Talk:University of Oxford

Merge of Conference of Colleges

It is proposed that Conference of Colleges be merged here. It is a small stub with no references and there seems little scope to expand it. The material could easily be added to the section on Colleges where there is the only link to the stub. Please discuss the merge below.

• Support merge as proposer. --Bduke (Discussion) 21:58, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
• Neutral: no strong feelings, happy either way. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 21:41, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
• Qualified support – none of the current unreferenced content of Conference of Colleges is sufficiently notable to transfer to the main University of Oxford article, but I'd support deleting it under the pretext of a merge. I'd like to see a separate article on governance. This would reduce the space devoted to governance in the main article, and allow a more historical approach. The footnotes at http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/councilsec/gov/gov_expl/#d.en.39276, for example, say that the Conference of Colleges was a Franks Commission proposal in 1965. - Pointillist (talk) 13:28, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support: I agree with Pointillist, although I would prefer to see a lot more historical material in the main article before effort is put into supplementary history focused articles. -- Fluteflute ^{Talk Contributions} 16:42, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
• Support Agreed!Pendragon5 (talk) 02:32, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
• Support. Go to it. Deb (talk) 17:19, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Merge done. Feel free to modify it. --Bduke (Discussion) 23:49, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Access edit war: "Institutional Racism"

I endorse the paragraph (edited down by myself) below:

Veiled accusations of racism regarding the 2009 intake were dismissed on the grounds that ethnic minority applicants apply disproportionately more to the most competitive courses, and that black candidates had lower A-level scores nationally. This led to analysis by The Guardian of entrance figures for 2010 and 2011, looking at the success rates of UK ethnic minority candidates (compared to UK white candidates). Whilst this analysis supported the suggestion subject choice had an impact on the figures and within Law no statistically significant difference was found, data for the competitive Medicine and Economics & Management courses did show lower success rates for equivalently performing ethnic minority candidates. For Medicine, white applicants who went on to score three A* grades at A level were almost twice as likely to gain admission as ethic minority applicants with similar grades. White applicants to the Economics & Management course who went on to score AAA were more likely to be given an offer than ethnic minority applicants who later scored A*A*A.

The reason for this is that it gives a balanced analysis of an issue which, whilst important, is only a small area of the issues relating to Access at Oxford. Therefore the issue does not deserve a three paragraph subsection in an article that has 900 years and a rather broad scope to cover. An additional issue with the current version (twice trimmed down and reinstated by User:Doogely) is that all three paragraphs primarily cite the Guardian - no other British sources, or sources not citing the Guardian, have been provided. The 3rd paragraph suggests it is adding something new to the 2nd, but in fact they reference effectively articles from the same source and the same date. This version also completely misses the fact that the statistics refer only to two courses - not mentioning the 3rd (Law) where no bias was found, and implying (through repeated use of "for instance") that the same has been found to be true across other courses. -- Fluteflute ^{Talk Contributions} 16:13, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

I have a few points I would like to discuss:

• Firstly, the original change made by Fluteflute was made by suggesting that the story lacked notability, since only one source was given. I took this on board and hence I gave sources from many different papers, from different parts of the world in which this story was reported and discussed. I also gave links to the prestigious journal Science that produced an editorial piece. Therefore the notability argument isn't I believe valid. Further this is an ongoing topic that has received wide publicity not just with the recent Guardian story but for a few years with Mr Lammy's investigation into social exclusion, which received even more press coverage.

• Secondly, Fluteflute wants the information to be compressed to one paragraph. I think stylistically and for readibility sake it's best to separate it to three paragraphs.

• Thirdly, Fluteflute wants this section to be part of Access. While this material is relevant to Access, i.e. efforts to widen participation, it is not access content. The information is about accusations and the possible existence of institutional bias, not about means to widen participation. It is of informative value. I believe it should be put in a 'Controversies' section. However I believe for readability and given the importance of the issue it should have it's own sub-section.

• Fourthly, I respectfully disagree with Fluteflute's suggestion that this topic isn't of sufficient importance and shouldn't warrant much space or prominence in the article. I believe this is a significiant issue, one that affects a significant number of people, including a large proportion of applicants, and current students and faculty.

