Top Unis - am I missing something?

Be very careful OP.

I have seen carnage when kids didn’t reach the predicted grades when their parents (and communities in some cases) had set them up for a fall by having a list of “acceptable” universities and the rest.

It is insane to consider Bristol, Bath and others as not good enough! These are full of kids with straight A-star/A grades.

I speak as someone whose child is in one of the universities you deem acceptable so this isn’t a chip on my shoulder.

Your daughter is a young adult as well as your child @OnTheRoll

She is making intelligent choices based not just on the perceived status of a uni but also on where she feels she will be happy.

Bath is an excellent campus uni in a nice safe city, the same is true of Exeter & York. Bristol is not a campus uni so may not appeal to her. The best uni for her will depend on subject choice as they all have their strengths and weaknesses.

It’s the minimum requirements for those courses. Some of those university and courses have students that surpass the minimum requirements as they are so competitive.

so yes the OP is naive

I agree about Warwick. I've heard so many good things about the teaching there, especially for politics and maths. Every child i know at Bristol is loving it, and im also crazy about it as a city... She will find plenty of high achievers anywhere she goes. Tbh we are as a country making progress at last towards not seeing Oxbridge as the be-all and end-all, because we are not aiming to produce only one type of person any more.

Depending where you are in the SE, the train to London from Durham is around 3 hours.

She doesn't have to travel to you for family events- you could go to her!

Also, I thought most first years lived in Hall?
It's only after that they move out into flats/ houses.
So she'll have had a whole year to make friends.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/ng-interactive/2023/sep/09/best-uk-universities-for-politics-league-table

Not sure I really see the issue. If she has top A level grades employers are going to take that into account as well as her university. It's never going to be wasted effort. And if she is that bright she'll be in the top cohort in her uni which will stand to her.

Not sure why all the angst about Edinburgh and Durham based on the list above? But student satisfaction scores are one factor, employer and post grad uni's in the USA are a different lens.

5 hours is really nothing. You could easily spend that schlepping across London from a midlands uni depending on where trains come in and exit from. Cambridge as a "campus" I suspect is more of a London experience than Aberdeen would be.

Has she considered Southampton? It’s Russell Group and on a (leafy) campus, yet still easy to get into the city.

I’d recommend she choose the location over the course. She’ll be moving to a new area on her own, where she may well have lifelong ties, so important she feels happy and comfortable there.

I wouldn’t worry about the course requiring lower grades. If she gets top A levels grades, they’re her grades for life. The important thing is that she’s happy and not under too much pressure. Student days should be just as much about having fun, learning life lessons and making friends, as academic success.

What career does she want to do after her degree?

If she is actually interested in politics....why not Edinburgh which has a different political culture and will make her think a lot more than staying in England. Or London where Politics is all around you

Whether your daughter is doing too much really depends on the kind of work she is doing. If she's extending herself with lots of reading, that's the kind of habit that either will get her into Cambridge or will see her achieve highly in her cohort elsewhere, as well as setting her up with wider knowledge and critical thinking skills for life, so is to be encouraged. Endless memorising of a textbook is less good a use of her time if she doesn't need to spend ages doing that for the top grades she want.

As an aside, in one of your posts you suggest that she has already applied to Cambridge but has two options left to choose on her UCAS form. As far as I'm aware, this isn't possible - if she has applied to Cambridge then her UCAS form will have been submitted by the October desdline. Have I misunderstood what you have said?

I think this a good problem to have and she should maintain that work ethic. This opens up a whole host of choices and sets her up well for managing her uni course, wherever she chooses to go.

This is simply not true.

Oxbridge don't have enough places for everyone who is "clever enough" and a high achiever.

Applying to Oxbridge is like entering a lottery for a place. There's no magic formula of having the right grades, a high entry test score and enough super-curricular achievements.

It does help if you have all of the above but also tick extra boxes for the Uni though, so that they can show diversity/inclusivity.

