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.

No I do get it and you are right, but it’s not all about law and finance. OP needs the whole perspective. I’m personally more about the person and the values not the £££££ - you can’t build a life purely on money and many of my ex uni friends (Exeter , law etc) got very burned out on high salaries earned in London and some regret putting off kids now, have divorced / flashy Sloane husband from Radley turned out to be a love rat, etc. I am aware these are all gross generalisations though as well !!! Many made their cash - all credit to them- and now live out in the Cotswolds/ Devon. I skipped that step and stayed regional, most definitely poorer financially but I think my life on balance has been happier than some? But yes, only sone? Can see all sides of this argument tbf. I still Got a nice home , garden and pension. Some of them (not all) seriously questioning what it was all for though . I work for a ftse STEM so it’s not as RG focused. So yea it’s different

If my example is anything, let the child do what he wants.
My dad didn’t let me… guess what I struggled for years, and ended up with what I originally wanted anyways.

@HedgehogB Ha. Yes. I’m surrounded by them! As I’ve said, it’s down to ambition and what makes you tick. If the DS in question is happy to stay local that’s down to him.

They’ve been called universities for over 30 years. Anyone with the ex-poly mentality needs to give their head a wobble. Let him choose where he would like to go. Far better to have a happy student on a course they want to do.

You are the absurd one here. How insulting.

The fact that the teaching of MFL is so neglected in the UK is no reason to give up on them altogether. By the time a languages teacher completes a PGCE, they will have Lea their language for approximately half their lives.

But hey, let’s bin languages altogether?! Hasn’t shouting louder in English has always been a foolproof way of making oneself understood when abroad?

Then you wonder why the English are unpopular in Europe!!

I can only offer my perspective. I worked at a mid level London law firm (around the top 60-70 mark) and when we went to recruitment fairs, we only went to Oxbridge, Bristol, UCL, Kings, Manchester and maybe a couple of others. Basically from those and from the general applications we would get, we would receive around 500 applications for the 23 training contract places.
We discarded anyone with a 2:2 and then anyone not from a good university. This wasn’t because the work was particularly hard, but just that when you have SO many people applying, we needed some way of sorting them. We didn’t have time to look at every application from Brighton or UWE, I’m sure there were some great people we missed, but if you have the chance of taking someone with 3 As and a 2:1 from Bristol over someone with BCC from Oxford Brookes, you’ll always take the “better” candidate, that’s just how it goes.
Having said that, law is quite particular and very competitive and it sounds like things might have changed since I was doing that 15 years ago!

How did you quantify a “good “ Uni?

@Parker231Law keeps details of where recruits come from. The universities are RG plus for the vast majority of recruits. At the Bar it’s even more narrow! The milk round quoted is about right with maybe Exeter and Nottingham thrown in. As it’s competitive, there are filters. Some will be on line tests and others will be scrutiny of application.

@jfl You don’t know what a MFL degree involves do you? That’s a bit sad really. I suggest you get better informed.

I keep hearing that love of job means more. Money isn’t important. Sadly it is if bank of mum and dad is bankrupt. Or you want to live in London. Or you live/work in an expensive area and want to save for a property. Even if you rent a property, you need a decent salary! Working at a low paid job with limited prospects might make you feel warm and cuddly but it doesn’t pay tgd bills. Certainly not childcare! Some DCs will eventually have to wake up and smell the coffee.

Also helping others snd earning well are not mutuality exclusive! DD helps plenty of people as a family barrister and makes money, plus, shock horror, did a MFL degree too!

Oh good, another lawyer has come along to detail their firm's archaic and snobby hiring practices. Look, if that approach works for them, bravo, have at it. Most professions and industries have moved on from the dark ages and take a more enlightened view. Also, most students don't want to become lawyers. A level grades are totally irrelevant to most employers hiring graduates. And totally irrelevant to most universities looking at Masters applications.

And FWIW if you were recruiting for a Formula 1 team, you would take an engineering candidate from Oxford Brookes over one from Bristol every time.

Sorry @TizerorFizz , that wasn't aimed at you! Cross posts x

I firm accepted my lowest offer too. It was below predicted. I loved the place on sight, took pressure off my A levels a bit and had a whale of a time living where I did. Hasn’t held up my career at all, but I didn’t want high flying stuff where snobbish views about the self selected Russell Group would be an issue.

I regularly interview graduates for our Graduate programme for a FTSE 100. They have to have a 2.1 or for it to be the predicted grade, then do verbal and numerical assessments and a phone interview with HR before they get to me. If they've done all they, they've proven their academic credentials. I don't pay much attention to the Uni tbh; I'm much more interested in how they can demonstrate the particular competencies we require.

Encourage him in his second year to look for summer placements or Year in Industry opportunities, then to apply direct to the grad schemes

Uni should be a great time of his life - let him choose!

