Choosing your university

The question that we are most frequently asked is "Which is the best university for studying my chosen subject?"  The short answer is that we don’t know.  But, in any event, it is not the right question for you to ask.  The question that you should ask is “which is the best university for me?”

 

Discuss your choice of university with others, but do be wary of those who do tell you which are the best universities, or even which are the best for you.  Ask yourself how recent is their knowledge of that university and whether they have compared that university with others in a rigorous way?  Remember that universities change rapidly.  Departments can often improve (or worsen) as tutors and professors retire and new staff are employed.  Course contents do change.  Also remember that reputations are often based on prejudice.

 

But it’s not just the course content you will be looking at; there are many other factors that you should consider.  Look below for a list of these.  It is crucial that you visit universities yourself and ask questions when you are there.  The page on Prospectuses and Open Days tells you what to look for and what to ask.

 

What about Oxbridge?  Oxford and Cambridge are very hard to get into. The application procedures are different.  And above all they will not be interested in you unless you have genuine intellectual enthusiasm.  The Oxbridge page has much useful advice but you should also spend a considerable amount of time looking through the Oxford and Cambridge websites.

 

Some students look beyond the UK for their higher education and American universities are often attractive.  As with all other non-UK institutions, these are outside the UCAS system.  Look at www.fulbright.co.uk

 

What sources of information are available?

There are some excellent books which describe the universities and colleges, which tell you what they are good at, and what sort of grades you are going to need for specific courses.  For example, the Times Good University Guide has a profile of all the major institutions and league tables of universities that can be helpful.  There are other, similar guides – the Guardian Guide and the Virgin Guide are examples, and these are available in the Careers Room.  

 

The UCAS – www.ucas.com - website also has useful data on every institution and has links to their websites.  The University of Wolverhampton has created an excellent interactive map which shows where all the universities are; it has hundreds of useful links, including those into all the university websites - www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/ukinfo/uk.map.html.  The Higher Education Statistics Agency – www.hesa.ac.uk - has useful data on the performance of all universities and colleges.  There are many other useful websites - look at the Useful websites page.

 

In addition, there are prospectuses for all the universities – these are available in the Careers Centre - and every university has a comprehensive website.  You can also find "alternative prospectuses" online written by student groups at www.unofficial-guides.com.  All departments produce their own brochure that has more information about the course content than the university prospectus – look at the websites to see how to obtain these.

 

You cannot make an informed decision without putting in lots of research.

 

What factors should students consider when choosing universities?

Does it do the right course?  

This is of central importance.  Courses with the same name do not necessarily have the same content. ( Eg, French courses might have a heavy language component, or be mostly the study of French literature, or might include much study of the history and culture.)  You should check the course details carefully, using the prospectus and the course or department booklet, or the university and department website.

What grades are required for entry? 

These vary hugely.  For example, Biology will require AAB at Oxford, ABB at Durham, BBB/BBC at Exeter, BCC at Essex, CCC at Brunel, CDD at Coventry and EE at East London.  Discuss your predicted grades with your subject teachers to get an idea of the sort of institutions to which you might apply.

How is the course taught and assessed? 

You might ask yourselves what methods suit you best.  Some prefer formal lectures, others prefer just to be allowed to get on with it.  Some prefer continual assessment, others end of year exams.

How far is it from home? 

Students often are clear that they don’t want to be too close to home but are happy to consider universities like Durham and Scottish universities, without considering the implications.  Because of the distances involved, parents may not be able to take you up and down to university, and the amount of gear you take – computers, music stuff, sports gear, cooking utensils etc, may make train travel difficult.  Some students do get homesick and it will be very hard to get home for a weekend from that far away.  And the cost of travelling that far is high.  However, this is changing as more airlines fly from Newquay to university cities in the U. K.

Where is it?

A big city, with all the attendant advantages and disadvantages, or a smaller city or large town.  Birmingham is a large city with all the social and cultural facilities that one might expect, but also many of the problems that we might associate with big cities.  Cardiff is a little smaller, and perhaps on a more human scale.  Canterbury (Kent Univ) is a small city, little larger than Truro, with similar social and cultural facilities.  The key question that you have to ask yourselves is what sort of university experience do you want?

A campus or a city university? 

Civic universities and some of the new universities are in city centres, while most 1960’s universities are located on greenfield sites outside of cities and towns, often several miles away from the city centre.  Again, what sort of university experience do you want? 

How big is the university?  

