Information about numbers of students on a course?

[elliott]

ds1 is just starting to think about university courses so I’m searching for information sources. Obviously there is a ton of stuff available on the internet (how different from my day!) but one thing I can’t track down is information about how many students are accepted on each course. Not the % success rate, but the actual numbers. I noticed Bristol uni gives the information for each degree stream on its website but can’t see any other institutions that do, nor can I find national data. I think it could be quite relevant info for ds1. Any ideas where I might track it down?

Phone them up. If it's relevant to him choosing a particular uni I can't see why they can't let you have an approximate amount.

Yes I had thought of contacting the unis individually, but that could take a long time (he’s not really very focused yet so a wide range of subjects and institutions are in the frame). I just can’t understand why it’s not online somewhere - well I think it must be, I just haven’t found it yet. Maybe emailing unistats or UCAS might be a good starting point.
I just think that being part of a cohort of 300 is quite different from a cohort of 50.

I think a quick trawl through university web sites will at least tell you whether the course numbers are readily displayed or not. Nottingham indicates places available, for example.

If he’s not sure about subject, you are looking too early really. Also don’t expect teaching to be the same as at school. A friend’s DS has 6 hours teaching per week. Some of the best courses are fairly large but you would not turn a place down on the basis of that in my opinion. A higher ranked course with more students is better then a rump of a course near the bottom of the tables. There are lots of factors to consider.

Even if there are only s small number taking a particular degree, they can still end up as part of a larger group for lectures. Eg, my DS will be the only person at his uni graduating with his particular degree this summer, but as it’s an engineering discipline he’s part of a large cohort that’s further increased by the addition of mathematicians and physicists for overlapping parts of the courses.

Yes I know it’s not necessarily straightforward with lots of courses sharing modules (I work in a university). I just can’t understand why it’s not part of the basic information, and why some unis give the info and others don’t.
So no one is aware of any national data?

I agree that it’s useful to know course size although applicant numbers are a bit misleading as it could be one of five chosen and students may prefer elsewhere. If there is no agreed information template I guess universities can do what they want. Not sure how National figures would be collected. Do universities have to complete returns to the government for each course? However it’s best displayed on the course page on the web site if it’s going to be useful to applicants.

Good points. My son 13 years after his sister is doing the same course at the same university and the numbers are now double what they were 13 years ago although still not huge numbers (I heard their conversation correctly).

Not applicant numbers, numbers actually on the course. I’m sure it must be collected, as they need it for the data on % of applicants accepted and also the Student Survey denominator. I will enquire further.