First time around I was 17, at a public school, and rather upset not to be included in the clique of students appointed by teachers for pre-interview grooming. I hadn’t been predicted the full complement of A-Grades and, I dunno, I liked fun a bit too much. Not to be deterred, I decided to apply off my own back regardless, opting to take the examination route (now abolished), with Oriel College, Oxford as my first choice.

To everyone’s surprise I passed the English test and was called for interview - actually two interviews which took place over two days. The first was easygoing and went fairly well, I thought; the second was more akin to the stuff of Oxbridge cliche, with a Junior Research Fellow asking the direct questions while a Professor read the paper and drank sherry beside me. Oddly unintimidated by this, I gave it a good go, managed not to flinch, then left in positive spirits.

I received the inevitable rejection letter a couple of months later, sad and yet buoyed by the manner in which it was written. They had been very impressed; I had missed out by the smallest margins; they had written to my headmaster to praise my performance.

With this my mind was set. I would get three As at A-Level in the banks and then reapply for the next year, by which time acceptance would be forgone conclusion. At least, that was the plan. I did, in fact, get my three As, so it started well. Then I set about a lobbying process, not dissimilar from the one Dan describes above. I remember writing to the Professor of English at Magdalen, saying that I would love the chance to meet, chat and take in the college. This approach didn’t favour me quite as well, however. Six weeks after hearing nothing I received a pathetically (drunkenly?) scrawled memo saying, “Come and have a look round when you want. It’s a free country…” The writing was on wall, if not quite on the paper: I reapplied and was instantly rejected without interview, explanation or feedback.

I ended up reading English at Exeter where the teaching was nothing short of brilliant. I loved my course, enjoyed my work and struck up great bonds with a number of tutors. After three happy years there I left to work in the City, a stopgap during which time I hoped to earn and save lots of money, then go to journalism school. My thoughts returned to Oxford, however, when a prospectus arrived through the post. From then on I would spend long commutes reading through post-grad course descriptions and scanning pictures of manicured lawns and dreamy spires etc etc. On a whim I wrote a letter to an old Exeter tutor, an Oxford alumnus himself, and asked him what he thought about me applying to do an MPhil in Renaissance Literature. He replied saying that he though it was a brilliant idea, that he would happily be my referee, and that he had no doubt I would be accepted. Two months later, with little fanfare and no interview, I was.

My feelings, then, about the Oxbridge system are ambivalent. It would seem that on two occasions chutzpah and contacts made an impact. Merit, on the other hand, clearly wasn’t enough.

Ironically, I dropped out of my place at Merton College after just three months. I wasn’t happy, I felt I had lost my academic ‘form’, but more than that, I knew that staying would be more a case of preserving pride than benefitting my career in the long run. Maybe it was a case of right place, wrong time. Deep down I suspect that after all the foreplay, just getting in was enough.