DC studying English Lit BA

[Babbits]

My DS is in Y12 and is planning on studying English Literature at university. I don't think he's sure which courses he likes though. He's hoping for Oxbridge or Russell Group. I think that the course at Lancaster looks good though.

Which courses and universities have your English Lit students open for?

I went to Liverpool as did my daughter-it has an excellent English department.
I am pondering going back to my doctorate there.

What was it about the course that appealed to your daughter? Thanks

A very broad range of modules. Excellence in research etc. I was taught by Jonathan Bate (now at Warwick) who is the preeminent Shakespeare scholar in the UK.
Excellent teaching in smaller groups. All round good option I would say. The department is right opposite the library which is handy too.

Oh and loads of options in year 2 and 3 when you have found your areas of interest.

My DD studied Eng lit and her top two choices were Warwick and Birmingham, both of which she loved. We were both especially impressed by the HoD at Warwick. Obviously quite different unis – big city vs campus in smaller place.

In the end she missed her grades and got a place through clearing at Leicester uni – I have posted before but I think it is highly underrated (bc it is not RG maybe).

Her uni experience was challenging due to covid and some health issues for her and the Eng dept, and especially her lovely personal tutor and also her diss tutor were amazing. She was able to choose modules she really enjoyed (for her, Victorian lit and Gothic, post-colonial lit and then Jane Austen for her diss) and was also able to do them all as assessed essays which really suited her. She ended up doing amazingly well.

So while she loved Brum and Warwick and I am sure they would have been great, I also recommend looking at Leicester.

UEA is a popular one for English not RG obvs but gets great feedback from people I know who have offspring there

This depends a little on predicted grades, OP, but assuming they are excellent, the most highly regarded unis for English , historically, are Oxford, Cambridge,York, Warwick, Durham, Birmingham, Bristol, Exeter , and Lancaster in various orders depending on preferences. UEA would suit if Creative Writing was very important. Sheffield used to be great, too. Just not heard much about it recently. Loughborough does well in league tables for English.

If the department contains a very eminent academic, make sure they actually do some teaching on the courses of interest. Some are more interested in their own research and do little face to face teaching. Maybe understandable but might be disappointing.

My daughter studied if at Edinburgh and loved it - both the course and the University.

Just revisiting to update my list, having realised I missed off UCL, Nottingham and Leeds.

The CUG top 20 or so gives you a good steer. Uni league tables can be weird but the one for English looks fairly solid. I missed Scotland off assuming it would not necessarily be chosen - but there are some Scots unis in the top 20, too.

Outside the ever predictable RG set, you could do a lot worse than look at Royal Holloway and Sussex (I already mentioned Lancaster and UEA upthread)

For English I’d say have a look at careers support as well offered by the uni. For example Liverpool have a work experience module the students can take for credit in I think second year.

That’s v true. My daughter found the careers people super helpful and got a job straight away.