Magdalen (pronounced ‘Maudlin’) is one of Oxford’s biggest, richest colleges. Its inspiring buildings, 800m from Carfax, are set in 100 acres of grounds, with more than a mile of riverside walks and a deer park (which serves both as naturalist's haven and sporadic meat store). The dreaming-spire sexiness of the surroundings lures in a plague of tourists and truckloads of film crews. The old-fashioned bar (crossed oars and the ilk) overlooks the river. The College is an academic powerhouse, and was one of the first in Oxford to teach science. The Magdalen May Morning celebration is especially enchanting, coming to a climax when the choir welcomes summer from the top of Magdalen Tower. The students are a tolerant and friendly bunch, hard-working but not freakish human beavers.
| Sex ratio (M:F): 54:46 |
Founded: 1458 |
| Full-time u’grads: 390 |
Part-time: 0 |
| Postgrads: 219 |
Mature: 1% |
State:private school: 50:50
|
International: 5% |
| Academic ranking: 2 |
Disabled: 26 |
Bar used for student bands, pool, quizzes, bops and snacks; monster events each term; tea-parties; punting trips; classical concerts in the chapel; fortnightly bops and cocktail parties; music auditorium; Commemoration Ball every three years, one of the biggies. Five libraries including a specialist law and history libraries and a rare-books library (120,000 books in total, and one of the University's largest collections of video, 100 study places, 24hrs); 28 computers, open 24hrs. Very active CofE chapel. Exceedingly musical, Grammy-nominated choir. Auditorium for concerts and film screenings; music studio with CD-editing suite; darkroom run by JCR photography rep. Active (and minted) JCR; weekly bogsheet. Two common rooms (one known as ‘Father Dominic of Bulgaria’, one known less romantically as ‘Dave’); Sky, DVD players, free pool table, cornershop with trashy novels to loan, wine shop (unique to Magdalen) with largest free DVD lending library in Oxford. Great sports fields 10 mins walk away; three squash courts in College; excellent gym; boathouse and punts; rowing exceptional, women’s squash strong, as are rounders and cricket. Almost everyone lives in; very spacious, modern rooms, and some olde-worlde woody-beam affairs, all with network points; all room rents are equal; 27 kitchens for undergrads, lousy food – better in the bar but bring your Hobnobs anyway. International Students’, Women’s and Ethnic Students' Officers. Free attack alarms, drink-spiking test kits, condoms, lube, dental dams, doughnuts. Wheelchairs hampered by cobbles. Wide range of hardship funds, scholarships, book and travel grants; College operates The Magdalen College Trust, a youth charity.
FAMOUS ALUMNI
Joseph Addison (essayist, founder of The Spectator); John Betjeman (poet, sent down); Lord Alfred ‘Bosie’ Douglas (lover of Oscar Wilde); Edward Gibbon (historian); Darius Guppy (fraudster); William Hague MP (ex-Con Leader); Seamus Heaney (poet); Ian Hislop (editor, Private Eye); C S Lewis (writer); Dudley Moore (late comedian/actor/pianist); Desmond Morris (socioanthropologist); John Redwood MP (Con); Dr Edwin Schrödinger (physicist who had a cat – or did he?); A J P Taylor (historian); Oscar Wilde (writer); Cardinal Wolsey.