What no one tells you before you go to Oxford as a Northerner

As someone who was the only person in her year at a state school in Greater Manchester to get into Oxford or Cambridge, the news that Northern students are underrepresented in Oxford university admissions figures comes as no surprise to me.

Figures show that 48 per cent of UK students admitted to Oxford between 2018 and 2020 came from London and the South East, while only 15.1 per cent were from the North. To tackle the divide, Oxford plan to target Northern pupils, aiming to reach regional ‘cold spots’ where talented students are underrepresented at the university.

Well, I hail from both a literal and meteorological cold spot (make that a cold and rainy spot). Here's what 'plucky Northerners' like me can expect to happen when they're accepted to the dreaming spires...

No one will be able to place your accent

After uttering my first few words at a speed-friending freshers event, I was immediately quizzed by a fellow student, from London, on where exactly in Scotland I was from, given my accent. An awkward silence ensued after I clarified that I had never been to Scotland and that I was in fact from Manchester.

Such dialectal disorientation would become a common theme, with people unable to distinguish their Scouse from their Mancunian or their Yorkshire from their Geordie. It's a bit like when you go to America and people ask you which part of Australia you're from: funny the first time; disconcerting the second, third, fourth...

You get used to hearing yourself mimicked

Once it’s been established where in the UK people who sound like you are from, your peers will get into the habit of repeating seemingly innocuous sounding sentences back to you, while mimicking your accent, for laughs.

While undoubtedly annoying, these antics are mostly harmless. Some of the more barbed comments, however, can be particularly detrimental – including those made by tutors. I know of fellow Northerners who were told by tutors that their writing style was “surprisingly eloquent, given the way they spoke”. Others were pointedly asked why they were never taught how to “speak properly”.

Your backstory will test people's geography

“Oh you’re from the North; I’ve never been past Birmingham,” you will become accustomed to hearing, as if it is an achievement to be totally oblivious to the existence of swathes of the country. In the minds of your peers, the North is one homogenous mass of industrial wasteland, rather than a vast geographical area made of vibrant cities and beautiful countryside, not to mention home to around 14.9 million people.

You’ll take to saying you’re from the closest major city to your home town, instead of where you are really from, as it becomes clear that people’s knowledge of Surrey private schools far outpaces their knowledge of the metropolitan boroughs that make up Greater Manchester.

To be fair, you've never heard of most of the private schools they talk about.

The local delicacies leave a lot to be desired

Oxford and Cambridge may be home to Michelin-starred restaurants but you’ll be hard pressed to find some of the tantalising dishes from home that you know and love.

Try espousing the joys of Wigan kebab (a meat and potato pie wedged in between a bread roll, for the uninitiated) and you’ll be met with a sea of blank faces. Those craving a Parmo will fare no better. You’ll instead have to settle for chips with a criminally inadequate amount of gravy.

And the less said about what hard water does to tea the better.

You’ll realise that you belong there just as much as anyone else

While you’ll undoubtedly feel homesick, you will soon start to feel at home at Oxbridge. Just remember that you went through the same admissions process as everyone else, that you deserve to be there and – more importantly – to thrive there.

The ultimate truth is that, once you get past the blind spots in geographical knowledge and misidentified accents, everyone's in the same boat at university: broadening their horizons through study and socialising. Sooner or later, you forget about where your friends are from, and talk instead only about where you're all going.

Which is my way of saying, the Southern lot are alright, once you get to know them.