Imperial College, what's it really like?

[amirrorimage]

Ideally I would prefer my DCs to make evidence-based decisions for their university choices rather than from whims and possibly unfounded rumours (most arising from classmates with no direct knowledge of places). I realise that I may be fighting a losing battle though.
Imperial College is a bit of a dilemma. My DC applied there for physics without going for an open day. Recently had interview (which did not go badly) liked the interviewer but put off for several reasons. The first is that the tutorial groups are of 20 facilitated by one senior academic and one PhD student. DC is from a state school with very large sixth form classes for the maths and science so would really like smaller tutorial groups at university (as well as good quality academic teaching of course)
The second reason ars the rumours about the lack of social life at Imperial backed by the interview group being almost all international students (with international sounding American accents).
Has anybody got anything positive or reassuring to say about IC?

[amirrorimage]

maryso there is no need to be defensive.
OK thanks to you I have now checked 'one the most generous financial support schemes' the IC bursary. Sliding scale of £5,000 down for households of up to £60, 000. That's great but still does not prevent a household over that income band and outside London with several DCs including two at university finding funding London living a stretch.
I suppose it is the same debate as private education, deciding what is worth paying extra for (foe families who earn good but not mega incomes).
This is however slightly straying from the original topic.

[maryso]

mirror what exactly am I defending?

Frankly those who do not qualify for Imperial bursaries will not find finance an issue. One must after all be responsible for one's life choices.

[amirrorimage]

maryso I am not sure what your defending either (hence you don't have phrase your posts so defensively) unless it is against the disagreement from others of your views on London accomodation rental prices and families able to pay the equivalent of full boarding fees.
The question of affordability and choices are personal to each family but I am pretty sure that it is not as black and white as set income thresholds for most.

[maryso]

^maryso I am not sure what your defending either (hence you don't have phrase your posts so defensively) unless it is against the disagreement from others of your views on London accomodation rental prices and families able to pay the equivalent of full boarding fees.
The question of affordability and choices are personal to each family but I am pretty sure that it is not as black and white as set income thresholds for most.^

ah mirror, there seems to be a pattern here of not knowing coupled with easy allegation. Views are individual and come from a myriad of inner worlds, however published facts (in your example, hall rates) are less easily twisted to suit.

Indeed bursary thresholds cannot cover all life choices, however the Imperial ones are hard to beat, so are more of grandmother's nightie than most.

Good luck to your DC.

[amirrorimage]

Maryso I gave no examples of hall rates, you gave a link of IC halls and then another one of private rentals in the same post. Both links were informative.

[viques]

Niece did medical degree at imperial. Had a great social life, lots of stuff happening, if not in college then in London generally! Yes lots of overseas students, but all focussed, bright and wth lots of energy, determined to make the best of student life in the world's best capital city.

20 in a tutorial group sounds pretty good to me.

[bojorojo]

My DD is now in Elephant and Castle because she is working in The Temple. No longer a student!!!

It is interesting that I found pie charts for undergrad students on the physics degreees indicating international students as being 67%. (Obviously not all Chinese). Each department has statisitcs. Obviously there are variations throughout the whole university. Students who have been educated here, eg Harrow, are pretty cosmopolitan and often have lived in London for a while and are very rich. Others direct from China can be very different.

The cheapest halls at Imperial are £99 per week. (£10 - I wish!) This is very reasonable for London. The North Acton flats are new but quite frankly it is a dreadful place for student living! Avoid! There are plenty of places for students to live in London, but to get the cheaper places, it will not be around Imperial College. If this does not bother DS, then that's fine, isn't it? If the London rental market does give financial problems, then there are other universities where Physics graduates are sought after. Surprisingly the student satisfaction rate for Physics teaching at Imperial is 54%. Pretty poor in my view and definitely not as glowing as one would imagine.

[alreadytaken]

well a lot of this seems to be rather out of date and my DC has friends at Imperial while some of my friends have, or had recently, children there.

London is very expensive and more students live at home and/or work as a result. Rents are extortionate and parents need to be guarantors for them. The 3 bed flats are going to cost £2000+ a month and you either risk your life on a bike or pay £900 a year for the student tube pass. Imperial has possibly the best grants of any London university but students need parental support to survive, never ind having a social life.

Having said that - it's one of few universities where paid summer internships can be available from the first year and you will find getting a job easier afterwards.

I know a student who had a great social life at Imperial and another who fits the quiet stereotype. It is perhaps not a co-incidence that the one with the great social life was a Londoner but one who didnt live at home. However he went just before the big fee increases.

Incidentally even at Royal Holloway a lot of students go home at weekends.

Personally I encouraged my child to look elsewhere at undergraduate level.

[alreadytaken]

and there arent many Imperial places costing as little as £99 a week.