I believe the topic of institutional bias should warrant its own subsection, perhaps its own page- I may get around to making one. The content currently is only regarding admissions, however there have been considerable controversy and study at Oxford regarding disparities regarding promotions, hire, and staff and student welfare. I believe it is insensitive to say these issues are insignificant. They are important for many people. Also, the section isn't about a viewpoint but of relevant facts.

I would also like to point this is not an edit war, I undid one of his/her edits and modified the text to incorporate the raised concerns.

This is what I suggest:

Keep Fluteflute's text, but with paragraphs. Add a reference to the Oxford statistics page (which he removed), but place the content under a separate sub-section called Allegations of Institutional Racism under a section called 'Controversies' or keep it under 'Access'. I think that would be a fair compromise.Doogely (talk) 16:39, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

I would also add that this clause is over-stating the claims is misleading and should be removed: "Whilst this analysis supported the suggestion subject choice had an impact on the figures,..."

The analysis didn't support the suggestion at all. The article said choice of subject could affect the difference, however any look at the data would show it is actually of minimal impact.

For instance success rate of a white applicant to the most competitive subject Economics and Management is 19%, while for all applicants it is 8.7%. The average success rate to all courses is 20%. The so called competitive subjects are competitive it seems only for non-white students and non-UK students. If the success rates were the same for all applicants to the competitive courses, the overall success rate wouldn't actually by much different, and nothing close to how they are currently. Also the Guardian people released data for Overall for each grade category, so the data isn't just for three subjects.Doogely (talk) 17:08, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

In summary I propose this modified version of Fluteflute's text:

Institutional Race Discrimination Allegations

Veiled accusations of racism regarding the 2009 intake were dismissed on the grounds that ethnic minority applicants apply disproportionately more to the most competitive courses, and that black candidates had lower A-level scores nationally.

This led to analysis by The Guardian of entrance figures for 2010 and 2011, looking at the success rates of UK ethnic minority candidates (compared to UK white candidates) for admissions Overall and for three individual subjects. Significant disparities between the success rates for ethnic minority and white applicants was seen in the data for overall (all subjects taken together) for each grade combination. Also, whilst within Law no statistically significant difference was found, data for the competitive Medicine and Economics & Management courses did show lower success rates for equivalently performing ethnic minority candidates.

For Medicine, white applicants who went on to score three A* grades at A level were almost twice as likely to gain admission as ethic minority applicants with similar grades. White applicants to the Economics & Management course who went on to score AAA were more likely to be given an offer than ethnic minority applicants who later scored A*A*A (see University of Oxford undergraduate admissions statistics). Doogely (talk) 17:16, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Basically I agree with Fluteflute, except that I agree with Doogely that the title of this talk page section is inappropriate, and I would encourage Fluteflute to strikeout "edit war" from the section title. Ideally Doogely should have reverted text to the status quo ante (essentially the version at [1]) before starting the talk page discussion, but that is a minor point.

Fundamentally this is a matter of the material being undue: on the top level Oxford page this deserves two or three sentences at most, with any more extensive discussion placed on a suitable subpage, whether an existing page or a new one created for this purpose. That said, however, I can live with a slightly longer version if that is the price of consensus.

What I think is completely inappropriate, however, is haveing a separate subsection (grossly undue) or subsubsection (which is still undue, and also looks terrible, as it is the unique subsubsection in the article). Jonathan A Jones (talk) 18:41, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean by 'undue', maybe you could explain what you mean. I suspect I disagree. I can think perhaps removing this subsubsection and creating a new subsection called Admissions Controversies, out of aesthetic considerations. Doogely (talk) 20:01, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Undue

I can't speak for Jonathan A Jones but I might be able to help anyway. As used in wikipedia, "UNDUE" is a technical term referring the possibility that an article, or part of one, doesn't fairly represent "all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views as much of, or as detailed, a description as more widely held views."

I'm not by any means saying that there isn't a story here, but there are fundamental problems with the proportion/prominence of the material you submitted:

• You've only used a single source (The Guardian) in a narrow timeframe. Using that for more than a couple of sentences in an article about an 800-year-old institution is misleading.
• According to your source reference it is David Lammy, not The Guardian who alleges that these figures 'suggest' "institutional bias". You haven't mentioned Lammy in your contribution, which means you're implying that the Guardian is reporting this as a matter of fact, not opinion. That's misleading.
• You haven't mentioned the comments from Oxbridge spokepeople. Failure to mention any rebuttal implies that the allegation is uncontested. That's misleading, too.

