Want to stereotype my friends and me as arrogant brats? Fine - but you're not helping state applicants to Oxbridge

Oxbridge allows us to scale the class system and beat it one tenacious student at a time

Cambridge is not an extended episode of Made in Chelsea (Getty Images)

I am a different person than the one who entered Emmanuel College for the first time, five years ago, for my interview. But I have not become an entitled brat, as my learned friend, to whom I'm replying, claimed in a recent Voices article; I left enriched, focused and with a clearer sense of who I am.

When we discuss Cambridge students as arrogant, entitled brats, this isn't just inaccurate, it's harmful. It acts to reinforce reservations which bright, working-class individuals sometimes have of Oxbridge.

We cannot ignore the fact that there are less state school students in Cambridge than there should be, by a dramatic proportion. A huge factor in this is aspiration, and that is how the caricature becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; a vicious circle.

The aspirational gap for state school kids is crossed by enabling them to imagine themselves there, without any compromise to their identity. By representing Cambridge as an extended episode of Made in Chelsea, it makes it impossible to crush the aspirational obstacle.

There is no "tyranny of tradition" at Oxbridge which is "used to prop up the class system". Oxbridge provides opportunities which would have otherwise evaded us; far from propping up the class system, it allows us to scale it, and to beat it, one tenacious student at a time.

Drawing a link between an Oxbridge education and a lack of empathy towards poverty couldn't be further from the truth. It ignores Oxbridge-educated individuals like Tony Benn and Cambridge students' voting records and it flies in the face of the masses of students who are dedicated to alleviating the impact of Tory cuts.

Justifying the institution's traditions on the basis that Cambridge students are special does not set me out as an entitled brat. We can be grounded without being meek. We can be proud without being boastful and confident without being arrogant.

I worked tirelessly, in an educational environment of such intensity and challenge that it is hard to articulate. If at the end of that year I want to spend my hard earned money on a May Ball ticket, with the complete awareness of how incredible an experience it is, and how lucky I am to be able to enjoy it, with the people I've been through the Cambridge law trenches with, I see no difficulty in that.

​I'd also like to note that the majority of Oxbridge students don't consider serving food or picking up rubbish for only five hours but for £80 to be "demeaning"; how could they, when so many of us did such jobs for far less money as teenagers and in between University terms?

I'll put my rubbish in the bin, be polite and have the craic with the staff - and all the while still be that child, of Kells, Northern Ireland, who never even dreamt of the kind of beauty he'd later be dancing among.

I'm incredibly sorry that anyone could have left Cambridge affected as my learned friend has been. I left inspired, determined, and more equipped to achieve to achieve my potential in life. As did all those that I know from Cambridge.

This was written in response to the previous article Cambridge University turned me into an arrogant, entitled brat - so don't worry if your interview went badly