“I Was Kidnapped; It Was Great”: The Real Academic Family Experience

According to the University of St Andrews website, an academic family, when third-year ‘parents’ adopt a number of first-year ‘children’, is a wholesome “system of mentoring”. Raisin Weekend, the culmination of the academic family experience, a time of “pranks and silly games”. However, after talking to a number of current and former St Andreans, I’ve found that these sanitised official descriptions might not be entirely accurate. 

A tradition involving the vast majority of students, some claim the concept of academic families has been around in some form since the University was established. Children with particularly pedantic parents may still receive a medieval request for a pound of raisins and a ‘receipt’ in some slightly wonky Latin come October. 

“Rampant, unhinged debauchery” is how Owen Jones describes his first-year academic family experience. 

Now graduated, Jones went through the adoption process during a time of Covid restrictions, which meant that the usual dinner parties and scavenger hunts that remain a staple of the academic family calendar also involved “constantly running from the police and university security”. 

Following becoming an academic parent himself, Jones sought to make up for the restrictions on his first-year when planning his own Raisin Weekend, which involved his children sleeping in zip-tied pairs all night and being awoken by the banging kitchenware at 4:30 in the morning. This was followed by a march to West Sands for a rousing relay race and an encouragement to “finish a bottle of wine before sunrise”.

To someone not familiar with the academic family tradition, this may seem a form of alcoholic sadism. But spend enough time deep in the cellar of Aikman’s or at a chicken wine-fuelled dinner party and you’ll be regaled with tales of intoxicated Raisin misadventures. Often told with an undoubtable tinge of bravado, St Andrews students, perhaps fully brainwashed by the cult of the red gown, will insist these were a load of fun. 

“I was kidnapped; it was great”, says Mathilda Singer, a third-year who met her academic mother at her first Clay Pigeon social. Singer reflects nostalgically on the first morning of Raisin Weekend, when she awoke with a bin bag on her head and put in a parent’s car to be driven around in circles before the drinking games began. “I was so confused”, she laughs. 

Luke Robinson, a second-year who met his academic mum because they shared the same second name, describes last year’s Raisin experience with his academic family in similarly fond terms. With the children made to share a pair of gender-segregated single beds in St Salvator’s hall, they woke early to the “really scary” sound of other invading third-years. “You hear the music or the sound of an alarm and you're like ‘they’re coming’”, says Robinson. 

They were then ‘kidnapped’ and led in a blindfolded conga line down to Castle Sands, where Robinson reports challenges included “shots of soy sauce” and “tubes of toothpaste”. After a much-needed midday nap, they returned to their parents’ flat for a rather more civilised black-tie dinner party. “It was a lot of laughs”, says Robinson. 

“I was hit by a car on Market Street”, recounts one third-year. “We were all wearing Where’s Waldo? costumes, the driver was definitely confused”.

One thing that these unusual trials do actually share with the university-sanctioned description of academic families is their ability to create lasting bonds between students. Robert Rayner, a third-year, considers the system important for establishing “mutuals” in older years. “If you don’t have it you have very little cross-year group interaction”. 

Every student I spoke to echoed this sentiment. “The only reason I have my flat is because of my academic family”, says Singer. “It really does set you up on a good trajectory for the rest of your uni career”.

However, often this close bond can become perhaps a little too close. Every student knows of an instance of ‘academic incest’ and every student seems to have an opinion on it. “My academic brother is going out with my academic mum”, reveals Robinson, who describes it as “good chat”.

“I think it’s awful” says Singer, who doesn’t believe anyone has “a success story from academic incest”. Meanwhile, Rayner states that, while it’s “probably still taboo”, the concept of academic families “would not exist” without it. 

Jones offers perhaps the most balanced take on the matter. “It’s fine”, he says. “Don’t move in with them though”.

All this talk may understandably have some freshers feeling that they’d prefer to remain an academic orphan. If this is you, fear not. You won't be forced to risk life and limb (or indeed liver) for some totalitarian third-year. In fact, you have the ultimate power when deciding your family experience: the ability to choose. 

“There’s a whole spectrum of academic families”, says Jones. He recommends that freshers “play the field a little bit” and “look for someone like-minded”. Singer agrees: “Join a few and figure out the vibe”. 

But don’t be fooled into thinking that selecting an academic family is a one-sided process. Parents can be picky too. Singer says her plan for the coming year is to find a big group then simply “cull whoever’s boring”.

Illustration: Calum Mayor