[maryso]

I take it everyone knows the much quoted "£99 a week" Imperial room has to be shared with someone else? That makes it £198 a week for the room, and those 3-bed council flats could not only become 4 beds (students often convert the reception to a bedroom, if the kitchen is large enough), on that basis, but 8-beds... If this continues, say in shifts, it will be all but free!

Thankfully most students will have enough sense to work out whether they want to share at £99 or have some privacy at £125 (or indeed share at £63). Doing shifts (perhaps with those 'YoPros' keen on central council flats?) could bring it down further. Shifts are entirely possible because Imperial is open 24/7 and kipping in the library is de rigueur.

Cycling by Regent's Park through Marylebone and by Hyde Park is as safe as it gets in London.

[user7214743615]

Frankly those who do not qualify for Imperial bursaries will not find finance an issue.

This is a ludicrous claim. No bursaries are given to families earning over 60k gross. 60k gross is around 3.5k per month after tax/pensions etc. It very much depends on family circumstances how much spare money they have. (A modest mortgage in the South of the UK, household bills, travel costs for parents, costs of other DC, can eat up most of that income.)

If the DC takes the available student loan, they still need another 6k minimum (on average) to live in London, i.e. 0.5k per month. If parents have more than 1 DC at university at a time, then finding finance for both of them would be non-trivial.

And this is not just a London problem - it's difficult for parents on ~40k-70k with more than 1 DC at university everywhere to find the required parental contributions. They don't qualify for full loans, or additional bursaries (in most places).

[bojorojo]

Of course the lowest priced halls are few and far between and not the best! I did not say they were the en suite rooms! I just said this was the minimum price quoted, and it is! Realistically students need far more than this.

Doing shifts? At university? How? You cannot share a room in a student hall of residence that is not designed for sharing ! Students have lectures at roughly the same times of the day. What nighttime lectures are there? You cannot share a £125 a week single room! This is just not possible. What planet are you on, maryso?

Frankly, there is no cheap way of being a student in London. Parents have to pay or students work. At a full on course, such as many at Imperial, working opportunities may be limited.

The financial situation is a big issue for many and this is why students end up living at home or going somewhere cheaper. The idea that people on a reasonable income in London can fund a student at Imperial by expecting the student to hot bunk is a joke!

students may have a lot of sense, but they cannot break the rules of the halls of residence! Or the numbers of young people in a flat - or they could be evicted. Most students are significantly worse off than young people working in the city. For most, there is no comparison.

[Needmoresleep]

The "London is impossible" theme is a regular feature of this board.

It seems a pity, as we are very lucky to have a number of first class Universities in London. Somehow EU students, international students, and even ethnic minority students from elsewhere in the UK seem to find ways of coping. However not, it seems MN DC.

I think it is worth thinking constructively. Yes DS would have taken a Cambridge place, had it been offered, but it was not. For economics LSE is almost certainly considered the next best option, in the same way that Imperial will be for many STEM courses. Our DC are very lucky to have so many world class options.

London is not for everyone, but if your subject is the first, second and third reason for wanting to go to University, then you really should be considering Imperial.

It would be nice if the discussion could be more constructive, as in how you can make London work, because lots of students do.

1. PT work. I used to live in Asia and students would opt for London over Oxbridge because it was easier to find well-paid part time work. The hours you will have available on a heavily weighted course will be limited but something like tutoring (especially something like maths or physics GCSE) could be an option. Another popular one is agency hospitality. So waitering or bar tendering for events, so lots of well paid work in the run up to Christmas or after summer exams but the ability to drop it during term time. Or take a gap year and save hard. Another advantage of London is that you are well placed for paid summer internships or simply a summer job via an employment agency.
   

1. Accommodation. As a Londoner my eyes are rolling at the idea that North Acton is grim. I have not visited the new Imperial campus but have driven past. It is huge, a new University City, and friends who live in North Acton don't seem happy enough, and indeed are rubbing their hands at the thought of Cross Rail. As well as picking your location carefully (TfL's journey planner is your friend, as are buses and Boris bikes) sharing a room is an option. There are fewer party types at London Universities and lots use Libraries rather than study in their rooms. In terms of private rentals, HMO legislation has created lots of problems. It is rarely worth a landlord going down the HMO route so you simply don't get 5 or 6 bedroom house shares. Instead students lie about the numbers who will be living in a property and (some) landlords/agents turn a blind eye. DS pays quite a lot for his own room in a shared ex-Council flat on a small estate 5 minutes walk to the LSE. His GF lived nearby in a similar flat but shared a room so would have been paying less than £100 pw and so with no transport costs, was doing fine. As others have said, Imperial is relatively rich and is in a better position to help students. At least a dozen of DDs friends have gone there, and all seem to be living in different places without complaint. (In contrast to some grim stories about shared student flats with late night lifestyles, obsessive gamers, complete potheads and more that others are experiencing elsewhere.) London Universities are concerned about their inability to attract students from the rest of the UK and this is a priority.
   

