Worried about DS's first choice uni -WWYD?

[IsThisForReal]

DS didn't get his first choice (Oxbridge), but he has four other offers though. Three are at well-known, well respected universities. Two of them consistently rank in the top 4-6 across all the league tables for his subject. The third is typically about 10/11.
His fourth offer ( uni Z) is usually somewhere between 12 to 25 in the rankings. It has a good reputation for his subject, in fact that department is something of a flagship for the University. DS spent a week on a course there over the summer and had a good time.
Since then they have been bombarding him with marketing materials saying how much they hope he will join them next year.
Now he is saying he thinks this will be his first choice, but DH and I are concerned that he is not making a rational, informed decision but is being influenced by the fact he has spent time there and "knows " it.

I know league tables aren't the most important thing, but I can't help feeling that DS can do better than this university. The typical grades achieved by people who start the course are much lower than his predictions – think ABB rather than AAAA. Uni Z has a reputation for accepting grades several grades lower than their offer. I'm worried that he will be bored or not find the course challenging enough, or not find like minded individuals.
Unfortunately he is being quite arsey about it though, and DH and I don't want to back him into a situation where he chooses this university to 'spite us'.
Of course his decision is important, but we want him to make it based on good, rational reasons not just a gut feel from a holiday placement.
We still have some offer holders days to go to, but DS has already dismissed one of these unis as being 'too cold and wet'.

WWYD?

I knew what you meant by 'the last major parenting task' OP and I agree.

Once they've left home it changes - of course you'll still be there for them, but it is a different relationship once you don't see them every day.

I think you've had a bit of a hard time on here. I think it IS a parent's job to try to guide them away from making less good choices, especially when so much ££ is at stake.

As others have said - visit the other unis and concentrate on their relative strengths vs Z and hopefully your DS will begin to make his own decisions based on more meaningful data.
It's funny how they get hung up on random things when they visit unis - at one point my niece seemed to be basing her choices on whether there was a Bill's or Byron's restaurant in the town

I'd say it was the last major parenting task - to help them make informed, sensible choices and launch them off into the world.

still acting in an advising role to both my young adult daughters.

While we can help them consider options and bring different points up, in the end, it really, really, really needs to be THEIR choice from their heart or gut or whatever. Not just to get us to shut up about it.

One of the things I disagree with you about is that if you go to the "right" uni, then doors will open and life will be beautiful. It might happen, it might not. There are NO guarantees to anything. There's no saying what will be going on in the economy in 4 or 5 years. There's no saying how a particular uni will effect a student. It's all a gamble to find the best fit to set up for the best future.

I think that this line that if you do X, then Y will happen sets up an entitlement mindset that just ends up making people unhappy.

Although if you go to a university where everyone has low grades and with very high drop out rates (the two go together) and where you probably therefore will not fit in and then not get much of a job out of it at the other end that is pretty much a recipe for disaster and a waste of money.

Has the OP actually checked dropped out rates or grades for the uni he wants?

It sounds like the OPer checked the rankings and felt 12-25 is too low, and that’s it.

Nope, that's not true ( about just looking at rankings). As I said in my very first post, the A level grades achieved by people starting the course are significantly lower than any of the other uni choices. The drop out data I've seen is 8 years old so probably not relevant, so if anyone would like to tell me where I can find up to date info that would be great.

• Starting salary after 6 months is marginally lower.
• student satisfaction with course teaching and feedback is significantly lower
• extent to which students feel their course is interesting and challenging is also lower

A lot of the other measures are similar.

I would worry about the student satisfaction. Often there is an inverse correlation. Students don't always like a rigorous and demanding course. Or at least they don't if they are polled when at, or on leaving University. (A student satisfaction poll taken 10 years after graduation might be more useful.) But whilst this may be part of the issue with LSE's students satisfaction (always bottom) it does not sound as if this would be the case with University Z.

*student satisfaction with course teaching and feedback is significantly lower

• extent to which students feel their course is interesting and challenging is also lower*

As need says, these statistics are almost meaningless. High student satisfaction often correlates with grade inflation and dumbing down the curriculum.

But you said the standard offer was ABB - that's not particularly low, so I wonder where your data that most come in with low grades comes from.

The commercial league tables give drop out rate.

Salaries are (currently anyway) self declared and based on students who started seven years before your child will so treat those with caution.

NSS results tend to be better amongst the post 92s so again not a reliable indicator of quality.

The worry is that as other posters have suggested, Universities with less demanding entry requirements can often have better or more organised teaching, because their students may need more than the "here is the library", "here is your reading list" and "if you want you can hear this Nobel Laureate give a lecture". (I exaggerate.)

Part of the benefit of a "good" university may be that you have to learn to work with others to figure things out. DS and his peers ended up as a supportive and bonded group, who contributed to each other's education. This approach probably helps your employability but means some students may struggle, and respond negatively on the satisfaction survey. But a poor satisfaction survey for a less demanding course suggests there is something wrong. Your DS might try to find out what the problem is.

