UCL or lesser RG uni

[Confusedmum2001]

DS offered a place in the subject he applied for at a solid RG uni but rejected from course he applied for at UCL, although they suggested he apply to a less vocational/more fluffy course at UCL instead. Does UCL always trump lesser RG unis or is the course more important when applying for graduate jobs? He’s considering management consultancy as a career.

I know you can do Economics at Bristol without FM at A level. A first or good 2:1 from there plus a Masters is fine and City recruiters like Bristol. I don’t think LSE ask for FM any more. My friend’s DS was badly advised when he didn’t do FM at school and LSE required it. The last time I looked they didn’t. However catching up must be challenging! He went to Bristol and, like many Bristol grads, he has a good grad job in London.

If you said where his other offers are from, some judgement could be made. However careers also depend on internships and vac schemes. So motivation is key as well as education. I would think social sciences would not be such good prep.

Bubbles as ever is right. I dont think anyone actually requires FM for anything, however on some courses it would be rare not to have it, and they might then be seeking assurance that an applicant was capable of achieving a top grade in FM if they had had the opportunity of taking it.

But these are for the very mathematical courses, including UCL. Bubbles is absolutely right. Places like Bristol will not require as much maths on entry and their degrees will be the launching pad for good careers.

To some extent it depends on which doors you want kept open. The advantage of UCL/LSE/Warwick/Cambridge is that they open the doors to some of the more technical/mathematical jobs as well as the more general ones. But if you are not interested in a career using quantitative techniques it is competely irrelevent. And maths/engineering can get you to the same place.

The entry requirements for the Masters my son took are "First class honours degree or equivalent with strong technical background in engineering, physical science, econometrics, statistics, mathematics and/or economics." A least one of DS' fellow students was from the UCL economis degree.

But assuming OPs son is not interested in that side of things, I dont think it matters. Though a good tip up thread is to consider international recognition. A lot of recruiters in international consultancy firms will not be educated in the UK. It does no harm to have been to a University with an international reputation. Especially if you also pursue UCL's brilliant study abroad options.

And in terms of studying in London, it is horses for courses. Hugely international, very focussed, guest speakers from everywhere, and with a different vibe. DS had a great time, and DD is hoping to spend her intercalation year there. But not for everyone.

It does no harm to have been to a University with an international reputation

And how to ascertain that.... maybe worth looking at the QS rankings. Actually, if you're into looking at league tables it can be interesting to compare these versus others ... our perception for DDs subject was that QS and the Times 'Good university guide' were better guides than the Guardian, which is a bit of a joke.

I did a BSc at UCL that some would consider fluffier and more social scienc-y than Economics, but the prestige of the university alone allowed me to secure a very good job in finance post graduation. Based solely on my own experience, I'd take the place at UCL.

The offer he has is for Leeds, currently on ‘hold’ for Bristol. Ironically his tutor thinks he should consider journalism as a career. He is a good communicator and the UCL course does have quite a bit of emphasis on communication in science. He’s a creative thinker and a solid mathematician.

That is, he’s predicted an A at a level maths, but not an A*.

If it’s Economics at Bristol, and the hold is upgraded, take it. I feel that may trump Leeds in this field but again, dedication, motivation and internships will help his direction of travel. Lots of Bristol grads are focussed on the City and they fire each other up to do well! They have prestigious firms come to careers fairs. I would think Leeds would not be too far wide of the mark though but I am aware it’s a bit more parochial as a university with possibly fewer grads aiming for London jobs. Difficult to quantify of course.

My friend’s DS actually did Economics and Econometrics and lack of FM didn’t stop him getting a first or a masters. So it’s perfectly possible to aim high without FM. Not all management consultancy jobs are highly mathematical either. They consult for all manner of businesses and they do, of course, train their grads. No one goes in knowing everything.

Journalism is pretty dead in the water. Many want it after doing student journalism but few get well paid writing assignments. Many don’t get paid at all! Nearly all journalists are now freelance and I think I have seen that many journalists earn around £10,000 a year. I would avoid! I think connections count for a lot too. DS and DDs of well known journalists get first shout.

Thank you for your kind comments, needmore. Happy Christmas!

But these are for the very mathematical courses, including UCL. Bubbles is absolutely right. Places like Bristol will not require as much maths on entry and their degrees will be the launching pad for good careers.

We have had one DC read Economics at Bristol and one at UCL. The first year maths at UCL is gruesomely hard and definitely sorts the wheat from the chaff. However, at the end of the day both DCs agree that the advantage of Bristol is that it is much easier to take some accounting/finance options which provide critical skills for consulting/banking/finance interviews and internships. DC2 (UCL) needed coaching from DC1 (Bristol) and, especially, to swim up in his own in those topics for interview.

swot not swim!

*"I believe that value added score takes into account the ucas points an individual student enters the programme with and the degree classification they end up with."

