Which university to choose?

[FellatioNelson]

My son is currently predicted ABB with a fourth B/C for his 4 A levels. He has been made offers from all five universities he applied to.

He has applied for a joint hons course.

Sussex (asking for an AAB from him, even though the course requirements say only ABB to apply.)

UEA (ABB)

Birmingham (ABB)

and then two others, both decent places and 'proper' unis, who will take slightly less, or a UCAS points accumulated value, or are just less fussy about which grades come in which subjects.

Our fist choice would have been Sussex, but he is not feeling confident he can make the 2 A's they want. He feels if he puts it first it will be a wasted choice. He could pull it out of the hat, but it's a gamble he's reluctant to take, which is a real shame as it seems to be storming up the ranks and would be such a great place to live for him.

He is pretty confident he'll get what he needs for UEA and he really loves it there. It is not an RG or redbrick university, although it is very well established (since the 60s') is not a modern poly convert, and seems quite highyl regarded. It gets exceptionally good feedback for the course he will be doing. (one of the highest ranked in the country, and certainly pretty much joint with Sussex and many of the RG unis for that course/faculty)

Then we come to Birmingham. It's Russell Group. They will take him more readily than the above two, beacuse they are less fussy about the order of his grades/subjects. But the feedback for his course is a bit lacklustre. Where Sussex and UEA were scoring very high 80s and 90s out of 100% for just about everything, B'ham was around the 60%-65% mark for everything. I'm not sure how this feedback compares with other courses they do (it's obviously a good uni but perhaps the faculty my son needs is a bit weak there?) and I'm not sure how it compares to other courses' feeback across the board.

It's back to the age old question. How important is it to have an RG university on your CV versus a (good) non-RG one? can even an RG university be crap at something?

UEA is only not in RG because it's one of the smaller ones - it is \link{http://www.1994group.ac.uk/uea.php\1994 group} which are just as good! (1994 includes Durham, York, St Andrews etc)

I had always understood it's a really good place for English too

Birmingham is a fab city to be in as a student but the Uni is very big and 1st year accommodation tends to be expensive.

Englishwise I know people who've stayed there but they tended to be language/linguistics and geared towards things like the COBUILD project.

The only undergrad philosophy student I know spent his time doing student politics and got a third, although DH's flatmate who did a postgrad in philosophy went on to do a PhD at Cambridge.

If he likes UEA I'd go for there but do visit Birmingham as they're very different places.

UEA is definitely best for English imo but the campus seems rather large and impersonal.

UEA for English - their creative writing course in particular is extremely well regarded.

oh, & Sussex is also 1994 group.

It might be worth checking out some of the details (sorry, you may already have done this), such as, what size classes will he be in? How much of the course is taught by lectures, how much in seminars, how much in workshops? Will he get any one-to-one with an academic?

That could help him decide - I know some people who absolutely hate the idea of having most of their teaching in seminars, and some who hate lectures, so it might matter to him if there's a big difference between the two.

The kind of English matters - as others have said, B'ham v good for linguistics/Eng Lang. UEA for lit/creative writing.

It's English Lit he'll be doing.

Hi there!

I did English at Birmingham Uni in 2000-2003 (and went on to do a Masters and a D.Phil at Oxford from 2004-07, and then a research job at Cambridge until 2010). I am now a lecturer in English Lit at UEA :)

What I can say is that your DS can't go wrong with any of the three options you have given. The poster who said that UEA is 1994 group is correct - it means that the university is smaller than a Russell Group but also research led. UEA has an innovative course, world-class novelists and poets teaching its Creative Writing modules (I'm not one of them ha ha!) and is in a beautiful (and cheap) city. Norwich is also a proudly literary city - we run Spring and Autumn Literary Festivals at which loads of famous novelists, writers, broadcasters and so on give talks. The city is rich in medieval and Renaissance literary archives, many of which our academics use in their teaching and research. And the uni is renowned for its research on health and climate change as well as literature so it is an exciting place to be in a broader sense, too.

Birmingham obviously stood me in good stead since I got into Oxbridge from there, but there were students on my Masters at Oxford from Cardiff, Sussex and UEA too. The distinctive thing about the course at Birmingham is not creative writing but English Language - the department pioneered corpus-based dictionaries and, at least when I was there, you studied one module out of six in English Language. I know least about Sussex (my SIL went there though, and loved it) though I know there are very good academics there and it also offers a great department. You're probably going to get more innovative courses and more student choice over modules at UEA and Sussex.

It all depends what your DS wants. If he wants to be a banker or get into a top law firm, probably go to Birmingham because Russell Group does carry some cache at those unis.

