‘It’s like the Scottish Upper East Side’: shame and snobbery as American students blamed for St Andrews classism

‘It can be quite segregated: the English hang out with the English, the Americans with the Americans.’ Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

When Sophie Rose Jenkins announced she would not return to St Andrews University this academic year because of her experiences of classism on campus, she did not expect much of a response. But in the two weeks since she published her story on LinkedIn, it has resonated with hundreds of others.

“Working-class students have been made to feel ashamed of their home life at university,” the former comparative literature and classical studies student wrote in a lengthy post. “Arriving at a university ranked first in the UK at the time from a background like mine, I thought I was doing everything right.