1. London itself. One big surprise can be how much you can do with very little money, especially if you are free during the day. The obvious includes music, art, public talks and museums, but students will find ways of doing most things cheaply. (Group tickets to Comic con...) Transport is good and cheap, with night buses and tubes so no need for expensive taxis.
   

1. Academics again. Lots of serious world standard research happens at London Universities. A personal view/observation but almost because so many students don't engage (some of it is cultural as many will come from education systems where you sit silently in class, whilst others are very focused on the job market and getting the first) there are more opportunities for those who do. We saw DS last night, who was delighted that a nobel laureate had slipped into the audience of an informal presentation that DS had attended. And that the self-same nobel laureate had asked a question and made a joke - just like a normal person. (My claim that, in the days when dinosaurs still roamed, the very same nobel laureate had taught me, and indeed had been a normal person able to make jokes, was ignored.) He had just been to a series of three public lectures given by a very big name American academic, and not too long ago was part of a group who went to Cambridge for a seminar with a big name professor there. (Who had also taught me when I was an LSE UG!) DS is one of a small number who has opted to do a dissertation in his third year, which means he not only has a supervisor but is supported as part of the group in terms of subject choice, research methods, data sets etc, which ought to be invaluable should he go on to take a Masters. Presumably similar opportunities will exist elsewhere, but it would be hard to think of somewhere offering more. A couple of third year Imperial students we know are say similar.
   

So OP, again. If your DD really wants to go to Imperial for the academics, it is worth trying to make it happen. Yes London is not cheap but it can be cheaper than others claim (or Universities elsewhere can be more expensive than you might expect) and the extra money can be a good investment, both in terms of academic satisfaction and future earnings.

But really not for everyone. Students can get lost, you have to work very hard to keep up and some will still struggle, whilst other Universities will offer much more of the wider getting away from home University experience. Its a big decision.

[bojorojo]

My DD did actually live in North Acton!!! Student village ! In whose dreams. There are no decent facilities at all. A tiny Tesco, no coffee shops - in fact no shops at all. I am not talking down London but people do have to understand the possible issues and make a decision based on what matters to them.

[Needmoresleep]

In Imperial Colleges dreams

www.imperial.ac.uk/white-city-campus/the-campus/translation-and-innovation-hub/why-locate-at-white-city-campus/

Borojo. I accept that your DD was very unhappy at Imperial and perhaps should have opted for somewhere more traditional like Bristol. However this is not true of all DC. The important thing is to make choices based on information rather that on other people's disappointment.

[PurplePotato]

My DS is in the third year of a physics MSc at Imperial. With regards to the social life, I would say it's up to the student to get involved. In fresher's week each of the halls organises events so they get to meet people straight away. It's up to them to find societies they're interested in, and there are plenty of them. DS has enjoyed lots of societies, and makes daily use of the gym (I think it cost him £40 for a 4 year membership).

He lived in halls for the first year and shared a room. He wasn't that bothered about sharing or not sharing and it saved us a lot of money in the first year. It IS expensive, living in London, but there are lots of ways to save money - he saves a lot by cooking for himself (lentils, pasta, chickpeas etc and he makes his own lunch), he doesn't spend a lot on going out (cheap nights out at the union mainly). We bought him a good bike and he cycles everywhere so no Oyster card needed. For his second year he moved into a house with some friends and they have stayed there ever since - costs about £140 per week including bills. The costs are eyewatering, but he does some tutoring and some babysitting to earn a bit, and the university offers some research jobs in the department in the summer and pay current students to help out at open days.

As far as the academics go, there are a lot of overseas students in his year doing physics, mostly from Singapore. There are also a lot from private school. DS (like yours, from a state school outside of London) found the first year very very difficult, and said he felt "stupid" for most of it. However, he has persevered and is now doing as well as anyone else.
One of the best things about the course is that all the lectures are filmed, so if there is something he doesn't understand the first time he can re-watch the whole lecture again and again if need be.

The main thing I've noticed though is that Imperial works for DS because he loves the physics. He works from 9-6 5 days a week, and then does lab work for about 50% of weekends. It is tough if you want to do well, and there isn't as much time available for a social life as there seems to be at other universities. But like Needmoresleep, we think the financial investment (and the time investment DS is making) is well worth it.

[deerosso]

I work for Imperial. I wouldn't want to be a student there, put it that way.

