AIBU to think going to an RG university means absolutely nothing

@Timpot Most advice suggests dc have a bit more spread if you are aiming for an ultra competitive course. Of course they are not sensible choosing all selective universities but MN parents dc usually get in!

Maths is not ultra competitive everywhere. Comp Sci and Economics are more competitive. Many employers won’t look at university attended but doing little besides the degree isn’t great wherever you go. Also the rush to comp Sci is not sensible. Other degrees have similarities and are broader. Lots of options afterwards and comp Sci isn’t the best employment stats afterwards either. People are lemmings though!

I visited St Andrews on a day trip when we went to Edinburgh for holiday. Nothing there at all!

I didn't say that's the only debate, and it's not the opposite just a different point of view. Infact, WIWIKAU is worse than MN when it comes to arguing about equality of all universities.

The most important message we gave DT’s was to choose somewhere you think you will enjoy living for three years. DD turned down an offer from St Andrews as she thought it was too remote and instead went to York (as the partying was better in her opinion!).

As far as I can tell from WIWIKAU, the opposite is true amongst a hefty cohort of able young people. They are generally earnest young souls predicted 3As to 3A star range. They want to do economics, or maths, or comp sci. And they all apply to Oxbridge, Durham, Warwick, Imperial, UCL and/or one of Edinburgh, LSE, Bristol as the banker. And they get 4 or 5 rejections and are totally floored. They are getting very poor advice that as a top candidate they can take their pick, they don't spread their choices, they don't understand that every bugger applying to everyone of those courses at those unis is that same standard. And they think their life is ruined.
When better advice would have been to spread their applications across the top 15 unis rather than just apply to the same 5 unis every other aspirational middle class kid is applying to.
At the end of the day unless they want to work in London hedge funds or similar, whether they went to Exeter or Loughborough makes not a jot of difference to recruiters.

I think one thing we all can agree on, regardless of what university you go to, study hard and do your utmost best. Try to get a 1st, but a 2.1 is great. Choose modules you feel passionate about and excite you.

There are 24 RG unis , aside from the top 3 no earnings aren’t all better from RG. It’s ridiculous to suggest that.

In terms of getting a job, English at a poly isn’t a great choice. When you want a job you are selling your research skills and depth of understanding of the English language. Employers want you for your skills and English is a hard sell at the moment. So complexity can matter. English is way down in salary outcomes for grads and is not popular now. At anywhere less than top 20, be very very careful unless your cv is sparkling.

Posters on both platforms always leverage this when arguing that all universities are equal, which I know is not the topic here, (although the sentiment is very much thinly masked). It's always the same universities that are argued for. No one thinks non-RGs, aka St Andrews is inferior to Leeds or Bath to Liverpool, so using these as benchmarks of how great non RG's are is rather silly becuase these aren't the choices most people are faced with, it's usually should I have UEL as Insurance to Kings my Firm? why should I bother aiming for 3A's for an RG when Bath Spa has given me an unconditional to study Bsc Maths?? Uni of beds is right next door to me but should i stretch myself a bit and got to Notts to study English?? What's the difference?? Warwick was rude to me when i visited and although I think I'll be a shoo-in with 3 Astars, Sheffield Hallam gave me biscuits during their open day, and I'm thinking of firming them.These aren't perfect examples but I'm sure you get the gist.

I went to (what is now) a RG university. I got a place late through clearing thanks to mediocre A level results. So I do not, even retrospectively, regard myself as having done anything special. (Although it had and has an exceptionally fine library which I still use.) At the time I would probably have accepted any university / poly provided a) the course approximated to what I wanted and b) it got me away from home.

A lot depends on what you want from a course. If I had wanted to do English literature I think I would have been better off at a poly which would have been more practical and down-to-earth; it was the traditional university-based examining boards which set those wretched inscrutable English A level questions that put me off the subject.

Nowadays, influenced partly by the above, and partly by Bernard Crick, who took a chair at Birkbeck for just this reason, I tend to judge universities by how well they spread knowledge through the social scale, especially to mature students who missed university as part of what the late Conrad Russell (no relation) called the adolescent cursus honorum, which can often be taken too glibly. The ex-polys are often good at this. And remember that the late 19th / early 20th century universities were founded in response to a local need for scientific training in industry. Oliver Bulleid, training as an engineer on the Great Northern Railway at Doncaster, studied part-time at Sheffield and Leeds.

And some people just have no choice. You may know Jean Hartley's book Philip Larkin, the Marvell Press and me. A mature student, living in Hull with teenage children and very little money, she could not have gone to any university but Hull but, it is clear from the book, was certainly not short-changed.

100% agree, except the discussions never go like this on MN which is a shame.

It is clear that law and finance prefer to play it safe with narrowing their selection criteria to RG only universities, whereas employers from other walks of life either recruit university blind or don't have such rigid attitudes.

I always find on higher education threads that there are a lot of posters who work in the aforementioned professions, and posters who work in STEM and vocational professions are under-represented. Not everyone wants a career in law or finance, yet these careers often seem to dominate these discussions. Also, world rankings are meaningless to most students.

What a lot of the RG only university advocates don’t seem to have considered is that widening participation means that a lot of the more disadvantaged students often go to the local university because they can’t afford to leave home, or they may stay at home for cultural or other reasons. Not every student lives near an RG or other highly regarded university.

Lastly, being able to afford to go to Imperial, LSE, UCL etc is a privilege unless the student already lives in London. Even with a full maintenance loan a student will struggle financially unless they earn well while studying.