Given these issues, I think Professor Jones's summary of your material was fair and proportionate.

If you will excuse a more personal note, apparently you are a new contributor to Wikipedia, and many of your recent contributions have been about the possibilty of ethnic or cultural bias in undergraduate university selection. You are heartily welcome but please be careful not to let your personal opinions affect your activity as an editor here. Wikipedia isn't a forum, or a soapbox. You must write entirely neutrally, so the proportion and prominence of the points in the article has no connection to where your personal sympathies may lie. In my experience an excellent way to get used to contributing here is to write about things you know nothing of and have no interest in. That way you have to do pure research to find your sources, you expand your knowledge in wildly unexpected ways, and nobody can question your motives. Happy editing - Pointillist (talk) 22:37, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

The above seems like a reasonable summary of the main issues. My only substantive suggestion would be to add WP:CRIT, and especially WP:CSECTION to the reading list. Regards, Jonathan A Jones (talk) 09:15, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Oxonion Hypocrisy

With all due respect Jonathan A Jones, Fluteflute(most likely anyway), and you my dear Pointillist are all Oxonians. Hence I suppose I cannot claim the supreme neutrality involved in rushing to defend ones Alma Mater, and insisting that this issue is given as little space as these learned men can justify. It isn't of much importance that it could be possible that these learned Oxonions were granted admission to the ancient seat of learning because more qualified ethnic minorities were denied admissions to make room for them, right? Or the fact that some of these very editors may well be involved in the admissions process that looks rather discriminatory from the facts? For, patently the motivations of these editors are unlikely to be questioned, and they are hardly interested in this article.

I thank you for your gracious and generous advice. Happy editing to you too! Doogely (talk) 19:47, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

The irony is that we probably all agree that there's a real issue here. Of course it should be mentioned in the Oxford article, but it's really part of a much wider problem in the British (or at least, non-Scottish) education system. There's too much to say, and much of it isn't specific to Oxford. What we need is a separate article about elite UK university entrance. I'll think more about that and get back to you. - Pointillist (talk) 11:14, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I totally agree.Deb (talk) 11:44, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

"it's really part of a much wider problem in the British (or at least, non-Scottish) education system". Not true. UCL is over 30% ethnic minority in the undergraduate level; Imperial is similar. The fact that high performing ethnic minorities are disproportionately likely to be rejected from Oxford even when they have significantly higher grades is almost uniquely an Oxonian problem. Trying to shift the blame to 'economic' and other inequalities lower down in the education system is sly, lazy and unsubstantiated. And the suggestion of it implies editorial bias.Doogely (talk) 17:02, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry you still feel so angry about this. I really do think there's a wider problem, or problems. So far, I haven't seen anything that changes my belief that this issue deserves its own article, and I did start assembling material for it, but there's still lots to be done. Some of the relevant factors seem to be:

