There are 36 of them, in addition to four permanent private halls and three societies, and most visitors are unaware of how important the differences between them are. Every college is its own business, its own neighborhood, a tiny republic made up of instructors, students, cooks, and gardeners. The majority of the instruction is managed by them.

The lectures, tests, and large central library are managed by the university, but the tutorials—those peculiar one-on-one or two-on-one discussions that form the foundation of Oxford—take place inside college premises.

Perhaps no organization in the English-speaking world is so obstinately decentralized. The dispute has been going on since about 1264, with University, Balliol, and Merton all claiming to be the oldest. Oriel followed in 1326, followed by Exeter in 1314.

Though not always in ways you would anticipate, the more recent ones feel different. The first new Oxbridge college since Kellogg in 1990 was Reuben College, which opened its doors in 2019. Between them, there’s a feeling that the university subtly absorbs each new addition without really changing.

A portion of the story is conveyed through the architecture. A porter’s lodge guards the entrance from the street, and most colleges are constructed around connected quadrangles. A dining hall, a chapel, a library, a bar, and rooms for two to four hundred undergraduates are typically found inside. However, the similarities stop there. There are deer in Magdalen.

There is a cathedral at Christ Church. The final remnant of the medieval academic halls, St Edmund Hall, has the feel of a cottage that wandered into the city and chose to remain. The front quad of Brasenose, as depicted in engravings from the seventeenth century, remains unchanged.

Not all of the history is charming. It wasn’t until Lady Margaret Hall and Somerville opened in 1879 that women were admitted, and it wasn’t until 1920 that they were granted degrees. Women weren’t admitted to men’s colleges until 1974.

St. Benet’s Hall continued to serve postgraduate women until 2014 and undergraduates until 2016 before closing completely in 2022. In 2008, Greyfriars closed. Sometimes colleges fail. In the same year, Green and Templeton combined to form Green Templeton. Nothing in this place is as permanent as it appears.

In Oxford, the word “prestige” is ambiguous. You won’t forget that Christ Church has produced thirteen prime ministers in the United Kingdom. Nobel laureates are counted at Balliol in the same manner as rowing trophies. Magdalen is known for its riverfront grounds and choral tradition. The top universities are rarely the ones that tourists take pictures of, and the Norrington Table, which ranks universities based on undergraduate exam results, changes annually.

Eventually, the majority of graduates will tell you that the college they actually attended became more important than the one they had envisioned from the brochure. It’s difficult to ignore the fact that buildings outlive their occupants and most likely always will.

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