[PurplePotato]

Oh, and to add to some of the financial details given in earlier posts - we fall into the category of earning too much for a bursary, but still have a mortgage, and have another DS going to uni this year. DS gets the basic grant for London (£5.5k), and we give him £300 per month. As well as bits of babysitting/occasional tutoring he also works in the the long summer holidays and saves most of that for the next year. Occasionally grandparents chip in with £100 here and there. He hasn't used his overdraft yet.

[FV45]

deerosso
Please can you explain why? Are you an academic?

[bojorojo]

It is interesting that needmoresleep endorses the fact that students lie to landlords and agents about how many students are in a property in London. The rules apply in other university cities and there have been threads on MN about unscrupulous landlords . We now have students actively encouraged to lie. Landlords turn a blind eye because it is cheaper for them not to bother with the legal requirements. It is all wrong and parents should not go along with it!

My DD was not at Imperial. UAL has a 13 storey block at North Acton. It serves their teaching centres well because it is on the Central Line. It is not that convenient for South Ken. Cycling? A Dutch girl arrived with a bike - everyone laughed. A very very difficult cycle route to anywhere from there. Cross rail won't get you to South Ken either.

When new developments are pitched to students they look good but reality is something else. There are insufficient student facilities at North Acton. What suits one student, working all day and every day, is another one's idea of a nightmare. Just too intense! A balance is best for most.

[maryso]

Doing shifts? At university? How? You cannot share a room in a student hall of residence that is not designed for sharing ! Students have lectures at roughly the same times of the day. What nighttime lectures are there? You cannot share a £125 a week single room! This is just not possible. What planet are you on, maryso?

On the planet with a sense of humour, bojo! The point is your £99 was for a shared room and flats often have large reception rooms ideal for sharing if the kitchen is also large. These council flats are a lot roomier than fancy shoe-box developments. Like for like. I did not realise your DD had such a hard time at Imperial, bojo. Most of the 'kids' I know some of whom are still there are very pleased with their lot. They do not seem to be a minority. It's bad though if as you have said your cohort is a challenge.

We've had university fees for a while, and a low interest economy for years. If you can borrow for your home, extending that mortgage could be a way. How ludicrous it is depends how important it is, user7214743615. It's infinitely less ludicrous than the base rates all those mortgagors have lapped up for 8 years.

People just get on with it. Whole families support each other in tandem. They don't expect someone else to pay for them, nor to praise them for their 'sacrifices'. That's life choices.

[maryso]

oops! Your DD was not at Imperial, bojo.

I also know quite a few people who do cycle to Imperial, UCL, etc. I saw a lot of parked bikes at both places this week, despite the pollution levels from the cold and France. Some obviously think it worthwhile.

[amirrorimage]

20 in a tutorial group sounds pretty good to me. That's how universities like IC are going to improve student feedback, by persuading them and their parents that 20 in a tutorial group is good. .
My impression is that 20 in a tutorial is worth it to access very good tutors however I am not sure yet from others' comments how good the tutors are at IC.

I agree that as bojoro says that the issue of London accommodation should not be viewed through rose-tinted spectacles but can be made to work either by long commutes or poorer accommodation or by a bit of luck (such as very rich friend with free flat in South Kensington

Purplepotato thanks for all that, would you describe your DS as easy to chat to? Would he have been very quiet during the interview day? Are most of his friends from the physics course or outside societies?

[PurplePotato]

Yes, I would say he is easy to chat to, and very easy going (but was probably a bag of nerves on interview day, and didn't chat to anyone then.) The friends he has stuck with are a mix of people from his course and people he met in halls in the first year.

Re: tutor groups - his group started off with 20 in the first year but ended the year with about 12 due to people dropping out. I'm not sure if this is usual. He was reluctant to contact his tutor when he was in need of help in the first year - we had to stress to him that when you're paying £9k a year you are entitled to "use" the tutors. Anyway, he has contacted them on a number of occasions now outside of the regular contact time (for general help, advice on summer internships, references etc) and he says they've all been very helpful.

[unlucky83]

maryso you keep mentioning council flats - unless they have been bought they are being sub let and that (in my day, pretty common) practice is currently being targeted. It is not something I would recommend - either from a common sense or a moral standpoint.
I know of a few people who were in council flats that were sub let - the 'tenants in name' make money on it -charge more rent than they pay and the actual tenant usually gets cheaper than average rent - but they have few rights. One I know was given 3 days notice to get out as the council tenant had been reported and the council were coming to check ...and one came home to her stuff in suitcases and her flatmate, boyfriend and a couple of siblings giving her no choice but to find somewhere to stay that night (and she didn't get all the rent she'd paid or deposit back). In the second case my friend didn't know it was a council flat (it wasn't in a block etc), her flatmate was supposedly sharing with her sister (who was actually living abroad) and both sisters were claiming housing benefit...
And if you are in that situation it is hard to complain - as you were doing something wrong too - and rents have to be paid in cash etc so you have little concrete evidence.