Aberystwyth

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Has anyone got recent experience of Aberystwyth Uni? DS has a conditional place there for International Politics. I do know that Aber has a very good reputation in this area.
DS is a funny old fish and utterly demotivated ... but he does like the sound of the modules. He has a lowered (contextual ) offer of BBC already. he sits a scholarship exam next week and if he does OK, that could drop to CCD.

So far, so good. However, we live 200 miles away , and it isn't the easiest place to get to. DGPs live in Wales , but in the Valleys , so not all that near. DH thinks it is too far away and is steering DS towards Lincoln, Hull or NTU.

Because of distance, we haven't even visited most unis : most we have visited DS hasn't then applied to!

I have never lived near home. My DF is 400 miles away, my DM thousands! I live 500 miles from where I grew up and went to uni 200 miles away from where I lived. But DS is so unlike me, I wonder if he was swapped at birth!

I have all the info about league tables and so on, so don't need that kind of info. My concerns about Aberystwyth are more about the place, and how out of place someone from a boring town a hundred miles from the sea, somewhere in the east of England, might feel there!

I must admit I did find the moody staring into the distance in Hinterland a bit tiresome.

I was really, really happy there. Loved the course (did inter pol) and made great friends. I’d dropped out of ucl before I went to aber and preferred aber so much. Because it’s so small, it was really easy to find your own community of friends. I considered myself to be naturally a more big city type of person, so even now I’m surprised how settled I was in aber. It is a bloody long way from anywhere though.

Is it on a weekday Piggy? We definitely went on a Saturday (also went to one with DS a couple of years ago but he decided it wasn’t for him) but I can see if you are coming from a distance that may also be difficult. Might be worth him emailing and asking if there’s one in half term.

It's a Saturday but we'd have to go up on the Friday evening : this would obviously be easier if we weren't at work. Not insurmountable, though!

Weird what people are saying about Hull. I also recruit to political posts and put a lot more store on how applicants talk about what they have studied, their experiences and why they want to work in my area. To the PP who wouldn’t shortlist from those unis, you may be missing out if you bin on that basis.

Would your ds be able to go alone? We had plenty of students come alone although it may be a bit daunting depending on his character.

@dancing, it's not that I wouldn't shortlist from Hull, rather that they don't tend to get through the process.

I've recently had 167 applicants for 3 graduate roles.

We do a lot of filtering through a written tests before you get to interview. A recent one was "In 500 words, explain which policies from Labour's 2017 manifesto businesses should looks most closely at", for instance.

We also want strong academics, so
inevitable Oxbridge, LSE, Edinburgh etc rise to the top, as long as they are also good at writing.

But I have noticed that Aber grads tend to do really well at the test, and I have two in my team who are flying.

I don't think he would on a first occasion popo. I said it on another thread , but I suspect he'd end up in Aberdeen!

I think he actually has quite a good set of unis to choose from and I am glad he didn't set his sights lower. From where we were at the beginning of the year, I think ke has a good suite of unis. I half thought he might end up nowhere!

In terms of academic reputation in that particular field, the gap between Aber and Lincoln is huge - like the football gap between, say, Man City and Barnet. Aber is the founding department of international politics and many of the UK's most eminent politics and IR scholars have been there at some point. Your DS will be taught by some brilliant people if he goes there. It's also much more highly regarded than either of the other two, though the gap between it and Hull isn't quite as extreme. (I don't work there, btw, but I do work in a related field at another university.)

I shall keep telling DH this!

What has happened to Hull? It is plummeting down the league tables.

I live in Aberystwyth! I'm 24 but just live here, not a student. There is good student nightlife from what I hear (I don't really do clubbing) but there are some nice bars and nice food spots. Shopping is pretty crap, for food and stuff you're fine there Lidl, Tesco, Morrison's, M&S, but all my clothes shopping is done online really. It's a gorgeous area with the pier and the beach and everything, some gorgeous walls and areas nearby. Equal distance to Cardiff, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham really.. but equally far away as they are all between 2/3 hours. Train service is crap (unless you're going to midlands!) and it does feel like a long drive to get, well, anywhere else. You either love it or hate it I find! Great uni though from what I know.

Thanks moggy. he buys no clothes so not a deal breaker

Thankfully, the train he would get would be to the Midlands , and then a change to MK, so, actually not too bad : just a loooong journey.

