St. John's!

Finally, it's official. Or, at least, another thing is official among all the hurdles of getting into and attending Oxford. In the strung-out bureaucracy of Oxford admissions, I heard first that I had been accepted into my proposed M.St. program in English literature from 1900-present. Excellent. One step down. The next step: get accepted into one of Oxford's colleges or another. I'm still not entirely sure how the college admissions process works, and I'd been told I wouldn't receive this decision until late April or May, but it positively dragged on. First I heard informally, about two or three weeks ago through the Rhodes registrar, that I'd indeed been accepted into my first-choice college, St. John's, but I hesitated to tell many people beyond my immediate family and some friends. It wasn't official, it wasn't set until I got that email with a formal offer of admission, and I didn't want to jump the gun. Several other people I know who will be at Oxford next year had already heard back about college decisions, and so I sat and waited.

Yesterday I got the email. "[W]e are very pleased to offer you a place at St. John's College as a graduate student..." I breathed a sigh of relief. Then immediately, of course, I started looking up more information on St. John's than I ever had before. Time to get my heart set on it at long last, so why not? Here's a bare sketch of what I found (much of which reminds me that, indeed, I'm about to step into a different world at Oxford):

St. John's is one of Oxford's largest colleges, with around 390 undergraduates and 250 graduate students. (Still, that doesn't compare with even my Stanford Class of 2012, even though there will be other Oxford students from other colleges milling around.) It's one of Oxford's old, classic colleges, founded in 1555 during the counter-reformation. It currently has the largest endowment among all the Oxford colleges (and owns a lot of land in and around Oxford, including the pub across the street, which it also operates!). Notable alumni include Tony Blair and Phillip Larkin, as well as poet Robert Graves and apparently Jane Austen's uncle. It's in the center of Oxford, not too far from the English department building but also not in the heart of the busy city center with buses and tourists (I keep thinking I should be spelling this centre). The grounds are beautiful, though I suspect that, as at many Oxford colleges, one cannot walk on the grass...

In short, I'm thrilled. Two Rhodes scholars from my high school/New Mexico advocated St. John's to me when I first got the Rhodes, so I'll be continuing our mini-Southwest streak there. There are also a few other Rhodes scholars/Oxford students I've already made contact with who are in the college, so I'll be among good company. Let the adventure begin!

Another piece of news: recently found out that I'll be traveling to Oxford for a week over the summer to meet with their Disability Advisory Services office to get an accommodations/accessibility assessment before the academic year begins in the fall. Very excited about that, and my trip will involve staying at St. John's, meeting some Oxford and Rhodes people I might be getting to know next year, and generally getting the lay of the land before October! More on this later...