without people assuming you’re arrogant about it, even if you’re being as self-deprecating as you possibly can. As I went to Christ Church, this was doubled (ChChers are not known for our modesty).
Parts of Oxford are hideously ugly. *cough* St Catz *cough*

The main thing is that the terms are very shor, at just eight weeks but you have to cram the same amount of work in as at other universities with longer terms. It is constant pressure. therefore, to meet deadlines and keep up to date. I had very little time for a social life and you really couldn’t take time off at weekends, for example. I reckon I took about one day in ten off from studying to do washing, shopping etc.

The other thing is that everyone seems to be more intelligent than you are. It is not a place to go if you think that perhaps you aren’t up to it, which many people do at first.

It is an expensive city for student accommodation and it is in very short supply so living out in a not very nice flat can cost £600-£700 a month and you have to take rooms for 10 months, usually.

Finally, the weather can be dismal, as Oxford sits in a depression and the limestone buildings seem to soak up water like a sponge. It rains a lot and, because of the short terms, you don’t really get to see it in high summer as you finish in mid to late June and don’t go back until early October

Oxford remains the pinnacle of academic adventure and vigor. It presents a challenge to anyone who attends the institution, yet this challenge pays off in the unique experience one gains there. Walking through the college and university buildings reflects a journey through time following in the footsteps of great people and professors from across the ages. The university societies and activities are like no other. I contributed to magazines that in the past had been written by those such as Sylvia Plath. I played football in the same ground as that that hosted the famous 4-minute mile. I would recommend Oxford most highly for those individuals most ready for the challenge.

The teachers that I have met so far are great. Workload is quite stressful.
Social life can be intense; the student body (especially at undergraduate level is not diverse)
Careers services are average; uni environment is not very career-oriented