In the UK, getting into Oxbridge is nowhere near as difficult as getting into Harvard, Yale, Princeton. There are 24,000 undergraduate spots at Oxbridge for 60 million Brits, compared to 17,000 spots at HYP for 300 million Americans.
Also, the application criteria at Oxbridge is far simpler. It is based entirely on academic potential. British universities are uninterested in extracurricular activities and "well-roundedness". In the US, very smart students with perfect grades are rejected from Harvard because they weren't editor of the school newspaper, because they got a D in History in 9th grade, or because they couldn't write a good essay about "If you were going to sing a song in a talent show, what would you sing and why?" That doesn't happen in the UK. If you are smart, work hard in school and get good grades, you'll get into Oxbridge. The same can't be said for getting into HYP.
All of the British universities are public, so there doesn't exist the situation where students may choose to go to Berkeley instead of UPenn because they want to save money, or because they were offered a scholarship.
Which university you attend in the UK tends to be a better indicator of intelligence and academic success than where you study in the US.
From what your saying, that makes Oxbridge rather attractive for many people on this site, who were never interested in being "well-rounded" just for the sake of university admission.
However, I do think that the emphasis on the prestige of one's university in this country (these days, at least) largely stems from a good decade or so of policies pushing perhaps less-than-ideal candidates into higher education. The replacement of vocational training with degree-level equivalents has in many ways depreciated the whole university process, leaving employers necessarily needing to look for the 'value' of a degree anywhere they can.
I have to disagree, though, with the comment that anyone with brains can get into Oxbridge - from what I've heard, they seem much more obsessed with preliminary interviews than other UK institutions - potential applicants stay for several days of interviews IIRC. Many private school kids get special tuition to pass these tests, which is an advantage that state school kids don't have.
1. Did you go to public school? (i.e. privately educated) 2. Was either of your parents a doctor?
If you answered either of those with 'no', then the concensus was you could kiss that place goodbye.
Actually, this is a question I've thought about a little too much, I'd wager, because, as a prospective undergraduate, I actually turned down an offer to read mathematics at Cambridge and decided to study at the University of Bristol instead. The latter is in itself a well-regarded institute, no doubt, but it cannot be said to have anything near the Oxbridge 'name-weight' (for want of a better term).
Do I regret my choice? In some ways yes, in some ways no. The decision was very much informed by my particularly working class background - I did not believe I would have 'fit in' to the predominantly upper-middle-class culture of either the university or the city that surrounds it. In hindsight, my opinion hasn't changed at all. Bristol suffers many of the same problems as a university, but as a city it is as colourful as they come.
I believe that forgoing the 'top tier' university worked such wonders for my social development (and, hence, my subsequent happiness) that I cannot bring myself to regret it wholesale. However, I can't help but feel there's an undeniable magic that happens when a highly selective and competitive institution brings a bunch of smart, young people together to explore their interests.
Being a part of that could, as the "Disadvantages of an Elite Education" article suggests, have ended up insulating me from the 'regular world', but there is the odd occasion where I cant help but wonder what could have been if I'd chosen to experience it. Maybe that's what it takes, you know? I try not to dwell on it for long, though - I've left that to my folks!
I've not planned to become a high-ranking politician or appear on BBC Radio 4 (yet), so a non-Oxbridge education hasn't hindered me much so far... Either way, though, I'm still (relatively) young and it will be a good few years before I can evaluate these decisions with any great degree of accuracy.
We'll see, I guess.