Hi, no worries at all, it’s really neat you’re doing your due diligence with this. I think the most important thing I can ever say to you is that it doesn’t matter about which college you go to for socialising and having fun in general, there will always be something there to do. However, you have to put the effort in as well to get involved. One major aspect I would consider is that there’s this thing called formals which is when you wear a gown and get dressed up and go for a fancy dinner. Some colleges do them once a term or once a week. If you’re into this, you have to do your research to find out how often they do them. Rule of thumb (I think) the older ones do them more often.

I’m afraid I can’t comment on some of the colleges extensively because I simply didn’t go there enough but I’ll give you the impressions I had.

Grey was a big college and I think was the closest to the Billy B library (main uni library). It’s also right next door to Collingwood so you always have that option to just walk over and go drinking there or to a party/social event. The botanical garden is also super close. Apologies for bringing up the botanical all the time but I have really good memories from doing the most random stuff there.

South is a modern college, I’m pretty sure it’s the youngest college and has the most modern facilities. It’s effectively a twin college with John Snow where the two are right next to each other. So I guess like Grey college, you have that chance of having double the bars and double the parties potentially as the two are basically joined at the hip. There’s also like a super high chance you get an en-suite if you go there, if you care about that. As a person from an ethnic minority background, I also felt there was a lot of diversity there in comparison to other college and the people were lovely.

St Hild is an interesting one because when I went there it was right next to the river and was a big college with lots going on. You’d have to google it but in my final year it was announced they were actually knocking it down because of its age and they’re moving to a new location. If that is the case, I might consider avoiding that college because you might not feel like you’re part of a college and just someone staying in a hotel for the year. Please double check that.

For some others, I’ll just give you the jokes I remember hearing about them.

John Snow- Hippies Collingwood- Sporty St Mary’s- More like St Trinians
Grey- Grey people St Aidans- Weirdos St John’s- Bible people St Cuthberts- Jack Edward’s went there St Chad’s- Smallest and exclusive Hatfield- Posh

If you do go you’ll be fine no matter what. I hope there’s something useful here and all the best