I recently had the pleasure of being guided around two of Oxford University's colleges with my school, to which I was obviously wowed by it's beauty and historic buildings. Oxford University is the oldest English-speaking university in the world, and in 2012 had over 17,000 admissions, to which only 3,000 were accepted.

On arrival we were treated like students ourselves, by which point we were already running the stereotypical characteristics of an Oxford student through our head; intelligent, posh, and rich were the top three words we thought they had to be. However we were proven quite wrong. Although it was true you had to be quite intelligent, as 98% of 2012 students achieved AAA in their A levels, the other two were very false, as as much as 60% of last year's Oxford students came from state schools. Also, Oxford University has the highest financial and bursary help above any other university in the country.

We were given a sampled lecture on English, about the classin novel of Frankestein, learning about the differences between the original story written by Mary Shelley, and the updated version which was corrected by her husband Percy Shelley. It was a real insight on how different a lecture is compared to a school lesson, as the lecturer was a lot more engaging and got everyone involved with questions and answers.

We also took a walk around the botanic gardens of Oxford University, were huge greenhouses grow common and rare plants in different weather conditions. We were educated on how important some of the plants were, such as cotton and rubber, and how it would be very hard if we weren't able to grow them.

Being 4th in the list of the world's best universities, I was very surprised to hear how most of the students entered were just simply intelligent enough, and was glad to see that money was no objection for anyone to get in. It was a very positive thing to hear that pretty much anyone could be a student at the colleges as long as they worked hard enough, and I think this is a really good thing for people of my age to know: that money shouldn't be an excuse for someone not to achieve what they want.