How awful for your family that you have a focused and high achieving child

Look at Politics and IR at Bath (with it without a placement year)

I lived in South East

I went to a Scottish uni, which was my first choice (after viewing many others)

I really enjoyed my time at uni & made many life long wonderful friends. We are in contact regularly & support one another.
I also attend some of the reunions of a group that I joined while there.
I went to a reunion earlier this year in a beautiful part of Scotland.

Cheapest Megabus that I paid was £6.50 return London to Glasgow & that was in the last 10 years.

Since I have graduated no employer has ever criticised which uni that I attended. However, I have had to supply all my original qualification certificates O & A level, Degree, post degree

Whilst at uni, I made the most of my time there. I did not want to go home. I spent my time exploring Scotland.

Many young people travel for a gap year or for holidays. So your theory about the uni being too far to travel is ridiculous.

Let your DD choose the uni & let her enjoy her time there !

Students dont go home more than once a term /only between terms.

She won't be able to do that at Oxbridge.

St Andrews & Edinburgh are heaving with A star Oxbridge rejects from SE!

Is the language she has already got an A for a home language? If so, some unis may not count that e.g. LSE. Just something to keep in mind. If I understand correctly, she is doing 4 A Levels so not a big deal, but the language may have been unnecessary work.

But she's still shy, wants to cling onto coming home more than once a term, and wants a campus based uni?

How is she going to come over at interview?

Oh how awful

I find this so sad @OnTheRoll Your DD has completely lost sight of herself as a person and only views herself as a commodity. She’s in for a very tough time in life.

OP you appear not to be familiar with how recruitment works these days.

All of my children went to top 10 unis.
Two are now snr managers and recruit in their roles.

Some of the most disappointing candidates they interview have been from Oxbridge. And some failed their 3 month probation period.

The reason was often down to personality, soft skills, and not being a team player.

Nothing to do with intelligence or Oxbridge degrees.

Employers want far more than a degree and it's not clear if your DD is doing anything with her life other than studying.

She may not be offered a place because of this.

Your daughter needs to develop her confidence because it sounds as if wanting to be on a campus and not too far from home are going to limit her unless she becomes more outgoing and confident.

All parents need to think what they actually want for their children. Surely it's to be happy. Does slaving away to get to a certain uni lead to a happy life? Or will they be just another cog in the 9 to 5 grind?. It's setting them up for disappointment and worse.

I knew a very gifted girl. Top marks in every subject, head girl, sports team captain, gifted musician. She got a place at Cambridge to do a science degree. The day before she was due to leave for uni she jumped off a cliff. End of a talented life. No-one saw she was struggling with the insane pressure. Very sad.

Well most schools don’t allow 4 a levels so universities don’t require that.
She might not actually get 4a stars and an a versus a star isn’t massively different so the course will still be full of very comparable people

When I try to point out gently that people in Oxbridge and LSE too have fun, she says that no,

I went to LSE - got a 1st - had lots of fun! Does your DD know anyone at Uni she could talk to?

Scottish universities default to 4yr degrees because if differences in the secondary qualifications, but if you go in with very high A-levels you can have the option to go into 2nd year and make it a 3 year degree (and you'll still get an MA rather than a BA for relevant subjects, for science it's BSc(Hons) regardless of 3 or 4 years). I went to a Scottish uni and had the option of going into 2nd year but chose not to - which I'm glad of, as it made the 1st year an easier run-in on my weaker subject and a lot of the social relationships are formed in the first year.

The ECML connects a lot of universities - York, Durham, Newcastle, Edinburgh, St Andrews, Dundee, Aberdeen - and travelling up and down at the beginning and end of term there was a great onboard community when I was doing it. But part of my decision in picking a university further away was that I was not intending going home in-term. If you're in the South-East then the logistics come down to how easily you can access KGX. A weekend home to most parts of the SE from Edinburgh or Durham is possible with an early finish on a Friday and going back Sunday afternoon.