Are there any famous people who got rejected from cambridge or oxford?

Question

Are there any famous people who got rejected from cambridge or oxford? I.e. they got rejected but became really successful or famous nevertheless?

Answer 1

What the hell?

Of course!



Examples? Who cares. Its just like me asking 'who cant drive on the motorway, but gets to their destination anyway?'

Obviously theres 1000s!

Answer 2

All kinds of reasons: a) Aside from the colleges, Oxford in particular is arguably a fairly bland city. And some would say that Cambridge is prettier and more well maintained than Oxford too. The Oxford colleges on the whole have a very 'samey' feel to them (in exteriors anyway). It means that city has fewer surprises in its streets than it might have done. Cambridge was only made a city in the 1950s by the way. Even though the universities are not quite as highly regarded on the whole, Durham and York are preferred by some who get equally high grades. York in particular has a more impressively extensive city centre. But York University only dates to the 1960s so some don't choose it regardless. b) They only teach specific subjects. And who's to say that someone teaching in Chicago, for example, might not teach them better? Whatever the case, it'll be a more diverse landscape- and possibly mindset- to be in America than Oxbridge has. c) They're not stylish enough. Students going around on tatty old bicycles, sitting in their halls and not socialising. It's mot necessarily Dorothy Parker and her circle all the time is it? Some might find more of an atmosphere conductive to that at, say, Glasgow for example, where how you do something might still mean more than than what Oxbridge concentrates on - the end result of the raw academics. d) They're not posh enough. Similar to c), Oxbridge entrants nowadays are made up of try hard comprehensive school and international students smattered with some grammar and public school students. But they're not quite so much the carefree, finishing school, places that they used to be. Which is why some might go to Durham or Edinburgh or Exeter instead for example.

Answer 3

J K Rowling, who went to study at the University of Exeter instead. And possibly a fair number of famous names who've studied at, for example, Durham, Warwick. I'd say Edinburgh and St Andrews as well but some tend to choose those as their first choice.

Answer 4

Ghandi when to UCL nuf said, and yes there are hundred upon thousands of famous people who do become famouse