Best ex-poly Universities?

[McNutty]

So DS is looking at choosing an insurance universit. What are the top 5 from the ex polys in your opinion across the board? I don’t want to name any yet as it will skew things a bit.

Last but not the least, wish there was a poll function on MN.

Loose - Will definitely take a look at the course content for Hallam then and compare. I dare not mention my ex-poly but it wasn't even one of the lovely ones mentioned here guess what? I've had a very good career. Worked mainly in city Investment banks and a bit of consultancy and the NHS. Do you know i've never been asked the university i went to? I also did a 3 month internship at British Airways, it was fab!. DH did his MBA at the same place, currently employs 250 people. I'm usually aghast at the nonsense spewed on MN about how employers won't look at your CV unless you attended one of the top 10. Absolute nonsense!

Of course I'd love DS to go to one of the highly regarded unis but if he doesn't its not the end of the world. Your DH has got the right idea.

@Piggy

Start by seeing which Computer Science courses are accredited by the British Computer Society, which institutions (hopefully that's generic enough to not cause offence 😁) also offer linked foundation courses (looking at CCC /DDD levels of entry), maybe avoid doing a comp sci course that's so specific it may limit career options , e.g. Computer Science BSc may be relevant for more careers than Game Design and white hat Hacking Bsc and take it from there- that's what we're banking on for this year😀

Manchester Met (was that once UMIST?)

UMIST (University of Manchester Institute of Science & Technology) and Victoria University of Manchester (known to everyone as Manchester University) merged in 2004 to form the University of Manchester.

Manchester Metropolitan used to be Manchester Polytechnic.

Nico - What's NSS?

loose yes, he might. I actually think he would be tempted to take up a new language (Italian, he says, but Arabic appeals). If he does have an 'interest' it's in the Middle East. He was drawn to the Security Studies degree at Salford and I know there is similar at manchester Met with a minor language route. But I am struggling to imagine my DS in a big city, bless him.

NSS = National Student Survey, I believe?

I agree that people should focus on reputation of course but (and I have asked this before on MN) I have no idea how to find out whether,say, Lincoln or Derby or DMU has a 'reputation' for, for example, politics, or journalism .

Piggy - You can have a look on the:

<a class="break-all" href="//www.www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/league-tables" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Complete University guide
and use the filters, to filter by subject in the first instance. www.thestudentroom.co.uk is another fabulous source of information about reputation of the university for a subject from students currently there or previous students as it were. Do a search for your preferred uni or start a new thread on the university page asking this question.

Unistats gives you some more profiling information.
Whatuni is another good source of information.

By the time you've gone through all these you will start to form an idea where your preferred uni sits for that subject.

Yes national student survey.

I'm a lecturer at one of the unis mentioned here and I would say NSS is a fairly good indicator. You can look at specific course results not just the uni as a whole.

I absolutely loved my time at Stirling Uni - would recommend it to anyone. I made life long friends - I'll be meeting up with them soon for our 25th anniversary. And I have a very good job now

Ds is at Dundee...and as a non Scottish student got a non means tested bursary of £2000 in first year!
He's had a great time in first year and can't wait to get back in 3 weeks - they do start back early up there!
The library is amazing and students Union is consistently in top 10 in U.K. ...student satisfaction v high too
They have a v good computing science department and is one of best places in U.K. to do game development if Ds is so inclined!
Dd also went to Dundee and then went on to do MSc at Edinburgh , so it's a very highly thought of University
Although it's a 4 yr course , you only pay fees for 3 yrs

Piggy & Nico - Thanks.

The NSS also feeds into Unistats for 'student satisfaction'.

This below is what feeds into 'What Uni?' -

Key Information Set (KIS)The Key Information Set, or KIS, is published by HEFCE (The Higher Education Funding Council for England) and HESA (The Higher Education Statistics Agency). It provides a set of comparable figures which students, parents and advisors can use to help make their Higher Education decisions. The KIS holds the information which students have said they find most useful when choosing a course. It's comprised of:

Measures of student satisfaction from the National Student Survey (NSS), which is completed by more than 220,000 mainly final year students in the UK each year.
Destination of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) which surveys students who gained a qualification from a university or college, six months after they left.
Course-specific information directly provided by universities and colleges.

@Stop -I was wondering about the 3yr/4yr thing how that might affect fees. I've also just looked at the entry requirements CCC-BBB (not sure what the criteria for either is). Its also in clearing for Computing science and the course looks very good.

OP I have tried all those things and still not finding it awfully helpful. I guess they must all be much of a muchness. Often there isn't actually data available on the courses DS would choose.

I have looked on StudentRoom - some useful stuff but a lot of whining too!

McNutty Ds had originally applied to Dundee to study a very niche course with requirements of BBB, however Ds only got C in Biology, B in Geography and E in Physics...so he didn't get on to course
He then didn't want to go to his insurance uni, so phoned up clearing line on results day and asked what he could do with his results!
He'll still get his loan for living allowance for 4 yrs but won't need to pay the Uni fees for 4th year
Accommodation is very reasonable, cost of living is low and the campus is very central to the city and all first years are guaranteed a place

@Piggy - I'll poke around those sites with Politics and journalism. Do you have any particular institutions in mind? sorry i can't read back through the pages.

Stop - It does sound very good. Does he fly out there? whats his travel like?

As someone else mentioned Strathclye might be worth a look. I have also heard good things about Dundee as quite a lot of other have said.

Anglia Ruskin In Cambridge?

My DD1 did languages. You are correct that there is a shortage of language applicants. DD also did Italian as part of her joint honours.

Given that there are very many Politics and IR courses, DS might just be more competitive with a language. Universities need language students. I’m not sure if there is a shortage of politics students. No doubt someone will know! Therefore doing joint with a MFL really makes sense and you are definitely more employable. DS of a friend is doing Politics and it’s 6 hours a week contact time. You would work harder with a MFL but that’s no bad thing! Italian is way easier then Arabic for obvious reasons and assuming he would do ab initio, that would be hard. Useful though. DD always liked Italy, hence choice and had done A level Italian.

A friends DS did a Foundation year at UWE for an engineering degree but he then did a BEng. Not MEng which would have been 5 years total. However someone else I know has just done a Foundation for Vet Science at Nottingham so I’m not sure how that works re loan! You could check Foundation plus a 4 year degree for funding but I don’t know if that’s possible.

I would be careful about Criminology. With huge numbers of Law grads about, I’m not sure how well this is regarded.

DD has just graduated from Nottingham Trent, I was very impressed with it.

OP DS has prospectuses for Man Met, Salford, DMU, York St John, Huddersfield, Lincoln, Nottingham Trent, Derby and Aberystwyth iirc : I like to collect them to gather dust...

The only one I know definitely has a decent reputation for politics and IR is Aberystwyth.

I also thought about Hull but it really seems to be sliding down lots of league tables so I suspect something rotten.

bubbles I did suspect that about criminology and I think he realises that, too. He loves sport facts and data and genuinely knows every result o every football team ever : it is a shame there is not a degree in this, or in knowing every single world flag... sigh.

Football journalism has some appeal but I worry about non transferability of that degree!

Portsmouth has not had a mention yet this thread, or Brighton. These were always highly thought of, but maybe not so much in computing.

My dad lectured at Strathclyde :and before that Teesside (Poly as it was). Strathclyde lives in the shadow of Glasgow ( LOT of rivalry) but is still very reputable.