To want DS to go to the best university?

[Oilrigger]

DS now has five offers from universities: three Russell Group, one a well-regarded uni but not RG and one a newer university (former poly years ago) offering him BBC (he is predicted AAB). The courses are pretty similar at all five unis (can't go into more detail because he would be furious if he found out I was posting on MN!).

He is adamant that he wants to go to the former poly because he likes it the most. He also reasons that he will have a more enjoyable and less pressurised time there and that he is more likely to get a good class of degree (2.1 or 1st) from the ex-poly - rather than a 2.2 from a Russell Group uni that he just scrapes into. So he is going to firm the ex-poly (he won't have/need an insurance as it is his lowest offer).

AIBU to want him to firm one of the more prestigious Russell Group unis and insure the former poly? DH says I am as it is DS' decision and he's the one who will be going to uni.

I agree with those saying it must be his choice. But this bit puzzled me:

"He also reasons that he will have a more enjoyable and less pressurised time there and that he is more likely to get a good class of degree (2.1 or 1st) from the ex-poly - rather than a 2.2 from a Russell Group uni that he just scrapes into."

He'd have to achieve the grades requested, so how would that mean he had "just scraped" into it?

Let him make the decision. Half the point of going to uni is to experience being an adult, away from home and that comes with making their own decisions (including any mistakes).

Anecdotally, out of my friendship circle the highest earning friend didn’t go to uni at all and went down the apprenticeship route and the one that got a 2.1 from Oxford is on a very average wage so in the long run I really don’t think it matters.

It's his life and he's the one who's got to live in that place and attend that Uni so should go where he feels he will be happiest.

RG does not mean automatically mean good student experience. It's based on research capability so the teaching could be rubbish (the theory is that if they do great research then they have interesting things to teach, but they could still be rubbish at teaching it). Yes it might be a mistake but I suspect it isn't. He needs to be somewhere that he wants to be with a course he wants to do, and that's so much more important than being somewhere prestigious, as long as the course isn't something so specialist and unusual that it would put off most employers.

As an employer, we decide who to interview with details like uni removed from the CV (by someone not involved in the decision). When we do look later in process, often someone from a more middling uni in terms of reputation is a better fit to come in at a graduate level than someone from a prestigious uni who thinks they are too important to do the basic graduate level tasks. We also have good experiences with grads who didn't do so well at school but did brilliantly at uni - they are generally on an upwards trajectory, often having had to battle hard to get to uni in the first place.

I've visited lots of unis with DD over the last year and her decisions have been based on course, campus, city, students, staff, and just generally how it felt when she was there. Her firm choice is the one with the second lowest grades of her five offers and I absolutely think it's the right choice for her, even though she will probably get the grades required for the others as well. It happens to be RG but I'd have still supported her if it wasn't.

All you can do anyway is give your opinion and hope that it works out well for him. And if it doesn't he hopefully can't blame you - though teenagers can usually find a reason to blame their parents for everything!

lots of employers now haven’t got access to where you did your degree only what you did and what grade. What about CVs?? I don't believe this. An employer will want to know where someone has gone to Uni!

@piedbeauty as I said further down the thread DS1 is a graduate applying for jobs now and the majority don't accept a CV and the application form is blind. So no information on sex, uni, grade, religion etc. They match to the person & job spec only.

No. Lots of RG universities attract funding enough to have these facilities. Non-RGs don't consistently attract those funding levels.

Interesting @KStockHERO . How does that stack up against the fact that there are 5 or 6 non-RG universities in the top 20 rankings for biology and biological science?

DD1 was at Nottingham Trent some years ago and chose it because the labs were so much better than most other unis for her particular interests.

Ditto with DD2 here @GnomeDePlume, though the nightlife might have been a factor too! She had a great time, lots of partying, lots of representing the university at sport all over the country. Oh, and she did well enough to go and get a Masters (with Distinction) from a university ranked above Cambridge and every other RG university bar Oxford for her particular field of STEM. She has experience in biosecure labs and is currently looking into PhDs. If she were into cell engineering I'm pretty sure she could cope in KStockHERO's DH's lab despite her first degree being from a post-1992 university.

Hi OP,

I understand your thoughts.

Speaking from a personal perspective I have studied at a former poly & a old traditional/highly regarded uni.