Thought I would defend Lincoln, its 43 in league tables one behind NTU and 45 ahead of Hull.
It poltical and social science dept is well regarded. There are 2 present MPs who are recent alumni. Plus one of its professors is one of only 6 working for government, fully funded grant, on looking at how to develop modern ways of poltical engagement and voting systems. All poltical students get to assist her research.
We found all the above when Dc applied this year. He is there and studying crimnology. Best thing he ever did. His mates at Hull say he is having a better experience then them.
Lincoln is going places and is very proud of its current MPs and it government involvement.
Maybe Britain would be better if people involved on poltics looked at places like Lincoln instead of boringly only considering Oxbridge types, they may just learn something

I did a post graduate course at Aberystwyth 20 odd years ago. I loved it there, much more do than my degree which was in a large city. It's very much a university town with a good community. Having the beach was great.

I went to the uni for a conference last year. The main memory I had his driving through campus and seeing people playing quiditch?( the Harry potter game on brooms). I mean, how cool!

Just one word of caution: BBC at A level, and definitely CCC or lower, is very low to get through the cut for a grad job of any note. The degree class might have to be stellar to make up for this. The Oxbridge types and many others wanting political or foreign office roles will have AAA minimum. This will inevitably push them to the fore. There are few international politics roles which are not competitive.

DD studied at the University of Geneva where many students go into international roles in the various non gov institutions there. DDs friends who did this, all of them spoke 3 languages. The competition is fierce and there are some very well qualified people out there.

However , go for it.

Well said 2Boys, Lincoln is a uni very much on the up.
Best advice is to let your DS look at all his options and let him decide where he fits, get a feel for the uni, the course and the area. Listen to students already there and chat to the lecturers. My DS got to one of his top choices and immediately ruled it out, we had only been there 30 minutes and he had decided. I'm sure if you can't meet the offer days, they will accommodate a look round at some other point.

bubbles, I don't really need to be told that my DS's A Levels won't open huge numbers of doors... a degree wil open more doors than it closes. I respect your opinion generally but it's a bit tactless here. He doesn't want an FO job at this stage.

He has full marks in his Spanish GCSE and is (apparently) sat to get a B at A Level, even with the kind of haphazard and unreliable teaching you can only begin to half imagine. He chose degree courses with potential langauge elements. Originally he had looked at joint honours dgerees with Spanish or MFL degrees but was put off for reasons I can't really fathom : possibly believing they would be too hard, knowing him. To be fiar, most of these had even lower entry requirements.

Not everyone is in the market- or wants to be for 'top jobs' . I got top grades in 3 A levels, went to a top university and am now a teacher. Those A Level results have never done anything for me!

Thanks 2Boys. I know good things of Lincoln and hadn't intended to turn this thread into a 'let's bash other unis ' thread ,as I did say above.

The thing that goes against Lincoln is that, for his tastes, the modules sound a bit dull.

Hull's apparent decline is a mystery to me, and I can only assume they will be trying to sort things out.

He had to be dragged to Open Days. For that reason - and because of the geographical distances involved- we are limiting the offer days, but Lincoln and Hull are booked.

He is a boy who likes to go and kick a football outdoors in the garden occasionally. I have no idea what boys like that do when they get to uni : I guess they need to make friends and go for kick abouts! But I have thought whan looking around places that so many of them lack green space around their halls for people just to play football, frisbee, sunbathe, etc. He liked NTU but I actually think he might go stir crazy in their halls.

Can't give feedback of recent experience but I studied InterPol at Aber 20 years ago and it was brilliant.

I made friends for life (met my DH in my last year!) and just loved the whole experience.

The town is small and compact so it's cheap and easy to get around - you walk a lot so that combined with the sea air keeps you healthy. Lots of sport on offer too. And lots of pubs for socialising.

I didn't run out of money like friends did at other uni's as shopping wasn't brilliant - and in those days the supermarket choices were limited. Catered halls were great.

It is a bloody long way from anywhere. I was lucky that my parents lived in the Midlands so I used to get the train home. But my DH lived in Windsor so that was a 5 hour drive, or train to Birmingham then Reading.

But it meant that you learnt to stand on your own two feet. He might be quiet and introverted, and can't cook etc now.
But he'll have to find his own way and learn to do these things without your support and worrying!
He sounds like he needs to grow up a bit (I don't mean that in a bitchy way) and maybe not being able to rely on you all the time due to distance will help him do that.

He does need to grow up! July baby , so not 18 for ages and a very lazy dependent DC at that. Sheltered. He needs a fairly gentle transition to adulthood, bless him.

DD is a summer born. She is currently on a gap year - worked before Christmas and looking for more work now. I don't think she was ready for university in September, but she will be this year.

DS wouldn't have the confidence or wherewithal for a gap year and we don't have the funds for anything exciting anyway. He hasn't even ever managed a part time job!