Given that you haven’t said what subject he’s doing, or which universities he’s looking at, it’s kind of irrelevant anyway. I’m just explaining my experience. Doesn’t make it right, but some careers are specifically academic and will chose candidates from the best universities, the ones that take the most academic children. If he’s going into Formula One racing, then I imagine there is a “best” place for him to have gone for that. I don’t know anything about that, so yes, maybe Oxford Brooke’s is better than Bristol for that subject.
It sounds like he isn’t choosing a particularly academic path anyway as otherwise he would want to go to the university that was the most academically challenging, not the one where he’ll get the easiest ride.

We defined “good” as “top” - in other words, academically rigorous (Oxbridge, Kings, UCL, Bristol, Manchester, Nottingham, Exeter, Leeds, Durham, Warwick etc).

Except that the most academic children at 17/18 aren't de facto the most academic adults after 3 (or 4) years at university. That does not take into account the different teaching and learning styles at school v university, how some people thrive when they can narrow their studies down to a specific area while others might be better 'all-rounders' but aren't as well suited to really focusing in on one thing. There are so many different factors to consider and all the pedagogic research indicates that educational achievement is not linear, so just assuming the DCs with the best A level grades are going to be the best graduates has very little support from the data. They may be, they may not be.

I don’t doubt that - but companies have to use something don’t they? If you’re taking on doctors, a job where you obviously have to be very clever, retain a shit ton of info and be prepared to work really hard in a pressured environment, then surely you’d look at young adults who had demonstrated, through their exam results, that this was something they could do? And if there are (say) 50 places, 400 applicants, why wouldn’t you choose the ones with the best A Levels, the highest degree from the most academically rigorous institution? I’m sure some people DO get overlooked, but how are recruiters supposed to know that when they have hundreds of applications for these competitive places.

If you were choosing a tennis player for a scholarship, you’d choose the one who had won the most matches against the hardest players. You might look at one who’s won everything but when you see that they’ve played against people much less able than them, you’d rule them out. I don’t see why it would be different for academic study.

The people who blossom later aren’t doomed though, they can work their way up, or change jobs, progress etc. It’s not like it’s all over if you don’t go to the best university. It might be a bit harder to end up at (say) a top company to work for if your exam results aren’t great, but once you’re in any job, there’s normally the ability to prove yourself, if you’re good.

Equally, it sounds like there are loads of companies these days that don’t mind where you’ve gone to university, so he could work in one of these places anyway.

Always happy to hear about other people who have followed the path that DD is set upon! I completely accept that some people are happy with City careers, and care about salaries. But I wouldn't be happy in that sort of job. (I did summer work with a law firm in sixth-form and indeed through uni and it put me right off.)

I do get the feeling that my highly-selective Oxbridge degrees, plus my RG Ph.D., in very academic subjects "only" leading to a teaching career is sometimes seen as a "waste" by those City types. But it seems to me that as a society we should want teachers to be passionate, intelligent, and informed (insofar as I am those things!)

A lot of these posts argue their cases very well-but all the arguments in the world won’t cut it if the person doesn’t want to be where they are. It’s all very well arguing that to earn big bucks, it’s easier to get that if you’re from a top university-but that person has to want that very much in order to get the most out of it. My dd is very ambitious in her career and is always looking what she can do to get ahead. She wants life with a few bells and whistles so knows she has to earn a reasonable amount. But many people don’t want to earn 6 figures and can have a great life without that. There is a middle path between earning 25k and 250k-and many graduate jobs won’t get above say 70k. That’s a good salary if you look at earnings in the UK-yet some on MN only seem to value careers which only a few people attain.

Why are people banging on about their experience of recruitment 15 years ago? It's not like that anymore.

In much the same way as universities now make contextual offers, most businesses have realised they are overlooking an awful lot of exceptional talent by restricting their recruitment pool to a very small number of universities with a majority of privately educated students.

And the workplace is much better for it.

universities with a majority of privately educated students.
Which Universities are those?

Isn’t discrimination in recruitment against the law? A 2:1 is a 2:1 whether it’s from Oxford or from UWE, and to discriminate otherwise is against employment law

Which is ironic if law firms are doing this!

Are all 2.1s equal? Would someone from random bottom rank needing DDD who gets a 2.1 really get one if they were at Oxford? That doesn't make sense to me.

It's not the same, at all.

You compete against your classmates for your grades. Competition at a uni with BBC requirements is going to be less than competition at a uni with A*AA requirements.

This! Please stop trying to manipulate your adult son into doing what you want instead of what he wants. Are you sure there's not a touch of snobbery here?

I wouldn't worry about it too much, thousands of RG graduates end up in dead end jobs each year and thousands of ex poly graduates will end up as high flyers each year. Ultimately it will depend on his studies, his work ethic and his ability to maximise his networking etc for a post uni role that will mean as much as anything else.

I managed a call centre years ago and we had grads from all over - including Oxbridge - working on the phones at various times. In fact call centres are full of grads from all over so I'd focus on his happiness as if he's happy, he'll have the best opportunity to thrive, if not then it's much more of a crapshoot.