File:Timetable of Oxford entrance examinations 1973.png

Oxford's 1973 Entrance examinations

• Watering-down of entrance examinations. Until the mid-1980s Oxbridge candidates had to sit special entrance examinations that included material that would not be taught in most A level courses, or at least demanded a particular way of thinking that went beyond A level exercises. These exams were a big deal: there were typically four 3-hour papers to be prepared for, so those schools that had the resources and experience to coach pupils had an unfair advantage. You can find more discussion of this here. The consensus was that it would be much fairer to use the existing A level system to assess candidates. Unfortunately, few candidates were sitting the A level Special papers or the Advanced Extension Awards that succeeded them, so A levels remained the only objective discriminator for applications. But there was great concern that changes to A levels had largely removed "the opportunity for the most able students to develop and demonstrate originality, creativity, insight, clarity of thought and analysis, extended arguments and problem-solving." and thus "the ability to differentiate the exceptional students from the good." (per Cambridge seeks harder A-levels, 2005). This was the reason that A+ and A++ grades were proposed by the Tomlinson report.
• Difficulty of comparing data. Are you using statistics from before the A* grade was used for admissions? In 2008 25.8% of all A level subjects were given an A grade which of course meant that AAA could no longer be seen as exceptional. Also, you say that UCL has 30% ethnic minority intake but a possible confounding factor is that the range of entry qualifications at UCL is significantly wider than Oxford: UCL's range is A*A*A to ABB or at least 34 at IB, whereas Oxford asks for A*A*A to AAA or 38–40 at IB. KCL has a similarly wide range to UCL. I think Imperial is still very selective but of course their mix of subjects is very different from UCL or Oxford so the data wouldn't be directly comparable.
• Use of predicted rather than actual grades. The BMC's 2008 study points out that "offers and rejections are made not on A levels attained, but on GCSEs attained, and teachers' estimates of A levels that are likely to be gained". There seems to be a suggestion (on page 21) that medical schools only wish to make offers those candidates they are sure will achieve their offered grades. I've no idea whether there's a similar effect for Oxbridge entrance. Everyone knows it would be fairer and simpler to move to post-qualification application, but this still seems to be some way off.
• Candidates' performance in pre-tests/interviews. You seem to be saying that these rejections are happening after interview—have I got that right? That is a tricky one to validate between UCL and Oxford. I know some UCL departments use interviews or group exercises for selection, though I believe UCL's interviews are done by post-docs rather than tutors so I suppose they serve a slightly different purpose from Oxford's. Are you saying that "high performing" is measured only by exam grades? The test+interview process is claimed to be to identify those candidates would perform well under the tutorial system, which is rather different from other universities' teaching approach. Maybe some bias is inevitable here. I guess what the tutors are hoping for is articulate thinkers who can make reasoned arguments but listen to other points of view and be quick to abandon unproductive approaches. A level exams don't test that, which is why the TSA Oxford and LNAT are used as discriminators. Actually, that's another problem with this discussion: we don't know how many applicants are being filtered out via these pre-tests. An ostensibly high performing candidate who scores poorly on the TSA wouldn't necessarily be aware of it.
• Variations in schools, in particular the elimination of state-funded selective education. The state-funded selective grammar school route (which brought e.g. Harold Wilson, Roy Jenkins, Denis Healey, Edward Heath and Peter Lampl to Oxford) was eliminated in the early 1970s. Many top grammar schools chose to become 100% fee-paying institutions rather than be taken over by their Local Authorities. The Assisted Places Scheme which started in 1981 was killed off in 1997. Selective school admissions separated the top ~10% of 11-year-olds from their peers and educated them in more demanding conditions. Whatever you think of this in terms of social justice, these conditions must have helped to prepare pupils and their teachers for elite University admissions through e.g. frequency of internal exams, competitive rankings in classes, development of debating skills and teachers' familiarity with entrance requirements etc. As Peter Lampl observed "At Reigate grammar, it was a big occasion if anyone got into Oxbridge. But at Pate's in Cheltenham, which was also a grammar, it was no big deal. It was almost expected of you if you did well. I learned from this that there are certain schools that link into Oxford and Cambridge. I got to Oxford, but I wouldn't have if I had stayed in Reigate." (per this interview, 2007).

I'd like to see the UCL intake data, if you could point me at them. What would be interesting is the raw numbers and ratios of applicants to offers categorized by background (subject area, type of school, ethnicity). 30% from ethnic minorities seems disproportionate to the overall mix of UCAS applicants (e.g. per [2]). - Pointillist (talk) 11:02, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

One minor point to add is that at Oxford the published A-level requirements for courses when listed as simple grade lists bear little resemblance to reality for two reasons: firstly the published requirements are, in effect, absolute minima, and lie well below the actual achievements of most successful applicants, and secondly because these grade lists ignore the requirements for specific grades in specific subjects. For example the published requirements for Oxford physics are A*AA, but these must include a minimum of A in maths and A in physics, with an A* in one of these. In fact successful candidates typically have A*A*A*, with very few having less than A*A*A, and a substantial fraction having A*A*A*A* or better. Furthermore the majority of successful candidates have Further Maths as a third A level. Realistically the typical Oxford physicist has A* maths, A* physics, and A or A* further maths, and frequently a fourth A or A* in a relevant subject, a description which is not well captured by the naive A*AA description. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 19:56, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't want to belabour this discussion further. The data released by the Guardian (for years 2010-2011) is quite conclusive in my opinion for any reasonably impartial person to believe that Oxford very likely has a race problem. I would think for most people this is an important issue/allegation and deserves a decent emphasis, one for which the University itself hasn't provided a satisfactory evidence based response. Few minor points:

