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?

I know your DS is a sample of just one PurplePotato but what you say will be reassuring for DC. for you and all those who have taken the time to post here.

maryso I am still a bit confused by your viewpoint. Nobody has mentioned sacrifice here just posters discussing the pros and cons of student life when studying at IC or other similar and the relative cost of it.

unlucky one assumes these council properties (the freeholder is the council) are privately leased and all is above board, however you are right that it is caveat emptor. I prefer not to pronounce on the morality of other people's actions... merely to point out that many council flats have students living in them, and that was ever thus, and not just in London.

mirrorimage, you know, not everything is about your circumstances, so no need to be so defensive... The whole tenor of the 'pricey London' thing is about how it is "difficult for parents". How is anything difficult if there is no trade-off involved? Trade-offs are by their nature sacrifices. Whether this is having one less holiday a year or getting a loan is giving up something.

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.

That's not good. [understatement] Combine that with "student satisfaction rate for Physics teaching at Imperial is 54%" and I would start to worry.
I know that some are saying that if you are super-keen and do 6 days a week then it will be fine, but I think that that work/life balance is a bit out of kilter.

senua according to Which? University, the drop-out rate at IC for physics between first and second year is 6% ie about one per tutorial group. In comparison physics at Manchester is 3% and medicine (which gets a bad press for drop out rates on MN) is 4% at IC, 3% at Birmingham and 4% at Oxford.
So IC physics does have a slightly higher drop rate than other tough courses but not quite as much as one might fear from Purplepotato's example.

So IC physics does have a slightly higher drop rate than other tough courses but not quite as much as one might fear from Purplepotato's example.

I took it to mean drop-out from tutorials rather than the whole course. Either way, it's not good.

Yes, I see what you mean, students dropping out because they think that the tutorials are a waste of their time as not helpful.
I think that despite IC being relatively rich from overseas students fees £136 m per year average over 2012-15, they have not invested enough priority on academic staff time for teaching. Using PhD students to teach is cheap but displaces the pressures onto hardworking PhD students, probably as they are not at the stage yet of bringing in research income and are in plentiful supply.

£136 m per year average over 2012-15, from overseas undergraduates I mean (does not include postgraduates). That info is in a 2015 FOI request on overseas student dropout rates.

Look at the NSS scores for Imperial Physics. (I hate the NSS business personally but we, a RG department in the Humanities, got told off for a 85% NSS satisfaction rate by Uni management...I am appalled at theirs). They do fairly well on teaching but really poorly on 'assessment and feedback' and on organisation and management. That suggests a badly run department and academics not spending enough time on giving feedback or providing feedback. (Again NSS scores aren't everything and can be very misleading- Surrey Politics used to have 100% satisfaction and then they practically shut the Department down).

OP, I think you will struggle to unpick reasons behind ICs student satisfaction as there are so many potential variables.

London generally has lower satisfaction rates, with Borojo's DD being a clear example of someone who would have been happier elsewhere. DS knows several others. IC has more money, and generally better facilities, better accommodation and indeed better courses (certainly if you look at the bottom end of the education offer in London) and so tends to have better satisfaction rates than other London Universities, but these will still be lower than elsewhere in the country. But even so 50% or more are happy with the course/London/etc. The regular MN debate is essentially about whether London should be avoided because a larger proportion of students are unhappy, when the same environment clearly suits others, who go on to do very well.

University financing can be a bit of a surprise. I went to a alumni talk about three years ago given by the former LSE Director. Only about 10% of their funding comes from the Government. Fees from UK students does not cover the cost of educating UK students. Teaching lab subjects is far more expensive than teaching classroom subjects the same will be even more true at IC. The gap will be made up from research income, overseas student fees and more. IC, UCL and LSE live or die by their international reputations so maintaining these are crucial. There is always a question of how much UGs benefit from being at a research orientated University. If you are really interested in your subject being in a research orientated environment it will probably be fun. If you want more support and hand-holding, perhaps not.

You might instead be better off better to focusing on the question in the original post, which is about which teaching methods different Universities use and what will be best for your DD.

Having post grads teach classes, and I suspect, based on DS' parallel experience, many will be post-Doc not PhD students, is pretty standard in top American Universities. Oxbridge seems to be the anomaly. DS, like Purple's son, finds academics accessible and supportive via office hours and email. Indeed sufficiently for us to concerned at their workload, though the explanation seems to be that only a small proportion of students take advantage. I assume a physics course will be more structured. Economics at the LSE allows for a wide range of third year options so classes will be smaller depending on the popularity of the course. DS experience has been that larger groups are not a problem as fellow students don't say much in class. And that further help, if needed, can be found outside class. I am astonished at how many of the junior staff who taught me many many years ago at LSE have gone to become seriously big names. PhD and post-doc students at IC are equally likely to be very able and ambitious.