Disclaimer: I have no skin in the game as DD went to an RG university for undergrad and is at another for post grad.

🤣🤣as an aside it just occurred to me what you were saying there
he didn’t chose a Uni because he wanted to be beside the seaside

The sea and that particular coastline was very relevant to his degree

No I don’t think it’s meaningless.

on here the term is used in the specific sense in that people always point out it excludes places like bath Loughborough St Andrews etc.

what we should be saying is, does it make a difference if you attend a university which is highly ranked overall or not

the answer to that is, depending on what you want to do then yes. Going to a more highly ranked university will broadly give you wider options especially in law, finance, accountancy and management consultancy. Will it make a difference in many other sectors, probably not

in other professions the better courses are at the non RG unis. So for surveying you might be better off at Nottingham Trent and midwifery at Greenwich but ultimately a business grad from Plymouth and an economics grad from Warwick both applying to a grad scheme in the city are unlikely to be regarded equally

Doubtful any of that will stick for long
Unis are a hotbed for protests
Especially against wars they see as unjust.

It’s not relevant here anyway.
This is about UK Unis and not the Gaza conflict

My original statement was that "the shine has come off" the Ivy League uni's, meaning that their public image had suffered. The public opinion poll that I linked to proves that many people (47%) disapproved of how the universities handled the protests.

As to the level of chaos and disruption, I'm a New Yorker, so I was probably following the protests more closely that you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_University_pro-Palestinian_campus_protests_and_occupations_during_the_Gaza_war

They had to switch to remote learning for months because access to classrooms was blocked.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/22/business/columbia-tensions-passover-virtual-classes/index.html

That's quite a high level of disruption and chaos.

Finally, I guess I find Brits explaining American politics to me, an American, a bit tiresome.

I think when people say 'Russell group' they are including those of the same ilk like St A and Bath

No of course not
Aberystwyth had an excellent course with a tutor that was focused on his interest area.
It also did far more field work as it was all on the doorstep. The nearest a London Uni could do was go to a zoo or jump on transport to get somewhere.
Aber was definitely the best for him, his course just not an RG

Now he’s going to Exeter ( an RG ) and in a better place emotionally to deal with a bigger City.

@TizerorFizz Sorry, what's disputed by some? That Leicester is a red brick? It may not be as prestigious as others, but it is certainly a red brick and was considered a good uni 25 years ago for my degree subject. No-one suggested I should go to Liverpool instead, and as far as I recall they had the same grade requirements.

I've been back to Leicester a few times since I left in 2003 and it has increasingly felt run down and a bit grim. Not sure if that's seeing it through the eyes of an adult. It had the most bars and pubs per student in 1999, which I'll admit was a draw at the time 😂No idea what it's like as a uni now, given that I left 25 years ago and I have a six year old so universities aren't on my radar...obviously things will have changed a lot since 2003.

As someone who regularly reads CVs for graduate level jobs and interviews, I rarely think much beyond 'Oh right' for people's university. Oxbridge catches the eye but wouldn't sway one way or the other. I prefer someone has some work experience under their belt, they're likely to be more useful.

I didn't say that. Don't put words in my mouth.

I'm explaining that league tables and rankings are flawed and picking a university solely on its position in a particular league table isn't advised.

Looking at a subject ranking is a good place to start but an applicant should also look at subject level employability data, links with employers, course content, assessment methods, student satisfaction and student support and make choice which is right for them as an individual, rather than using one metric.

Nobody is saying all universities or courses are equal. I'm saying that it's far more nuanced than a league table position or membership of a particular mission group.

@DrPrunesqualer so he’s in the right place for his course then. That’s what matters. However I would not choose a university based purely on seaside!

Neither any good for his bachelors course
Although the postgrad at Exeter is

@DrPrunesqualer Induvidual dc usually work out if they want small town, seaside or big city though. Warwick is campus and so is Exeter and that’s near the sea. However course and job outcomes are mattering a lot more these days so many factor that in too.

I agree
My eldest turned down an RG on the morning of the results and quickly phoned Aberystwyth without even knowing if they had any places in clearing for his course.
He said he’d take a year out if they didn’t
I suggested the campus as it suited him better due to his anxieties.
His school had suggested big city RG Unis with halls all over the place and I had suggested a Campus based Uni. He went with the school because what do mums know.

I took him to Wales after his Alevels . He loved the campus. He loved the sea and the small town and that was it.
He never looked back, did extremely well and loved it
I think if he’d gone to a big city he would have dropped out or worse.

Now, after Aber he has so much more confidence and has worked, volunteered , travelled and now decided on a Masters at Exeter. He would never have done that had his first experience been stressful.

So
I agree
Choice should never just be about one thing and often schools that push kids towards the big names so they can boast about it ( as ours did ) don’t consider the individual

I have another son that turned down Warwick ( unconditional as he took a year out ) for RHUL because the course at Warwick was crap and RHULs ticked all of his boxes and more.

@HighLadyofTheNightCourt That is clearly nonsense in terms of choosing a university! Are you saying Economics has the same outcomes at Wolverhampton as it does at LSE? I agree ranking is a steer but it certainly should be in the thoughts of prospective students. For too long advisers have said “all degrees are equal”. “It doesn’t matter where you go”. For some elite careers it absolutely does matter and it’s poor advice to even think the tables are gamed and are meaningless. Try getting a London elite law job from a bottom end low tariff university . The odds are very stacked against these students. Other jobs like teaching and nursing are pretty much happy with anywhere. Horses for courses.