• Yes Oxford had entrance exams which were scrapped partly because it was felt state school students with high A level grades weren't as successful as privately educated students in them (there was no evidence for this btw). Bizarrely the objective written examination rather than subjective interview was scrapped.
• TSA, LNAT, don't have as much predictive value as A levels (or As levels) according to Cambridge. There is no evidence that whites score better on these. Oxford is yet to release the data (one would think they would be keen to refute the allegations with hard data). Admissions tutors do have prior grades. It is reasonable to expect prior grades correlate well with eventual A level performance, and evidence shows that ethnic group performance at GCSE, AS and A level are consistent. (Whites don't outperform ethnic minorities in GCSEs and As and do worse in A levels). For example Chinese students outperform whites for GCSES, AS, and A levels, but are almost half as likely to be admitted to Oxford. As for predicted grades, evidence shows that they are quite often unreliable.
• Ethnic minorities disproportionately attend Grammar and Independent schools
• Unlike suggested by Jonathan A Jones, only a small proportion of Oxford applicants go on to score A*A*A* or higher. See guardian data. Overall it is less than 20%, though for medicine it is I think around 35%.
• No evidence ethnic minority applicants take inappropriate subject choices.Actually there is evidence that ethnic minorities are more likely to take more traditional subjects such as maths, etc.
• UCL data: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ras/statistics/current/T.pdf

Like I said I don't want to belabour this discussion. I believe the Guardian data is important and persuasive. Doogely (talk) 01:29, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

I really appreciate you pointing me to the UCL data: I calculate that, excluding "refused" and "not known", UCL currently has 5338 white (61%) and 3469 non-white (39%) home undergraduates. So that was an eye-opener for me. I've taken a fresh look at the Oxford admissions pages and I hadn't realised that nowadays almost every course uses a pre-interview test. There's the Biomedical Admissions Test, Classics Admissions Test, English Literature Admissions Test, History Aptitude Test, Law National Admissions Test, Mathematics Admissions Test, Modern Languages Admissions Tests, Physics Aptitude Test and the Thinking Skills Assessment. The Music and Theology courses don't use a pre-test, but they require samples of written work (as do Classics, English, History and Modern Languages). In the Physics Admission procedure the pre-test is the only criterion used to short-list for interview, and the contents of the UCAS application aren't considered until after the post-interview banding. That seems to be an extreme case (or at least, an unusually candid explanation), other courses make more general statements, e.g. "test results play a significant part in short-listing".

The Guardian numbers certainly indicate a problem. Differences in % achievement of A level grades for white vs aggregated non-white candidates aren't sufficient to explain the discrepancy in offers. I don't know whether the admission pre-tests are significantly different from A*-calibre questions, but anyway several of the tests (e.g. LNAT and BMAT) are also taken by UCL candidates. The most likely explanation is that the interview process is the key factor, because it is looking for qualities that aren't necessarily being assessed at A level. Here are some examples I've cut and pasted from the admissions pages (they aren't all the same subject):

• "Reasoning ability: ability to analyse and solve problems using logical and critical approaches, ability to draw fine distinctions, ability to separate the relevant from the irrelevant, capacity for accurate and critical observation, capacity for sustained and cogent argument."
• "Flexibility: the capacity to engage with alternative perspectives and/or new information."
• "Communication: willingness and ability to express ideas clearly and effectively both in writing and orally; ability to listen and to give considered responses."
• "Originality and creativity of thought, lateral thinking and hypothesis generation."

If the scores for interviews are measuring these qualities, it would be interesting to see how candidates from different educational/cultural backgrounds compare. Perhaps the Guardian would like to make another FOI request.... - Pointillist (talk) 11:39, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Notes: " Trying to shift the blame to 'economic' and other inequalities lower down in the education system is sly, lazy and unsubstantiated. And the suggestion of it implies editorial bias." was edited earlier to "Trying to shift the blame to 'economic' and other inequalities lower down in the education system is unfair and unsubstantiated."

I have reverted the edits to the original, so 'context' is maintained.

