Glasgow or Manchester Uni for Medicine

[EmmaBrook]

Hi All, This is my first ever post. Have a DD who has identical offers (AAA) to do Medicine at Glasgow and Manchester. She has 10 days to decide which to put first. We live in London...and the travel to/from Glasgow worries her. She loves music/gigs. Any advice out there?

Has your DD visited with cities, which did she prefer? Travel to Glasgow may take a but longer but is pretty straight forward with direct trains and flights from London. The music scene is very active.

if she likes music, I would go for Manchester - my son who is really into it, says he would only go to London having checked out all the main cities for the gigs they get - he is not into mainstream big venue gigs so might be a bit of a skewed view.. he says he wished we lived elsewhere so he could come to Manchester for uni.

plus 2 hours on train to London - massive student population here so very well set up for student life..

Different Medical schools have different teaching methods, so it would be worth checking which type of teaching method your DD would prefer. Also worth looking at the number of students in the first year and how many make it in to the second year.
The MedicPortal gives loads of information on the different schools. Glasgow is a very lively city with great nightlife, but I'm not too familiar with Manchester. Does she have any school friends going to either University?
Wishing your DD all the best with her A-levels.

Thanks all, DD's been through all the differences in teaching and visited both Uni's and they are neck and neck. She doesn't know anyone going to either from her school. If the distance (and cost to travel) wasn't an issue it would be Glasgow I am sure....

Emma, my dd discounted applying to Manchester as she felt it was very PBL which she did not want. It may have changed now as this was a few years ago. I thought Glasgow was more traditional teaching methods but I could be wrong. Your dd may not have a preference for teaching methods of course.

My dd goes to Manchester frequently for music concerts etc & loves it & may try to do one of her placements there.

Glasgow is a UNESCO city of music with literally hundreds of gigs in small venues every week, as well as the big names at the Hydro. It’s posdibke to get cheap fares to Euston and cheap flights from Glasgow Airport to London.

I live in Glasgow and though I've only been here since a while after I qualified I've always been quite impressed by the standard of the medical students. The course has moved away from pure PBL which imo is a good thing. They get sent to a wide range of hospitals and most seem to enjoy the variety. One thing to be aware of is most local students live at home as the uni won't offer them halls spaces, so the friends she first makes are likely to be from all over the place too.
Afraid I don't know much about what Manchester students are like, though we did have a pair come to our unit on elective recently and they were very hard working.

I travel down to London a lot for work stuff and usually fly. It's about £60 for an easy jet flight and Glasgow airport is nearby. Flying into LCY is more expensive but means I can be door to door in central London in around 3hrs, which is faster than driving to my family home elsewhere in Scotland!

What would put me off Scotland, is knowing that the vast majority of my class mates will have nothing like the student debts that I would have. I just don’t know how it’s legal for the Scots to discriminate against the English students.