Which are the 23 universities singled out for unconditionals?And...

[Miljah]

...are most in financial trouble?

Worst stats for what, though? The student satisfaction scores often seem lower related to the perhaps more demanding expectation of the students.

Everything except the library

Oh, well, a library is important ?!

If it's a top 25 uni, it'll be fine . More than fine!

I think she'll be fine. She loves the city that she will be in, and she will have family nearby as well.

We checked out all the unistats info when dd was trying to decide which out of 2 courses she liked best. I don't think anything is clear cut. Student satisfaction in one area would conflict with another. The rankings and overall success rates conflicted with how satisfied, etc students were.

Dd liked the feel of one uni best, but it had an awful attrition rate......something like 30% compared to 6%. But the students satisfaction rate was better, which doesn't compute if 30% are leaving. I guess they only asked the remaining 70% and they were happy!

But the course with the worse satisfaction rates was much higher up the league tables so she went for that one in the end.

I think it’s important to look at the number of participants on the unistats as well, because some of those numbers almost make the percentages meaningless or impossible to compare.

My DS is doing a PhD at the Uni he graduated from and helps 'teach' on his old course. He is shocked at how the course has changed over the past couple of years. Student numbers have shot up, course admission requirements have gone down and lecturing staff cut. It's not good and presumably the high reputation of the course is going to be damaged.

Course Stats are useful but they are historical and don't necessarily reflect the current situation.

I'm not sure how current unistats data is but the NSS stats are very up to date. They're released once a year and its current students responses which drive it.

Have you got a link Nico?

I've just had another look at unistats and their data is actually all from the NSS, so it will be up to date.

Data also here I think.

Ok, sorry I wasn't clearer but what I was trying to say about the NSS/Unistats data etc is that it's a few years out of date. Things are moving so fast in Unis at the moment that the experiences of a soon to be graduating student may no longer be true for a new student.
Three/four years is a LONG time in Universities at the moment. For example My sons course has doubled in student numbers over the last couple of years. That's something that will be a massive detriment to new students.

This is UNISTATS take on the NSS

The National Student Survey (NSS) is an annual survey which gives final year higher education students the opportunity to provide feedback about their experience on their course. The information gathered is intended to help future applicants to decide between courses and also to allow higher education providers to improve the learning experience in areas where feedback is less positive

Oops sorry for poor English -

It can be worth looking at new entrants (so therefore not too out of date|) to the career you want and see where most of them went to university for some careers.

The NSS data IS up to date - it reflects the views of finalists in 2017/18 - ie last year.

How relevant those views are to someone applying for 2019/20 entry is of course a different matter.

Titchy. I swear we are saying the same thing. 💁🏻‍♀️.

The Institute of Fiscal studies released a report last year about courses and universities and value for money. Whether MN likes it or not, they found RG students earned more after 5 years. Economics - an example: The grads from LSE were earning more than double the ones from Wolverhampton. In 2013, 47% of grads didn’t get grad level work. Clearly arts students drag this down, but there is a reason why going to the uni up the road might be a mistake if you could have gone somewhere with better stats (and it floats your boat of course!)

However, no student is guaranteed any job or not to get a job. It does come down to more than the degree but often staying local and not looking anywhere else may mean a low paid job if the work is local too and it’s in a deprived area. Some grads have narrow horizons and are happy with this.

Student Satisfaction rates are difficult to compare and depends on the hand holding expected and delivered. Same with teaching awards. The amount of teaching can be less hours than many expect.

something like 30% compared to 6%. But the students satisfaction rate was better, which doesn't compute if 30% are leaving. I guess they only asked the remaining 70% and they were happy!

The national student survey is completed by students in their final year. People who have failed or dropped out in earlier years don't get surveyed.

The national student survey is completed by students in their final year. People who have failed or dropped out in earlier years don't get surveyed.

Exactly, that's my point. Which would explain the high satisfaction rate which doesn't really correlate otherwise with a high attrition rate.

