In 1975 David Aaronovitch and his Manchester comrades performed their rather unorthodox protest against Oxbridge’s overrepresentation in University Challenge, limiting the answers they gave to only a small list of Communist revolutionaries.
Not a great take to be proposing when University Challenge is increasingly a show of boring fifty-something PhD students whose only joy in life comes in crushing the ambitions of bubbly eighteen y/os, and the true game show of freaks and geeks (right up to being the subject of Glinner obsession) is Only Connect.
All the more reason to open up Oxbridge applications imo. The only reason mature colleges dominate so much is because Oxbridge apps are restricted and so naturally the more experienced mature colleges do better.
Strongly disagree. It's not just about Oxbridge restrictions, because other unis' teams often include a lot of PhD students / mature students too. The format of University Challenge just inherently advantages older snooty academic types, because of the type of knowledge it tests and the way it tests it; it's just that in the past they'd not have been competing. While I'd absolutely support a ban on over-25s taking part, that'll never happen, and the equilibrium is now that University Challenge is a show for boring fifty year olds doing a third degree. No point optimising for a show that will never exist.
Not a great take to be proposing when University Challenge is increasingly a show of boring fifty-something PhD students whose only joy in life comes in crushing the ambitions of bubbly eighteen y/os, and the true game show of freaks and geeks (right up to being the subject of Glinner obsession) is Only Connect.
All the more reason to open up Oxbridge applications imo. The only reason mature colleges dominate so much is because Oxbridge apps are restricted and so naturally the more experienced mature colleges do better.
Strongly disagree. It's not just about Oxbridge restrictions, because other unis' teams often include a lot of PhD students / mature students too. The format of University Challenge just inherently advantages older snooty academic types, because of the type of knowledge it tests and the way it tests it; it's just that in the past they'd not have been competing. While I'd absolutely support a ban on over-25s taking part, that'll never happen, and the equilibrium is now that University Challenge is a show for boring fifty year olds doing a third degree. No point optimising for a show that will never exist.