24 things only the most posh and rah freshers will have in their uni room

One of the best things about Freshers’ Week is being able to make snap judgements of your new flatmates based on what’s in their rooms. Here is a spotter’s guide to help you identify the most posh and pretentious uni students among us. You’d better start befriending them now if you want an invite to their ski chalet before Christmas.

Polo shirt with the logo of an actual polo society

I stand by the fact that polo is the poshest sport in existence. Not only do you need to be posh enough to play sport on a horse, but you’ve got to be posh enough to know seven other people who play sport on horses. Rah freshers will sign up for a load of fancy sport societies and splurge on all the stash.

Moët champagne on a shelf

“Oh, I didn’t actually buy this £70 bottle of champagne,” Araminta Bridgerton-Windsor tells you, “I got it at a party and I need to get rid of it. My friend Rufus Corbet-Robinson VI brought it as a thank you present when I had a little supper party on Daddy’s mega yacht in the Maldives.”

White Company candles

For people who’ve literally got money to burn.

Extensive photos of skiing holidays

To be fair, if I spent about a grand on a holiday, I’d want some decent pics too

Instead of having polaroids of their mates at pres, posh freshers will be filling their pinboards with group photos at their schoolfriend Viscount Tarquin Darcy’s ski chalet.

Godawful gilet vest

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I’ve never met anyone who didn’t go to a boarding school with a gilet, and I’ve never met anyone who did go to a boarding school without one. I don’t know what it is about this deeply unfashionable clothing item. For some unquantifiable reason, all posh boys put them on and think they’re Tom Hiddleston posing for the cover of Tatler.

Their parents’ reject 70″ TV

After this posh fresher’s parents replaced their TVs with an underground home cinema, they said that darling Parthenope Mountbatten-Corgi could take their old TV to uni in order to optimise their Made in Chelsea viewing.

£100+ merino wool jumpers

The true essence of poshness is buying expensive clothes without big brand names on, because everyone already knows you’re loaded. The bougiest uni students will have expensive clothes not to keep up appearances, but because they’re genuinely that snobby about H&M.

Mini fridge full of salmon and avocados

Share a fridge shelf with the Playstation-playing plebeians in the kitchen? Good heavens! Not only are posh freshers more likely to lug their own fridge to uni, but they’ll fill it with avocados and prawns and olives and goat’s cheese and things no other student would have the budget for. They eating every night like they’re at the Ivy.

Posh freshers get extra points if the mini fridge in their uni room is full of extortionately-priced M&S Ready Meals because they were too privileged to learn how to fend for themselves in the kitchen. Nothing screams “I’m from the home counties” quite like forgetting to turn an oven on because you’re used to cooking with an Aga.

Le Creuset ramekins

A middle class kitchen starter kit

Most freshers get the cheapest pots and pans they can find in IKEA, knowing that it’s not worth spending more money on something that’s likely to be nicked or be permanently stained by congealed garlic bread or be chundered in by an obnoxious rugby boy. Posh freshers got a £1,711.00 Le Creuset starter set for their uni room, and they will definitely be objecting if someone tries to use their pan as a vomit-receptacle. Not that I’m speaking from experience.

Lacrosse stick

Lacrosse is a sport played only within Wild Child and Enid Blyton books and the most selective / snobby schools in the UK. I hear Exeter uni has a very large lacrosse team.

Burgundy trousers

My mother once told me “never trust a man in burgundy trousers”. The burgundy-trouser-wearing population have yet to prove her wrong. If you see a student in dark red corduroys, run. They probably have a painting of Margaret Thatcher in their room.

Personal shrine to deceased horses from childhood

I’d advise not saying “oh, that’s a nice picture of you on a pony” unless you’re willing to hear a twenty minute requiem for Bombalurina III.

John Lewis 100 per cent cotton bedding

Viscose apparently gives them rashes.

Dyson Humidify fan

Nothing screams “I have more money than sense” than owning a number of totally useless household appliances that take far longer to set up and clean than it would have taken you to just do the task without the gadget. Although a £700 glorified fan feels like the silliest contraption for a fresher to lug to uni, honourable mentions must go to garlic pressers, clothes steamers and strawberry stem removers.

Real physical magazines 

The Aga felt like the most appropriate backdrop

These people think nothing of splurging £5 on a magazine they’ll skim read two pages of then use to put their muddy riding boots on. Tatler and Country Living are the magazine of choice, because then they can go, “oh yah, my cousin made out with that model in the Selfridge’s toilets last month.”

Crystal decanter

Most likely belonged to their great-great aunt, the baroness Cassandra Pemberley-Brontë. This will be displayed high up on a shelf for purely ornamental purposes. If you dare actually use it to put tap water in, the posh fresher will scream so loudly that the townies file a formal complaint against the university.

Wall hanging

“Oh yah,” drawls Rupert Basset Cotswald, “I picked that up from this really crazy market during my gap yaaaaaah. I just wanted to travel and experience whole new cultures and totally different people, you know? So I went to Birmingham.”

Whole school photo

There is nothing more posh than freshers displaying in their uni room the fully mounted mahogany-framed whole school photo from their boarding school, St Taylorswift’s College for Privileged and Pretentious Ladies.

Chanel perfume

“Oh, I would never spent £245 on a tiny vial of perfume myself,” your new flatmate Chàppêlle-Röanne Hilton insists, “it was a Christmas present from my five-year-old cousin that he bought with his pocket money from that afternoon.”

Yoga Mat

Why would you touch the cheap foam mats in the studio that are infused with the sweat of countless plebeians?

Family heirloom jewellery

Instead of generic Zara hoops, the jewellery box of a posh girlie will contain sapphire and pearl earrings with dramatic backstories like “my great-great-great grandmama Georgiana Downton-Poldark wore these in Sicily to play croquet with empress of Austria-Hungary” and “these are the reason I no longer speak to my cousins”.

The very expensive and sophisticated jewellery that I have to pass onto my heirs

En-suite bathroom

Because the parents of the posh freshers will always fork out for a spennier uni room. None of the toiletries will be available to buy in Superdrug.

Whittard or Pukka tea

They have a box of PG Tips to offer the plumbers, and a box of vanilla roisbois chai with loganberry undernotes to offer the other history of art students.

Mugs from Emma Bridgewater or Susie Watson Designs or Cath Kidston

Bonus points if the mug has some form of woodland creature on that they enjoy shooting and serving on sourdough as canapés at dinner parties.

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• A rundown of the most middle-class things on the John Lewis uni ‘essentials’ list 2024
• Take this vibe test to see which Russell Group uni you should actually have applied to
• Here’s a guide to the girlie essentials you need to live your best life at uni