Sources on Oxbridge life life during the 60s/70s for a female academic.

[sian_shoe]

The era I am setting my story in is vaguely 70s and vaguely Oxbridge, and my main character is a post PHD researcher stuck in a small museum similar to the Pitt Rivers, doing grunt work and going through that awful “so what now” grey dirge that happens post education in your mid 20s.
There's a discovery of 112 letters set in a psuedo medieval land,

Comments

[anonymous]

If there is no reason for her to board, she could have received a good education and got good A levels attending a fee-paying academically orientated girls' high school, perhaps one of the GDST schools or something similar or a grammar school. Academic ability would be the main thing - she'll have to do very well at O levels and A levels. There would also have been an entrance examination which could either be sat "4th term", that is the autumn term before sitting A-levels, or 7th term, ie the autumn term after sitting one's A -levels. If she sat 4th term and got offered a place, her offer might be two "E"s, but it would have to be obvious to the college that the student was more than capable of 3 or 4 A's. (This was a godsend to a friend of mine who was offered a place at an Oxford college and came down with glandular fever the Easter before her A-levels - even half awake she got Cs and Bs in her 4).
She would have applied to a particular college, and if they liked her papers, she would have been asked for interview. She might well have had an interview with the subject tutor of the college she applied to, and one with the head of the college (who seemed to be looking for evidence that we would continue to work hard without such close supervision and took an interest in current affairs as well as our own areas of enthusiasm.
For the examination, you were expected to offer papers in 3 subjects, which were essays designed to show whether you could make connections and think for yourself using your subject knowledge.

[nineveh_uk]

I second the academically-oriented fee-paying day school. She'll need good A-levels, but the school may also have University contacts who can support an interview and give her tips.

[sian_shoe]

this is set in the 70s, where the a level/school system was a little bit different. She's post grad, so am going the route of Oxbridge being postdoc, which gives me more wiggle room .