If he wants an innovative course, a beautiful city, and a vibrant English department which is internationally renowned, I'd go UEA all the way :)

Whoops - I meant that the Russell Group carries cache with those firms, not unis.

Hopefully all the bad, hasty writing in my earlier post won't put you off English at UEA!

Agree with the posters that say perhaps disregard Sussex if the offer is too high. Your son will only get a guarantee of accommodation in a residential hall from his first choice and from what I saw from a few of my DS's friends the trauma of missing out on your first place is made much worse by uncertainty of finding a place to live.

You may have already been but have you visited the course specific open days at UEA and Birmingham. He will get a much better idea of where he would like to spend the next 3 years of his life from these than the general university open days.

Yes, we are thinking of doing this. Our current thought is to go back to Sussex for the course specific tour, collar the tutors/admissions bods and ask them what the likelihood of being accepted with ABB is once results come out (because presumably plenty of people who have been made offers there will not accept, as Sussex may have been their insurance choice and they may be 3 A* types) and surely they'd rather have my son than some random person from clearing with the same or lower grades?

Then, if he decides that he really does like it loads better than UEA he might take a gamble by putting Sussex first and UEA second, and throwing away a true insurance choice.) If it all goes tits up we are at the mercy of clearing.

On tuther hand, if on second visit he feels he likes Sussex no better than UEA then it is not worth taking the risk, so he'll go UEA first and either Kent or Reading for insurance.

And thanks to all who have put my mind at rest about UEA and 1994 universities generally - I have dislodged that pesky RG bee from my bonnet now.

I wrote a big long post about the "classification" of universities ages ago - should dredge it out as a thread, really, as there is a lot of confusion.

DS2 has an AAA offer from Exeter, which would have made a sensible first choice to go with the two AAB offers he had already - but we live in Lancs, so Exeter is about 5 hours away, & the other 2 offers are from York & Sheffield, so however much he might have liked it going there would have been just silly.

Am assuming that doesn't apply to you for Sussex/Norwich, Fellatio, but still def worth him having a look at Sussex because if he doesn't like it that solves your problem (OTOH Brighton is lovely...)

Because of the increase in tuition next year though this is not a good year to be chancing your arm on getting in when you're a grade short of requirements

I went to uni 5 hours away from home, Ponders!

I think he's thinking he would like to pop home for weekends now & again, Hab

For the open day he could have flown down, which is fairly quick & neat, but £140. Train was 4½ hours each way & about £80, car similar.

Realistically, we couldn't afford for him to go there (also he's not going to get 3 As! Looking like A*AB, at the moment & I don't imagine that's good enough this year)

God, actually, I'd forgotten how bloody expensive trains are now. I keep thinking I only started uni about 5 years ago rather than in the Dark Ages... York and Sheffield are cracking unis, though - I worked at York for a couple of years, and was really impressed by it.

Thanks, Hab - he went to open days at both, & really liked both, but I suspect the new Union at Sheffield & the impressive amount of music activity there will swing it for him. (I would love him to go to York because I love York, but he's not going for my benefit, sadly)

A no notice day return (which is what the £80 thing was) to York or Sheffield from here is £15-20, & Exeter is about 4 times the distance, so it does make a huge difference (& Sheffield is actually a much shorter quicker trip by train than by car, due to the Peak District implications!)

We live on the Essex/Suffolk border, so Norwich is an extremely convenient hour's train ride away - but far enough that he won't feel too close to home. And Brighton is a convoluted journey by train, (into London then out again) but only about 2 hours by car.

It is a very real issue actually, distance from home, as travel is extremely expensive these days. Plus, most kids will need to get part-time jobs so they don't want to spend excessive hours travelling at weekends and holidays.

Another big tick for UEA then - it sounds completely perfect for him!

Also, as Sussex are asking for higher grades than the website says, I think that's an indication of more applicants this year than normal (like bookies shortening the odds when a lot of money goes on one horse )

Yes you could be right there Ponders- it wouldn't surprise me as they've shown a huge surge in all the 'Good University' tables and guides in very recent years. I suspect it may be becoming the place to go that isn't Oxbridge, RG or Durham/York.

If he hasn't visited Birmingham, he should perhaps take a look. The university is campus based and basically the entire of Edgbaston (a suburb of the city) is university campus. It even has its own train station! It is all leavy suburbs and not at all the stereotypical image of Birmingham. I'd certainly recommend a look before ruling it out.

As others have said don't get hung up on the RG thing. I was an undergrad at York, and a lot of my friends applied and got jobs for top accountancy firms / banks etc, as it was one of the "preferred" universities. The 1994 group are just smaller than the RG, but are just as well regarded.

I know quite a few people who went to UEA and loved it, and it definitely has an excellent reputation academically. Good luck