Oxford and Cambridge

Today and yesterday, I visited the two best universities in the UK, both of which are in the top 10 of the entire world. And boy, were they AMAZING! Seriously, they are really cool! They are both in their own university towns, they're both really really old (Founded in the 12 century, I believe) and they both look like a dream.

Most of the colleges are made up of "quads" which are just square buildings with huge open and green courtyards in the middle. Each college has about 400 undergraduates in it, and you take most of your lessons in your college.

So, starting with Oxford- it's an hour train ride from London, and has a very frequent bus service to London that goes all through the night, so you can go to London on a Friday night, see a musical or play, and ride back! I think that's really cool, because, as most of you now, I am quite a city man, so being close to one of the largest and most international cities in the world is quite nice. All of the colleges are relatively close to each other, and the my two favorites, Jesus College and Balliol College are both in the city center. I won't bore you with the details, but if you get into Oxford, you eat in ancient dining halls adorned with original paintings of queens and people, and you live in even more ancient buildings. It's so neat! And Oxford has a really cool degree- PPE (Politics, Philosophy, and Economics). It really appeals to me, so I think I would do that if I applied. (You have to decide what degree you want to get when you apply).

Then today I went to Cambridge, which, from what I saw, has more spread out grounds and a lot more space, but it's smaller and not as accessible to London. Their colleges are quite large- most of them with numbers of undergraduates in the high 400's- but all of the colleges are truly magnificent and the staff seemed really nice. However, they only degree they have that is similar to PPE is SPS (Social and Political Sciences) which is much broader and includes Psychology, which I am not too interested in. (You have to REALLY like your subject to study it at Cambridge or Oxford).

In the end, I think that Cambridge is prettier, but due to the overly strict entrance requirements (4 AP tests with a score of 5 on all) and they're lukewarm degrees, as well as the overall feel of the campus', I think I will probably apply to Oxford.

Peace out! I have two more days in London, and then home SWEET home.