Some are very large – Manchester has nearly 24000 students, Warwick has nearly 17000 while Lampeter has 2700.

How high is the cost of living? 

Many students consider universities in London – for good reasons – but are not aware of the financial implications.  Student loans are higher for students in London, but do not begin to cover the extra cost of living, with very high rents (remember years 2 and 3 will be in private housing, and rents will need to be paid over vacations), very high travel and all other costs.

What is the accommodation like, where is it and how expensive is it? 

Many universities are moving over to self-catering in a big way, others still have much catered accommodation.  Some still have some shared rooms (Exeter and Surrey, for example).  Some universities have most housing on site, others have housing that is several miles away.  Some universities can accommodate all first year students, others cannot.  Some university towns have plenty of private rented housing for the 2nd and 3rd years, but others have little and students find themselves travelling substantial distances (some students at Kent live in Margate, about 15 miles away with no train service).

Does it offer the right activities? 

Look at what is available.  Students that want, for example, to continue to play a musical instrument should look to see if there is a university orchestra.

 

Are there different types of university?

Each university has a style and character of its own, and you should think carefully about what lifestyle you want before choosing the ones to which you will apply.  We can broadly categorise the universities as follows:

 

Civic Universities:

Bristol, Cardiff, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield.

These are sited centrally in major cities and do not have a clearly defined campus; the city is mixed in with the university.  The halls of residence, which are usually some distance from the university, often have their own community feel.

 

City Campus Universities: Birmingham, Exeter, Nottingham, Reading, Hull, Leicester, Southampton.

These are universities that have developed just outside the centre of their cities on a clearly defined campus, often with academic buildings and halls of residence in the same area.

 

Greenfield Campus Universities: Bath, East Anglia, Essex, Keele, Kent, Lancaster, Surrey, Sussex, Warwick, York.

These are universities that were built in the 1960s and have continued to develop since then.  They are designed as self-sufficient, self-contained social and academic units and are located outside towns on what were Greenfield sites.  They usually have all their residences on site though some are being forced to build off-site as they are out-growing the original site.

 

Technological Universities: Aston, Bath, Brunel, City, Loughborough, Salford, Surrey.

These have close links with industry and offer many courses with a strong practical and technological bias and relatively few purely academic subjects (such as English or history).  They usually have very good graduate employment records.

 

Scottish Universities: Aberdeen, Dundee, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt, St. Andrews, Stirling, Strathclyde

The Scottish higher educational system is different from the English and Welsh system.  Almost all courses are for 4 years.  They are unusual in that students are generally admitted to a faculty and not a department.  You can often select three or four subjects in your first year and can "experiment" in your choices, and are then admitted to your honours course in the second year.  Not true of all subjects, though; for example, medicine and law.

 

New Universities: Anglia, Bournemouth, West of England, Coventry, De Montfort, Greenwich, Hertfordshire, Kingston, Leeds Metropolitan, Luton, Middlesex, North London, Oxford Brookes, Plymouth, Portsmouth, South Bank, Teeside, Westminster and many others.

These are former Polytechnics and Colleges that have become universities since 1992.  They are often an amalgamation of several former colleges and can spread across several campuses.  At the lower end they can struggle to recruit, but others now compete strongly with the longer established universities, especially BUWE and Oxford Brookes.

Statistics

There are many sources of statistics about universities and their departments. Typically, you should interest yourself in figures such as:

• How well is the department rated by QCA?
• What is the ratio of applicant to places?
• What is the dropout rate from the course?
• How is the quality of the department's research rated?
• How good is the employability of graduates from your chosen universities?

But remember, you are not simply looking for "the best" - you want to find the course and the university that suits you.

 

What about league tables?

There are several league tables that purport to rank universities in terms of excellence; The Times and The Guardian both publish versions and there is a new on-line one at www.thegooduniversityguide.org.uk. which is interactive.   League tables do give you some information but it should not be the only piece of information that you use to select universities or even the most important piece.  The question that you need to ask is not ‘which is the best university?’ but ‘which is the best university for me?’ and this requires you to consider the wider range of issues indicated above.

 

What to do next?

Once you have narrowed down your search you need to start studying prospectuses and think about visiting a few universities.  See the page on Prospectuses and Open Days for more detail.  A good time to visit universities is during their terms, on a normal working day.  This will give you a better idea of the atmosphere of the place.  Try to persuade a parent to take you on a round tour of the universities that you are considering at half term.