Maths at University, and much of DS' degree is maths and I assume this will be true for physics, seems to be different from at school. At school maths was the subject that involved the least work. Teachers would aim to have everyone understanding the concept before they left the classroom, and then it would be a case of (carelessly) dashing through the homework. At University DS is told to spend two hours preparing for a lecture so he is familiar with the material, and will then spend several hours after making sure he is on top of the content. Concepts are progressive so you need stay on top of it. Having A*s at A level does not seem to be a perfect predictor of who will thrive, especially given how directed some secondary school education systems are.

This then leads to a question about whether the hard work required is getting you further or is simply, as seems to have been suggested upthread, to make up for poor teaching. DS and his peers have been surprised at how relativity light the workload for STEM subjects is at some Universities outside the Oxbridge/London triangle, with one or two complaints about lack of stretching. Similarly DS was helping an able friend from another University who wanted to apply to LSE for a Masters, only to discover that the boy had not covered nearly enough of the technical ground. But that is random anecdote. I don't know how equal degrees are from different institutions. What is certain is that IC degrees are normally held in high regard by employers and other Universities both in the UK and abroad.

So back to why your DD wants to go to University. If she loves her subject and she is happy to put the work in, and is not fazed by living in London, she should love IC

Needmoresleep all good points and I have to say that my curiosity has led me to googling for evidence underlying various comments raised by PPs so this has gone beyond choice for DC (although still useful).

The students showing round DC's interview group definitely said one PhD student for tutorials in addition to one academic. The one academic I suspect is more likely to be a postdoc which as I have said before that level is fine as long as they are getting recognition for their teaching workload and therefore can put the time in to prepare.

Funding - I think from all that has come up from this thread that IC has diverted much of its extra income from high international student intake for capital projects including White City and Acton.

Obviously international research reputation takes a priority but that should in part be funded by grant income and certainly the academics at IC will be under pressure to maintain their grant funding and publications, with little time for priority on satisfying undergraduates. From reports in the press, there appears to be increasing exploitation of all but the very top academics by certain universities' management and strategy, some of that as you say could be due to a mismatch of income and spending but IC is better placed as richer than most to do things better.
Overseas undergraduate income should at least in part be used to reduce the time stretch on academics and organise a higher priority on student teaching with extra posts as needed. It would be relatively cheap employing more junior academics to teach basic concepts in tutorials.
Other high ranking universities have less overseas undergraduate income and still manage the expense of lab practicals and a focus on teaching.

Perhaps of interest in this is that in the information of the undergraduate physics student drop-out rate, most of drop-outs were Chinese and HK students. These obviously have the ability to work hard.

My DD did actually live in North Acton!!! Student village ! In whose dreams. There are no decent facilities at all.

The Imperial development is not in the North Acton/Park Royal clump of new halls near North Acton tube station, which I agree is (a) grim and (b) isolated. Imperial's new 'hub' is closer in to town, beside the Westway. The nearest Tube station is White City on the Central Line.

It is 5 mins walk from Hammersmith and Queen Charlotte's Hospitals in one direction, with Wormwood Scrubs behind them.

Walk the other way about 15 mins, or get a bus, and you can choose from Westfield White City and Shepherd's Bush Green or Market for shopping, cinema, eating, pubs etc.

Jump on a bus in a third direction and you can quickly be in Ladbroke Grove/Notting Hill.

Mirror, overseas students including Chinese, will have different reasons to drop out. Many will actually find IC easier than campus Universities, but it is still half a world away, so all the things that British students might face being away from home for the first time will be tougher.

A specific reason some Asian students may struggle is that they are already academically maxed out. The tutoring schedules that some have been through in Korea, Taiwan and elsewhere are just incredible. They got their A*s but by doing perhaps twice the work DC may have done. So a friend of DS was already throwing all night stints in the library in his first term, and barely scraped a 2.2 in his first year exams. (Unlike IC, LSE don't interview which may exacerbate this problem.) Asian students often seem funnelled into maths because it is the easiest subject if English is a second language, but are not necessarily natural mathematicians.

A second reason is the very different approach in British Universities, where self study skills are required. These are not skills fostered in all secondary school systems. And many Asian students will have received more direction from their parents than British students may be used to, and so can struggle with the new freedom and independence.