Exactly, that's my point. Which would explain the high satisfaction rate which doesn't really correlate otherwise with a high attrition rate.

This is one of the many reasons why NSS ratings aren't valuable. The biggest reason, however, is that the data collection doesn't work. The #1 rated university for medicine in the 2018 NSS, for example, was the University of Teesside, which doesn't have a medical school. St Andrews always ranks highly, too, despite the fact it doesn't have any final-year medical students, so people are comparing the satisfaction of third-year medical sciences students at St Andrews with that of fifth/sixth-year medicine students at other institutions (usually lower because of remote clinical placements and travel/accommodation costs).

There are no reliable statistics on which to base choices of university/course. Absolutely none. The Unistats figures are submitted in different ways by different universities and are not directly comparable. League-table figures on staff-student ratios, spend per student, etc. are entirely made-up.

There are no reliable statistics on which to base choices of university/course. Absolutely none. The Unistats figures are submitted in different ways by different universities and are not directly comparable. League-table figures on staff-student ratios, spend per student, etc. are entirely made-up

Reading parts of this thread reminds me of the endless, obsessive questioning I get from some students about the details of an assessment. They focus on trying to get me to say exactly how many references they should have in their bibliography, or how their title page should be set out, or how many words over the word ilmit they can go, or what referencing system they must use.

What they're doing is using the unimportant stuff to try to help them feel in control of the actual thing we're assessing. They are trying to project their anxieties about the work onto me, and the practical details of the assessment task, rather than focus on Doing The Work.

It's the same here: some parents trying obsessively to determine the exact accurate magic formula for deciding which university, and which course will bring instant satisfaction, success in the degree, and salary/job afterwards.

There is no formula.

Choosing the right degree course at the right university for each individual student will have individual parameters and criteria.

UniStats and HESA data are all a year (or more) behind. And the NSS is really unreliable. We find that with a significant minority of students, one bad mark or one "bad" experience in the final year, can be enough for them to behave quite unprofessionally & childishly on NSS and other similar surveys. Academic staff (particularly women) regularly get personal & sometimes even abusive comments, or comments on what we wear, or our accents or similarly unprofessional and unthinking responses.

And the rule of thumb about low NSS scores sometimes indicating a level of challenge that current undergrads are increasingly unused to is pretty accurate.

There's no substitute for doing the research via university websites - you need to get beyond the UCAS-facing pages, and into the webpages which departments use in their daily work. This is harder at post-92 universities, but look for pages such as "About Us" or "Departments and Schools" etc etc.

Then do the leg work: visit places. Let your DC visit on their own. Start to get a feel for the kind of living/studying experience that each person is suited to. We're all different (thank goodness).

But there's no formula or set of statistics even deliverable that will give you a magic fortune teller's ball.

This is one of the many reasons why NSS ratings aren't valuable

I think there is some value in them as long as you are aware of their limitations. If it highlights a particular problem then that would give a student the heads up to look into it a little more. As long as you know it's not the be all and end all then it can still be useful.

My kids looked at them as part of their research but obviously visiting the Unis and analysing the courses was a far, far bigger factor in their actual decision.

BTW None of my kids completed their NSS questionnaires. I don't know the proportion of students that do.

I work in a university. The pressure to get a response rate of over 80% is quite high. One uni I worked at students were bribed to complete NSS with pizzas, literally had a session where they were to come in a do it and the course leader bought 30 pizzas!

Which of course has the added benefit of getting them in a good mood.

Wonder what their satisfaction rating was with warm pizza in their tummy .

Like i said previously, my biggest issue with the Unistats data is the proportion of students who actually participate in the survey per course at each uni. That alone makes it incomparable. For instance when comparing Cardiff, Swansea and UEA. Cardiff's data is based specifically around CS with a yr in industry. Swansea and UEA's data is an aggregate sum of all the different streams of Computer science e.g Computer science with a yr in Industry, CS with Education. So on the face of it, Swansea looks like it the best out of the three for CS but actually the data is misleading.