"This means that the learning process is always hurt by the examination process. That's stifling. People need time to go away and think until they've mastered it for themselves," he says.

But there are drawbacks to the English system, fellows say. "Third year is live or die. It's a lot more stressful. If you fail a course here, you can take it over. There, if you fail a field, you failed. There's no second go."

The exam system at Cambridge and Oxford plays a important role in student traditions. Exam results are posted by name, not I.D. number, "on a sheet of paper tacked on the wall of the senate house." In the maths tripos, the results are read from the top of a balcony in the senate house in order of finish to the assembled students and then thrown off the balcony, Taylor says.

It is the "most antiquarian and arguably cruel of ceremonies. People trek to the senate house at 9 a.m. and find out their fate," he says. In the past, the person with the worst score would then step forward and have a wooden spoon dropped on his head from the balcony, he says. "Everything's public and aboveboard; there's none of this I.D. number business."

Spoon dropping is not the only curious Cambridge custom. Because students apply to specific colleges within both Cambridge and Oxford, the colleges are more tightly knit than the Harvard houses. Each one has its own customs and identity.

"At some colleges, such as Caius, you have to wear an [academic] gown to dinner," Hurst says. And Chirgwin described one of the traditions involving Clare College--the all-women's college she attended at Cambridge--and King's College. "Once a month one of their drinking clubs comes to piss on our wall, and we all gather on top and throw eggs and flour down at them."

Although they live in older buildings--the earliest colleges date back to the 14th century--British students live better than their American counterparts, fellows say. "I find the idea of sharing [college] accomodations pretty horrible," said Chirgwin. "Living in [Cambridge] University, I had either one or two rooms which were not shared in any way, and what I had was normal." Housing is guaranteed all three years at Cambridge and during the first and third years by Oxford.

British students also consume more alcohol. The drinking age in England is only 18, so alcohol can play an official role in campus social life than in the United States, fellows say. "At Cambridge, students will get plastered every night. In America they go out and have ice cream. A lot of the student life there revolves around alcohol. Freshmen are legal, so we always have wine and sherry at formal dinners," Hurst says.

"It's quite disgusting," Chirgwin says.