Also don't forget that not all Asians are rich and many will be on "family scholarships" with extended family making huge sacrifices to send them to the UK. (The sleeping in shifts up post may have been a joke, but some Asian students have a reputation for over-occupying rental properties to keep costs down.) This will only add to the pressure.

Stats may be hard to read. I understand that LSE has quite a high second year failure rate. This allows weaker students to retake the relatively hard core second year subjects rather than fail their degree, but presumably will also cause additional drop out at this point.

One other cultural different that has struck DC is the input some Asian parents expect to have on their children's choice of degree. It also happens in the UK, so when DD asked another girl at a medical school open day why she wanted to be a doctor, the girl seemed surprised. Dads make these decisions. DC have known a few kids who start out on courses they simply don't want to take. To some extent it is rational, so a good friend of DS's had wanted to study humanities, but her dad was not willing to pay lots of money for her to study overseas and do something that was not vocational. Luckily LSE has quite a lot of escape routes from a very maths orientated economics so with quite a lot of hard work she survived, and indeed will agree that her degree now opens career doors. But did she enjoy her University experience - no. Was it LSE's fault - probably not.

Studying within such diversity can be a challenge but is also a strength. DS has an international context in which to put his own background, and the confidence to know he is as able as bright students from around the world. He came from a selective and very international school in central London so the leap was not as big as it would have been for others. But I still think British students are lucky to have the chance to study at what are world recognised institutions. Again not for everyone, but better to consider London rather than reject out of hand.

Funding - I think from all that has come up from this thread that IC has diverted much of its extra income from high international student intake for capital projects including White City and Acton.
There is no evidence for this. It is a fact that the hotel aspect of IC will be self-funding, even without the help of the ultra-low interest rate environment of late.

Obviously international research reputation takes a priority but that should in part be funded by grant income and certainly the academics at IC will be under pressure to maintain their grant funding and publications, with little time for priority on satisfying undergraduates. From reports in the press, there appears to be increasing exploitation of all but the very top academics by certain universities' management and strategy, some of that as you say could be due to a mismatch of income and spending but IC is better placed as richer than most to do things better.
Overseas undergraduate income should at least in part be used to reduce the time stretch on academics and organise a higher priority on student teaching with extra posts as needed. It would be relatively cheap employing more junior academics to teach basic concepts in tutorials.
Other high ranking universities have less overseas undergraduate income and still manage the expense of lab practicals and a focus on teaching.
IC is not just one of the larger beasts in the tertiary jungle, but a mesh of different and changing bases, each of which has to pursue funding based on with unpredictable results. If only it were so simple as to be able to predict how to assign overseas fees! Frankly overseas fees windfalls would be doing well if they able to support the bursary scheme. Home fees are well short of the costs of delivering courses.

Perhaps of interest in this is that in the information of the undergraduate physics student drop-out rate, most of drop-outs were Chinese and HK students. These obviously have the ability to work hard.
Ah the Chinese, London life and London colleges, how convenient if these are all identical and negative by nature... As needmoresleep says, university is vastly different from what our school level curriculum and testing has become. Success, by way of survival, comes from being able to learn. IC is not a place where they drag you through even if you're not a great learner but are very teachable. Even public school boys with a clutch of A*s sometimes sadly do not make 2nd year. If your subject is one you really want to explore to your limit, often for the last few years before it leaves you, IC is one of the few places you can do that. At the end, you will be very well prepared, whether you choose to continue or enter the workplace. It is this unique combination of challenge and opportunity that works for some, as well as making its haters waste their time picking at it.

I went to imperial. Met husband there and some great friends but also had some miserable times. Part of the reason people aren't so sociable is because of the workload especially in some of the courses. That compounded with the fact that everyone lives quite far apart post 1st year can make it hard to meet up.

That being said, imperial set me up for life and from an intellectual point of view, nothing at work has ever come close to being that challenging.

To be clear - DDs course was the only one in the uk.. No real choice at all. North Acton is pretty useless as a base for students. In the North Acton halls, students will have to travel to the Hub. Socialising is a problem when students are spread out all over the place for years 2 and 3. Whether this matters is up to the prospective student. So many things to weigh up!

I agree with hungry walrus: the place set me up for life and I learned a 2nd language.
I loved south ken, the course, the social life and I also liked mixing with international students.
There are definitely pluses to studying science at a place with scientists - as the humanities students tend to have less lecture time.
Anyway to defend the thrashing: I had a great time as did many of my peers. It was a fantastic opportunity.

