10 culture shocks you’ll defo experience during Edi Freshers’ Week if you went to state school

Going to Edinburgh University, you might notice that the ratio of privately-educated students seems to be quite high. Sometimes, when faced with loads of people from a small bubble, it can be easy to forget that you’re not alone but trust us, you’re not the only one.

With that being said, here are 10 things you might need to mentally prepare yourself for:

1) Being asked what your parents do at parties

Nothing prepares you for the first time a stranger randomly asks you what your parents jobs are. It seems baffling that anyone should care! Ironically, these same people typically don’t know what their parents do beyond “uhh I think my dad works in finance.”

2) Popular hobbies (horse riding, fencing etc)

Rich people hobbies tend to hark back to medieval times with sports like horse riding and fencing being commonplace. Turns out they’re not just restricted to movies about boarding schools.

3) Random celebrity/ aristocratic connections people seem to have

Suddenly everyone you know is family friends with Princess Eugenie or related to Benedict Cumberbatch in a giant intricate web of nepotism.

I love him so much, as do his eyes and facial features🩵✨️#BenedictCumberbatch pic.twitter.com/Ph92ENSC0Y

— Хŷдøжнųk🕊🏳️‍🌈 (@ChocolateElise_) September 5, 2023

4) Being the only person in a room who did A-Levels rather than the IB

Having to work out what your friends mean when they talk about how many IB points they got or whether they enjoyed studying Theory of Knowledge (whatever that is) at school is a canon event for all state school kids at the university.

5) The number of people who didn’t take out a student loan 

The crushing realisation that not everyone will be thousands of pounds in debt to the government once they graduate was illuminating.

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6) Seemingly everyone having their parents pay their rent 

Similarly, the fact that so many people have their £650 Marchmont flat or their en suite Pollock room entirely funded by mummy and daddy. You mean we’re not all breaking our backs working part time jobs alongside our studies?

7) People asking where you went to school 

People often seem to ask this as a way of sussing out your background and often in order to decide whether or not you deserve their time and respect. I can guarantee you’re not going to know my random inner city state school.

8) Everyone knowing everyone from private school

You walk into your first seminar and are immediately baffled by how friendly everyone seems to be with each other already. Perhaps they’re just really sociable and managed to make best friends within the first week? No, in fact they all attended the same boarding school and have known one another since they were children.

The 7 “Habits” of Highly Successful People….
⁰1. Eton⁰2. Oxford or Cambridge⁰3. Nepotism/cronyism ⁰4. Family wealth⁰5. Private Club memberships⁰6. PA, nanny & ghostwriter⁰7. Sycophantic puppet Journalists

— Bob (@bobrmitchell) January 19, 2023

9) People doing their weekly shop at Tesco and Sainsbury’s (or heaven forbid, Hello Fresh)

Apparently, we’re not all trekking to the Lidl in Newington for our weekly shop. If you’re not constantly tripping over your flatmates empty cardboard Hello Fresh boxes in the kitchen or hallway, consider yourself very lucky.

10) People living in the Quartermile

Yeah turns out people actually live in those beautiful yet intimidating glass apartments off the meadows

Related stories recommended by this writer:

• 10 pieces of advice you need to hear before starting at University of Edinburgh
• What we learn from listening to Edinburgh University’s state school students
• Over 10,000 Scottish students denied university accommodation each year