To think my DD should go to Edinburgh Uni instead of Kent?

[Girlypops154]

My DD has been accepted to Edinburgh to study Astrophysics and she has also been accepted to Kent University. We live outside of London and she says wants to be closer to home but I say she should go to Scotland because it’s a better university (she has also been accepted to St Andrews but we prefer Edinburgh). We are in a blessed position that we can afford the extra year up there. How do I get to change her mind as she has her mind now set on Kent but I really think going to an RG would be far better. She’s now getting annoyed at me because I keep insisting on Edinburgh. She has also been accepted to Durham and Aberystwyth but neither of them have got back to us yet. Any advice or am I being unreasonable? Thank you.

her only complaint about the campus is a 50 minute walk into town

@Sixgeese 50 mins???! What is she doing, hopping backwards?!! It’s approx 1.5 miles. How can she take 50 mins? It used to take me 20-25 mins downhill right into the very centre, obviously a bit longer coming back since it’s uphill part of the way.

Wow!, wow, wow!

our children do not belong to us, we do not make their choices for them, we trust that how we have supported and guided them growing up enables them to make valued choices and decisions in their life and for their future .

we believe that with the guidance and support we have given is a good solid foundation for them to make their own choices in life.

surely that’s what adults do?

Cities? Edinburgh yes, but the rest are small towns!

If she’s decided she really doesn’t want to go so far, I wouldn’t pressure her to do so. Being miserable at uni for more than the first few weeks is generally a disaster and being able to blame that misery on your parents makes it likely to be long term.

But I would suggest getting her to reconsider the universities she’s looking at and start looking at better ones that are closer to home. If she gets good grades she can release herself from her offers and enter clearing, or take a year out and reapply for 2027.

I would wait to hear back from all of the unis before making decisions - all of them will have post offer days which you should encourage her to attend. The unis have until May to reply to her anyway. Some might also pay her travel expenses, as unis are competiting for the "best" students and as a (home fees?) female wanting to study physics, she ticks a lot of diversity and ranking boxes.

I loved my Edinburgh degree (rejected my St Andrew's offer) and my brother went to Aberystswyth. Aber is very like St Andrews - small town on the coast with a comparatively large student population for the size of the town, traditions specific to the uni and a pain to get to (but worth it, if she wants that kind of experience) ... and Durham will be different due to the collegiate system. As others have said, at some point in the last few months she presumably wanted to go to all of them - what has changed? This needs to be her opinion/choice though, you cant force her to go somewhere.

That said, I also work in HE, at a top London STEMB university. I would not advise going to Kent in the current climate given the merger situation, but this is happening across the sector and will become more common unless government funding changes. But going somewhere that has already publicly stated it is in crisis does not seem a good plan, and I really feel for the staff there.

They don’t have to do as I want, only if they want me to pay for it.

But obviously, I want what’s best for them. What I think will suit their skillset etc. We make informed decisions together with advice from external parties. But they know that I have the deciding vote if they want me to fund it.

Absolutely. My kids could go off and be missionaries if they want. But if they want me to spend upwards of £20k per year on their degree, they don’t get a free choice. If they want to come up with the money to do it themselves, fine, be my guest.

And that’s also living in the real world isn’t it? As an adult, we don’t get to have whatever we want without paying for it ourselves, do we?

@Sixgeese Did she have the grades for Durham or St Andrews though? That’s the difference here I suspect. The Scottish universities and Durham are way above the other two in terms of research and prestige. For the degree the DD wants, this matters.

If she wants to be nearer home, then could she look at other unis in clearing? Edinburgh, Aberystwyth and Durham are too far for her, so why not look at more prestigious unis that are closer to home, depending on exactly where you live? Southampton maybe? Some of the amazing London unis?

As others have said, its her call if you push one, is she likely to pull another way.

That being said, is the more local option because she has a boyfriend she wants to come back & visit more easily.

If so i'd be steering here away from that option.

@boys3 Responses for student satisfaction are often in reverse to how challenging the course is. In terms of work, dc should try and drill down and find out what work. The field of work for dd here isn’t huge so what is everyone doing with the degree? I think surveys are flawed in many ways. Also students look for very different things in a course. Completion rates are not high satisfaction either.

@OhDear111 I honestly don't know. She did get higher grades than some of her friends who went to RG universities but that could be that they had lower offers or ended up on different degrees than they original applied for. but she is where she wanted to go to and is happy and that is all that matters to me.

@Sixgeese I tended to look more to future employment and not just happiness. Students are mostly happy but not post degree when they cannot get a job and this is increasingly common.