If your subject is one you really want to explore to your limit, often for the last few years before it leaves you, IC is one of the few places you can do that.
I think that this summarises why some students will compromise in other regards to study there (as for LSE) and IC must provide the atmosphere of being amongs the best and opportunities to attend cutting-edge talks etc. The buzz of being in such a place must be invigorating, especially if a student manages to keep up.
It would seem however from most comments and online data that it is 'sink or swim' teaching support particularly for feedback and that will slow down progress to making the most of the opportunities for the advanced stuff for even the brightest.
Independent study including struggling through problems alone is required for getting to the advanced stage but feedback is also key in improving especially for first to second year students. I had a 'sink or swim' experience doing an Oxbridge PhD and post doctoral progression (in a different subject) but that was right for that stage because I had already acquired the basic concepts and expertise, knew better how to research and had the growing confidence to seek out advice from the junior and the most senior of academics. (In fact one of the pleasures of academia is how the most amazing academics take time to answer even naive questions and look as though they are interested.)
My experience with supervising postgraduates students, particularly with very bright hardworking overseas Asians, is that time spent in early advice and feedback pays dividends for the project later on. Undergraduates will also get far more out of a degree if they get the right dose of help. It does n't appear that IC physics has got that dose of help right yet.

My DH got his undergraduate degree at IC back on the late 80s/early 90s. He is proud to have IC on his CV, but did not enjoy his time there. He felt isolated and thinks he missed out on student life.

He now works in a bank in London, as do many of his colleagues, who had a ball at Leeds, Manchester, Loughborough, etc drinking in student pubs and playing team sports. Things he feels that he missed out on.

He says there were a lot of Asian students even back then. They were intelligent, decent people, but they often weren't interested in the same things and spent more time studying than he did.

felixonline.co.uk/news/6597/report-sheds-light-on-imperial-culture/

OP, I haven't read past page 4 but my DC is a Physics undergraduate who considered Imperial and went to the open day, they didn't like it as they wanted a community feel to the studying and there just wasn't that vibe a IC.

DC is a typical physicist, introverted but does socialise particularly in music, at Imperial the music societies are all audition based and everyone is really, really good they just wanted to play to have fun and relax. I have no experience of the sporting societies.

DC is at Durham and it meets all their requirements, college system, hall in year one and accommodation in year 2 within walking distance of lectures. Loads of friendly people and good societies.

DC is sharing a house with 3 overseas students, in fact many of her friends are not from the UK, however they are also not Chinese as that group very much keep together.

More interesting experiences.
Dotty hopefully all the measures to counteract these negatives will be more than just window-dressing. At least IC are recognising the problem.

Empress and Sparkles I would hate for DC to look back and regret a lost opportunity of fun and easy camaderie from a student community living in proximity.

Through years of boarding school and university, my DDs have rarely been best friends with Asian girls or boys. Most are back in China and Korea anyway. They are not here because their visas run out. There are one or two notable exceptions because they area British passport holders and stonkingly rich. Both DDs found that at university the Asian students very much stuck together unless they were cosmopolitan and based in London.

Choice of university really comes down to feel! Are you going to fit in? Does it offer the life you would like at university? Is it easy to make friends and have the student social life you want especially in y2 and 3? What is the daily commute like? Is it the most important thing to be at the most prestigious university with the best facilities or are there other aspects that really, really matter and you would place above the academic prowess? You just have to know what type of person you are, as Sparkles DC did. When people have been gone from a university for 20 plus years, the whole landscape of university life has now changed, especially in London. The student body would not be recognisable to them.

Delurking...

I did a physics degree at IC 20 years ago. I wish I hadn't.

I was warned off at the interview for another London university by the Head of Department there who said that he'd had a terrible time at IC and that it was too big (200 students a year in undergrad), that you graduate with no one knowing who you are and you just get lost in the system. I thought I'd be different. He was a guy, I was female and stick out a little. My experience wasn't different at all. Since graduating I've discovered it's fairly common experience to hate your time there. I know no one who was happy there.

Incidentally, my brother also attended (a different course with 95% overseas students, he was failed after his first year and went to UCL instead).

I'm sure some love it there. But for shy, non-sporty girls it's a terrible option. The 'tutorial' system was actually a little better 20 years ago than what you describe and was terrible then. The hours are long and then housing is expensive so it's normal to have commutes of up to an hour into college.

I wish I'd had the self-knowledge to realise I needed to be in a much, much smaller, friendlier collegiate system where academic staff give a damn about the students.