Except it doesn't. Which I think is user222's point - people put importance on things like league tables, value added, without knowing what they actually are!*

Yes, exactly. The evaluation of the Guardian's value added score is a mystery to those who work in higher education.

If it were genuinely based on incoming tariff/degree class achieved, it still wouldn't be terribly informative - this would clearly reward and encourage grade inflation. (As do measures in league tables counting the percentage of students getting 2:i and above.)

Re grade inflation:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/university-gives-half-its-students-a-first-class-degree-3vvqb9fs5?shareToken=557ed4920473cddafe24653c1a8ac4eb

Well that's interesting what you're saying User about the value added score. I'm not saying you're wrong because I don't know but when you google it it says The value-added score compares students' individual degree results with their entry qualifications, to show how effective the teaching is. It is given as a rating out of 10

www.theguardian.com/education/2012/may/22/key-to-university-guide

Which is in line with what I said. But maybe that's not true.

It's interesting because I'm currently comparing courses for dd and it's a minefield.

• The value-added score compares students' individual degree results with their entry qualifications, to show how effective the teaching is. It is given as a rating out of 10

On that basis I'd expect Oxbridge to be rated extremely low. The entry standards are high, and (afaik, for some courses at least I know) they are resisting inflating the number of firsts awarded.

This type measure of 'added value' is appropriate for something like GCSEs where students at different schools study the same curriculum and the results are determined externally and are moderated. It's completely and utterly inappropriate for universities where the course content will differ, the difficulty of exams and the standards required to achieve a particular grade are unmoderated.

Having just looked at the table, maybe the 'value added' score has some use - for identifying the 'don't waste your time and money' institutions with low tariff and low VA score.

Yes, I did say earlier that it needs to be looked at in conjunction with average entry points.

League tables and clubs like the Russell group are no good if your dc doesn't like the course/university and drops out. The most important thing is to look at course content and make sure that they want to spend the next 3/4 years studying for it. As for job prospects, there's lots of routes into management consultancy assuming that they are still keen on it and their extra curricular activities are important too, plus skills like languages. Engineering and science courses are also well established routes in this job field and gives you a specialism (my friend is a mc and has a PhD in biosciences)

annie: To be honest, anyone with a PhD isn’t the standard university graduate looking for grad employment. They have surpassed their undergrad course by some way and would expect to be in a slightly different recruitment market.

Also RG has far lower drop out rates than the ex polys and ex colleges of higher education. The students at RG universities tend to have higher entry qualifications and greater stickability because the transition to a higher level of study is more streamlined. All research shows this. If you desire a very good grad job, and the competition is stiff, don’t compromise. Someone aiming for management consultancy is not likely to drop out. They will need to have high grade A levels to make the cut for a grad scheme. So many competitors will be doing the most prestigious courses in Stem and MFL so just going down the easy route isn’t particularly valuable. Firsts from some universities are not as good as a 2:1 from a competitive university in the eyes of employers.

I think user1499 is right: different economics courses have nuances and one isn’t necessarily better then another in the eyes of employers. However neither UCL or Bristol would be a poor choice!

Yes, courses have nuances that are really quite hard to grasp. Having had two very similar DC read Economics and being able to compare their educational/intellectual progress as well as their attractivity to Masters programmes and potential employers, I really couldn’t, hand on heart, say there was any real reason at all to choose UCL over Bristol or Bristol over UCL other than the specifics of the geographical location. FWIW DC1 coming from Bristol got a large scholarship for his MPhil at Cambridge and DC2 coming from UCL hasn’t!

Something else to know about management consultancy is that recruitment of generalist (ie Economics, Engineering, Management) graduates is likely to diminish as consulting firms increasingly partner with data scientists for number crunching. The consulting firms haven’t quite worked out how this is going to pan out either economically, for their pyramid structure, or in terms of training up new consultants, but the general feeling is that graduate recruitment will be more stringently quantitative in order to ensure that consultants and data scientists working on the same teams can actually communicate meaningfully with one another.

Interesting comment from user1499. Further to this, I am reliably informed that Python coding skills has become an essential skill to have on a CV for any City based jobs.

Absolutely, Jeanne16.

DC1 (working in M&A) has decided he wants to add an MSc in Data Science to his CV and is busy applying. He can fund it himself this time!

Nico, if the Guardian actually used this principle to calculate the value added score, Oxbridge and other very high tariff courses couldn't get the value added scores they do. As I wrote, HE staff don't understand where the Guardian gets these numbers from.

As I wrote, HE staff don't understand where the Guardian gets these numbers from.

Actually I do But it's a six page algorithm!

User, I'm actually a senior lecturer myself but generally don't pay attention to league tables, etc. It's only this year now I'm looking at courses from the other side of the fence that I'm taking an interest.

I think this thread is over scientificising things. What degree you do and which uni does have a bearing on future career prospects but not to the extent that you can predict outcomes from two similar courses at decent universities. You might as well choose on other factors - which city does he like?