Some editors who commented before the edit believe that this edit somehow (and in my humble opinion rather strangely) made their comments out of context. I felt the change was a fair one, given it made the comment less vitriolic, perhaps more tactful, without changing the substance of my comments. I still stand by my original statement in substance.

The shifting of blame to the rest of the education system is sly, because it covertly suggests a justification for the disparities. I.e. it covertly defends Oxford against allegations of discrimination, by suggesting that the disparities are due to inequalities elsewhere. It is lazy because the claims made are unsubstantiated. The word I probably really should use to describe it is sophistry. It smacks of editorial bias, because it is an unsubstantiated claim, with no real basis in fact, which seems to defend an institution, which the editors happen to be closely involved with. Doogely (talk) 21:25, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

College names

To my eyes, this edit makes the page look ugly. But I looked up the university's list of colleges and they indeed refer to 'New College' in the same list as 'Brasenose', 'Hertford', etc. Should we also use "University College" and "The Queen's College"? But the latter's homepage uses simply "Queen's" twice on the homepage. The former uses "Univ" on its own a lot - that seems two informal for Wikipedia - but it does seem that "University" alone is never used. Any thoughts? -- Fluteflute ^{Talk Contributions} 23:04, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

As most of these names predate the Internet by many centuries, there's no particular reason to prefer the current usage to that of earlier periods. - Pointillist (talk) 07:17, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

I think that different names can and should be used in different places. To directly answer Fluteflute, in modern Oxford usage New College is almost invariably referred to as "New College"; the one exception is in tables showing all the colleges, where referring to it as "New" is completely unambiguous, but even in that case the name would generally be read out as "New College". University College is usually called "University College" to avoid confusion with "The University" (which these days usually means the Vice Chancellor and pro-VCs together with the administration in Wellington Square, distinct from "The Divisions" or "The Departments", and "The Collegiate University", which means the whole thing); this is frequently abbreviated to "Univ" but very rarely to "University". Queen's is usually called "Queen's" except in formal contexts or by members of the college, when the name "The Queen's College" is used; use of "Queen's College" is rare.

As hinted at above, in practice this largely comes down to avoiding ambiguity. This is particularly clearly shown in street names: we have "Merton Street" and "Brasenose Lane", but notably still have "New College Lane" (not to be confused with "New Road"). In this context the use of "Queen's Lane" rather than any longer version is interesting. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 09:03, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

For what it is worth, I prefer the consistency of not having "College", "Hall", or "House" and listing the first part. (I'm not entirely chuffed to bits by there being "Halls" that are colleges and "Houses" that are residential halls, but these are, as stated above, considerably established than the Web or myself.) I concur with the sentiment that prudence should take precedence and that "College" should be appended to distinguish where confusion may arise. While I would readily accede that New College is almost always referred to as "New College", perhaps because it's so short, it is abundantly clear that "New" is in reference to colleges of Oxford. Here, "New College" look rather gauche and I believe it should be listed as merely "New".

By the by, I hope no one minds that I have spaced your comments, in the hope of improving readability when editing this page. Cheers. --Qwerty Binary (talk) 13:43, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

St Edmund Hall was a hall (presumably a PPH but I'm not sure) which converted to a college, but decided to retain its own name, unlike earlier conversions (such as Brasenose which moved from Brasenose Hall to The King's Hall and College of Brasenose, commonly known as Brasenose College) and later conversions such as Mansfield (which was a PPH in my day and usually just called Mansfield, but is now Mansfield College). I'm not sure about LMH. Of course the nightmare case is Christ Church, which emphatically is not "Christ Church College", so the naive rule "add College to any hame which doesn't end in Hall" fails in this case. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 10:06, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

For what it's worth, as a present Oxonian "New College" is in fact almost invariably referred to as just "New" by pretty much all undergraduates including those that go there. This may be a recent development, however. Lord British (talk) 11:26, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the update; very interesting. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 11:54, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh, yes, who could forget ChCh! Also, thank you duly for the update.

So, for the sake of avoiding this trouble, could the colleges or PPHs simply be listed by the variable part of their names (i.e., Magdalen)? Qwerty Binary (talk) 10:35, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Jones

A strange updating and symmetrising policy is appearing from Jones. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.149.30.34 (talk) 12:18, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Hashish

Chomsky is in favour of hashish. This is why he is so popular at Oxford. Both should be banned, Chomsky and Oxford.