(In fairness it could be all sorts of things. Women academics get lower satisfaction scores, as do those with accents. Overseas students have their own issues which may impact on scores. Students seem to like places with beaches, etc. Or it could be a badly organised course with poor teaching...)

I think we know that lots of less popular universities do accept lower grades via clearing or to get enough students into the course in the first place. Unconditional offers are used too as well as all the marketing tools at their disposal. I doubt that most come in with low grades but presumably few would have AAAA.

I think Imperial doesn’t have great satisfaction scores either and several others that are, in fact, popular with students and recruiters. Students don’t always take much notice of the surveys if the university is still world leading.

Titchy - the standard offer for Z is A*AA, but they said to call them 'if you don't get the grades'
It was the average UCAS tariff of students joining the course which equated to ABB. I can't remember where that data came from - I'd have to look in the paperwork, but it was very much lower than the other unis. Suggests perhaps that more get in on clearing or lower offers?

I suspect if we could just be told the name of university Z we could say if it's good or bad in terms of how it is generally regarded by top employers.

It’s worth remembering some universities are willing to discuss lower A level results and not dismiss the applicant out of hand: I think it’s unfair of you to question the university’s standards because they are trying to be supportive to applicants . AAA is hardly low - there’s only 2 extra to ask for. Then of course there are the universities which offer unconditionally.....
How good is the school’s support? My DD’s School was able to put her in touch with 2 former pupils studying her subject and she found it very useful.
I do suggest that you back right off though. Your DS is the one who will be living and studying and it’s important he feels that the uni is a good fit for him.

It's a total 'sliding doors' moment which starts a chain of events that shapes someone's future.

He might just slide right off and not even go to uni or drop out after a year if you keep pushing at him to do what you think is best.

When about a third of students drop out in their first year I'm afraid I do think it's important that they go where they feel comfortable and can settle as well as being on a course they like.

I think you've seen some dodgy data regarding tariff OP. An HEI with the very high standard offer you state will almost certainly have lots of students with lower A level grades - but that won't be seen in any publicly available tariff score data I can guarantee.

It would be really helpful to know what University Z is... might put your mind at ease too.

OP you've had lots of responses now, why not tell us the course and university so you can get some more specific responses?

The easy way to spot who is taking a lot of students in below their standard offer is to go to the Complete University Guide and to then sort by entry standards. The top four or five will have average entry standards above the standard offer. It then falls so presumably some have average entry standards below their standard offer. Universities don't like to publicly reduce their standard offer as they like to appear as if they only take top students.

Humanities or science, or something in between? (Law, accountancy etc.)

The top four or five will have average entry standards above the standard offer.

Not true. What you mean is the top four or five will have entrants who did General Studies A level, Critical Thinking A Level, a fourth AS level, an EPQ, grade 7 trombone, grade 6 music theory and grade 6 speech and drama. None of which the university will have been remotely interested in. and the university spends a lot of resource adding every single tariffable qual their new students have

Tithcy, for many mainstream subjects the top four or five will be Oxford Cambridge UCL/Imperial/LSE Durham/Warwick/etc. Assuming an equal distribution of trombone players it gives a good indication of the most competitive courses. FWIW academic schools tend not to offer general stuies.

Re employers a lot of big corps are doing blind application screening now so university choice can be irrelevant .

Also OP “The well-thought out/rationale reasons I think he should be looking at are things like:

• structure of course/ module options/ exam vs assessed work
• relationships with industry/ opportunities for year out/placement
• research funding
• employment prospects post uni / average salaries after 1 yr etc

And so on”

• dream on . You want him somewhere he will BE HAPPY AND DO WELL !

Is university Z non RG and the others are?

What you mean is the top four or five will have entrants who did General Studies A level, Critical Thinking A Level, a fourth AS level, an EPQ, grade 7 trombone, grade 6 music theory and grade 6 speech and drama

I agree with need that academics schools don't do General Studies and Critical Thinking.

Nonetheless, your point is a very valid one. The highest ranking courses attract students from high socio-economic backgrounds, who have many UCAS points from extracurriculars and who are much more likely to have had the opportunity to take extra A and AS levels (as need's children indeed did).

It is likely that the OP falls into such a category - as her DS is taking four subjects to A level, which rather few state schools are now offering.

League tables use UCAS points. OP cannot know what the average A level grades are for the course at university Z, because league tables (deliberately) don't show this. If you rank courses by the grades of the best three A levels, there is far less difference in the top twenty than if you do the ranking by UCAS points.

People don't like to acknowledge it, but networks, contacts and connections are still one of the biggest factors in success. With so many graduates out there these days recruiters have the luxury of choice and many of them use the 'top brand' unis as a means of filtering applications to save time. Big law and accountancy firms still choose to visit just a small number of careers fairs at selected universities.

Yes it's true. Which is only one reason to avoid a career in big law and accountancy firms.