It could be the case of teenager exaggeration or too much chatting on the walk. She is in Parkwood and when we visited we stayed near the cathedral and she walked down to us. It makes sense that it is longer back than in as she does complain about the hill.

As PP have said, it's worth checking what has changed since she made her application. To put 4 'far away' choices and then plump for the closest. Is it possible that the reality of leaving home has kicked in and scared her?

which Uni is a head vs heart decision. DD for example, turned down Durham, Bath, Exeter and Bristol for Nottingham, but is loving life so obviously the right decisions for her.

What seems to be important is the uncertainty around the Kent merger. If she is likely to get the grades for Edinburgh and St Andrews, then I'm assuming there are a number of closer choices she could look at during clearing or take a year out, gain some confidence and then maybe feel happier being further away from home.

Edinburgh uni is in exactly the same position.

You will only pay if your children do what you want?

Are they? Edinburgh has over £900million in the bank. I’m not saying they haven’t made redundancies but I think out of proactive streamlining due to falling student numbers rather than desperation to not go bust.

I went to Edinburgh and left. I was miserable. It was dark and cold much earlier than I was used to (and I’m from Manchester) and was very public school dominated which was hard as no one had heard of my school (and I at 18 didn’t realise this was even a flex?!) and treated my northern accent like I lived on the cobbles of corrie.

the city is not a university city - it is a capital city with a uni scattered through it. It’s expensive, doesn’t really cater to students unlike other cities like Notts or Birmingham etc. and the freshers week was terrible.

ive never regretted leaving there for one minute and think you need to let your dd do what she wants to do. Her happiness is key.

Yes. These are not insignificant sums we are talking about. I will only pay for things that I think they will thrive at and will enhance their future.

For example… would I pay for a law degree at an ex-poly knowing that law firms are very sniffy when it comes to both universities and degree classifications and my child has an offer from a top law school? No I wouldn’t. It would be money down the drain.

Another example… would I pay for them to do an overpriced volunteerism gap year? No, I think they are immoral scams. I would pay for them to do a proper gap year travelling the world and picking up odd jobs here and there.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to not blindly pay for every whim and fancy when we are talking about 10’s of thousands of pounds. It needs to be an investment in their future.

It is getting harder and harder for graduates to get graduate jobs. Turning down an excellent course in favour of an inferior one is just madness in this day and age.

They don’t have to do what I would like them to do but I do have to believe their choice is the right one if I’m going to financially support it.

I’d take her to view them both and have a discussion about how much better Edinburgh is for the course she is looking to do.

University of Edinburgh scores lowest in almost every metric except research which has very little impact on undergraduate studies other than arguably better facilities which research money pays for.

It scores quite well in employability but this is not because employers favour it. The vast majority of employers in the vast majority of sectors do not care where your degree comes from. The reason Edinburgh scores more highly is largely down to the socio-economic status of the majority of its students. These are people with a degree of privilege and opportunity which is already an advantage for them in securing employment. They also have a very high proportion of overseas students. The sheer cost of that education means someone who is moving there to study is already more motivated to find employment when they leave. Not least because they often wish to stay in the U.K. and can’t do that without a job.

UoE trades on its reputation. The reality for students, particularly if they aren’t upper/middle class is very different. The largest proportion of their capital spend goes on buildings which can attract research and development. Their sports facilities (something they claim to see as important) are woefully inadequate and for almost a decade their board has refused to agree to invest in a new facility. They overspent on one of their research buildings to the tune of £50m, that could have build the new sports facility twice over. They spend very little on upgrading student accommodation or existing teaching buildings and have only just made their main union building accessible to all. Their estates maintenance and repair budgets are woefully inadequate.

Their failure to students goes way beyond “pastoral issues” it is a cultural decision within the UoE upper management. If they can attract students but spend very little on them, they will do it.

Smaller Unis have to try harder to attract students. This is why they tend to score better for student satisfaction. My daughter really wanted to study at Edinburgh, so I told her to do some proper research. She is opting for Dundee now as it is a much better fit for her.

She doesn’t need to make her decision now. My son waited until he started his final a level exams to see how he felt he was going and literally made his final choice on the afternoon on the last day (June?).
perhaps your daughter is worried about her grades

She could reject them all in that case, and try clearing??

If she wants to stay in the SE, but not London. others in the top 20 for Astrophysics are Exeter, Southampton, Surrey.

We happen to have a few Surrey Uni Astrophysics bods in our village. All very nice people!

That isn’t true. All universities are in difficult financial positions, but Kent is clearly far worse off than many.