I genuinely regard the knowledge base of lecturers, quality of teaching & practical experiences offered to me to have been superior at the former.

Perhaps this was exceptional, I can only speak
for myself.

I don’t know how recruiters would view this, perhaps they are judgemental on these matters.

Perhaps your son just had a gut instinct that the old poly was more appealing, it needn’t have been that he thought he’d have an easier life there.

I know in terms of pay etc, I haven’t had the edge over others for completing my education at the posher pile of bricks.

Someone on WIWIKAU's DC firmed Essex over a UCL offer.

I thought that was a strange choice.

I genuinely do work in a similar field and I agree with pp that only employing RG graduates is elitist. I actually went to an RG uni, got no hands on cell culture experience and have had a successful career for >20 years. We employ graduates from all backgrounds and manage to train them up just fine even if they haven't had this specific experience.

I have worked in graduate recruitment at a firm which would be considered an aspirational place of work in MN world. Yes, we do remove university name for the first round of assessment so RG or not, it doesn’t matter. However we leave in Alevel grades and use them to assess candidates. Generally university standing and Alevel grades are closely linked.
Obvious exception is law, then university definitely matters.

My Dd missed out on Manchester by one grade, needed AAA for law, got AAB, she ended up at Manchester met(ex poly) and has absolutely thrived. Start of university is stressful.enough without being somewhere you really don't want to be.

And my experience was the exact opposite. Too many variables to let either of our experiences sway OP.

I don’t know either.
I think he got carried away reading about Irish history and was scared something would happen to him.

He obviously didnt have all the incite you do.

Luckily I advised him otherwise.

Umm yes. But one of the balances in parenthood is to let your kids experiment far enough to learn, without doing themselves significant damage in the process.

It's important to save your interventions for when not intervening might cause significant damage. In this case, potentially significant lifetime financial damage.

I would still maintain that someone who wants to choose a specific university for a course because they think it will be an easy ride is not really making the choice for the right reasons and should be encouraged to defer making that choice until they have a more mature outlook and are more clear about what they want to do in life and how they want to go about doing it.

My daughter went to a RG Uni and dropped out after the first year as felt it was. Just concerned with academia and no life skills! She qualified with a 1st at a non RG Uni and the support for jobs, mental health, peer support was amazing.

She was a straight A student but the RG Uni did not suit her.

It's his choice as an adult 18 is more than capable of choosing his life choices You should back off

100%

Well the housing is definitely going to be cheaper.
One of my DS dropped UCL and Imperial for others.

Just because they’re big names doesn’t mean everyone’s supposed to be desperate to go there or indeed that they are suited to everyone.
In that sense they’re the same as everywhere else.

Maybe they wanted a campus based uni, maybe they hate London, maybe they didn’t want to spend so much on rent, maybe they hated the course or assessment methods. So many very good reasons.

You never thrive in an environment your not happy in

being polite this is his life his future and his choice

have an opinion by all means offer advice but leave it there
the apron string need to go I’m afraid

In larger companies with HR dept they remove details such as name of school/college/uni before passing info to the hiring manage. It’s becoming very common practice to leave out this, plus any other info relating to sex/age/religion etc

Many employers now use cv blind recruitment particularly for graduate schemes

As you know it is up to him but to simplify it, yes to me notcaying you are, it comes across as a 'it sounds better if to go to Oxbridge' not that it is better

He needs to do what is right for him

Yea YABU. He needs to go where he will be happy

I don't believe this. An employer will want to know where someone has gone to Uni!

This is simply not true for the majority of employers. Might be true for a few specific companies/professions. Although the major corporate I worked for did know which uni someone went to (they might be blind now I don't know) it made no difference whatsoever where someone got their degree from. A degree simply shows that someone has a particular academic ability (we only wanted 2:1 or a first). Selection is more about all the other skills/competencies/characteristics that make a candidate a good match for the company and the role.

There are quite a few saying a 2:1 at a top uni is equivalent to a 2:2 at a lower rated one. I think in terms of difficulty it may be true but not for value in applying for jobs. With exceptions like law.

I know someone that got a 2:2 at St Andrews and they found it really hard to find a position as most graduate positions require a 2:1 minimum. They just ended up in a job they could have got without a degree. Had they gone to a uni with a lower rating and got a 2:1 there I’m sure they’d have had better prospects.