Pupils shun 'unfriendly and old-fashioned' Oxbridge for American universities

Nine of Britain's top state school pupils have snubbed places at Oxford and Cambridge after becoming disillusioned with its stuffy image and high fees. 

Cambridge university

Most of the group plan to attend Ivy League universities in America, in part because they consider them to be friendlier.

The departure of some of Britain's brightest pupils from its elite universities follows a warning from the government's social mobility watchdog that Oxford and Cambridge are failing to meet targets for widening their social mix.

Several of the teenagers told the Sunday Times that the perceived friendliness of foreign universities was a factor in their decision to study abroad.

Ian Barr, whose mother is a primary school teacher and father a lab technician, is expected to achieve five A* grades at A-level, and turned down the chance to read law at University College, Oxford, in favour of studying at Yale.

The pupil at Cheadle and Marple Sixth Form College, Stockport, said: “I found the atmosphere at Oxford was a bit too old-fashioned. One of my friends who also went for an interview at Oxford, as soon as he walked into the college was told ‘Don’t walk on the grass or you’ll have a £50 fine’, which seemed to reflect the restrictive attitude of Oxford, whereas at Yale it was much more focused on allowing the students to explore what they wanted to do. I thought that was better.”

Harry Edwards, who is also expected to achieve five A* grades at A-level, rejected a placed to study maths at Cambridge in favour of the University of North Carolina, which awarded him a £130,000 scholarship to cover his fees and living costs.

The pupil at Greenhead College, Huddersfield, said: "“At Cambridge there was no handshake and no pleasantries at interview. There was no interest in anything but my ability to do maths. At my interview with Harvard they wanted to know what I was interested in, what I wanted to do with my life."

The nine teenagers are among 64 who attended a Yale summer school run by educational charity The Sutton Trust in partnership with the US-UK Fulbright Commission.

21 accepted places at the American universities. Their average family income is £25,000 a year and most will have their fees and most living costs paid for four years in deals worth more than £3m.

Sir Peter Lampl, the chairman of the Sutton Trust, a charity dedicated to improving social mobility through education, welcomed the news that a third of his students were going.

He said: “They will act as a beacon for thousands of other state school students to apply to study in the US.”