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Bristol or York for Politics & International Relations?

204 replies

MilouSnowy · 22/02/2020 08:58

Bristol or York for Politics & International Relations?

London state school DN cannot make up her mind. Bristol (the city) would be the easier choice as it’s just London-lite, her words, not mine.
But she doesn’t want to make an important decision on the basis of just
lifestyle, at the same time she knows next to nothing about York, or how competitive the course is in Uni of York.

Not visited York.

She is very independent. Has quite an impressive CV already, for a 17 year old student.

She is desperate for an offer from LSE but that’s their most competitive course so she is trying to psych herself up to leave London.

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RedRec · 23/02/2020 09:20

@MilouSnowy, your daughter sounds lovely. I hope she gets into LSE as wants it so much.
My son is at York (doing maths) and loves it but as it is a campus university there is no real cafe culture on the doorstep. The city of York has that in abundance though and is a short bus ride or 25-30 minute walk away.
All the best to her.

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Hoghgyni · 23/02/2020 09:23

Perhaps she has applied for the wrong degree and should consider social anthropology instead. I very much doubt that if my DD goes to York to study PPE that she would appreciate being part of your DN'S "social experiment". It sounds horrendous, like those old jokes about Madonna or Angelina Jolie selecting which children they would adopt - I'll have one from a Belfast grammar, one from SPGS, one from the Welsh valleys, another from China...

She appears to have a very distorted view of university life both in & out of London. I hope she does manage to find some genuine friends wherever she goes.

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Hoghgyni · 23/02/2020 09:28

Hugo our DC's year group will be the ones negotiating our re-entry into the EU by the time they graduate. An ideal opportunity!

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Sostenueto · 23/02/2020 09:29

milou dgds course is brand new for this year unless you mean your friends DC got rejected this year. My dgds predicted A level grades are 3 A*s.
Thanks Hog

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Sostenueto · 23/02/2020 09:31

hugo I meant😀

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Sostenueto · 23/02/2020 09:31

Both of you!

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HugoSpritz · 23/02/2020 09:37

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Hoghgyni · 23/02/2020 09:42

Oh, but I was beginning to wonder if Bristol offers accommodation by the Clifton Suspension Bridge. The Foss & Ouse levels are too high for anyone to want to live under Lendl Bridge in York.

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MilouSnowy · 23/02/2020 09:44

I would have thought those two things will be mutually exclusive.

Only in the sense you have to detach yourself from the situation in order to assess it without prejudice. For example, if you need to find someone to help out with a literacy initiative in a deprived (possibly edgy) area, you wouldn't just ask anyone bc they happen to be your friend. You have to try to find out the interests of that person before asking. Some people out of politeness and maybe bc they like you as a friend will commit to something for which they are not suited. You have a duty to protect your friends too.

DN says it's easier generally speaking to recruit private school students as volunteers than state school students and this is purely down to economics. Some (not all) private school kids have no budget to keep to. They are slightly bored, so why not teach a bright 8 year old from a deprived background chess? Maths and Chess (and Music) are things any child can learn.

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MilouSnowy · 23/02/2020 09:50

HugoSpritz

An honest mistake and I am mortified.

Did Bristol not have neuroscience degree before? I may have got it mixed up with Exeter then, but the girl and her grades are all very real. She also failed to get a place in Edinburgh and UCL.

She is a second year student now so if Bristol's course is new then it can't have been Bristol.

I mean I can take you meet her lol.

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KittyMcKitty · 23/02/2020 09:52

The thing with my DN is that she sees university as a social experiment where she can "study the classes"

Your DN is very young, and from what you say sounds very privileged. However with an attitude like this she will never be able to truly effect change - I would suggest she works on empathy and broadening her world view perhaps? The comments on the type of people who would go to York are horrendous.

I’m sorry I sound harsh and unkind but, having a child a year younger then her looking to study similar things I find her attitude quite disturbing.

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MilouSnowy · 23/02/2020 09:53

Ok, I am going to email her mum who now lives in Singapore to ask for details. That's hilarious, I feel like a troll now Sad

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Ironoaks · 23/02/2020 09:56

I would have thought those two things will be mutually exclusive. Only in the sense you have to detach yourself from the situation in order to assess it without prejudice.

...more in the sense that most people wouldn't be happy about being used without their knowledge or consent as the subject of sociological or anthropological study.

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HugoSpritz · 23/02/2020 09:56

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Sostenueto · 23/02/2020 10:02

milou please note the course is an integrated course Neuroscience WITH psychology. And yes you were mistaken. It is a brand new course for 2020 which wasn't accredited by the British psychological Society until April this year hence our long wait to see what the course content would be.

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MilouSnowy · 23/02/2020 10:05

KittyMcKitty

People have said earlier that my DN was making assumptions about towns and unis she had not visited and I accepted that and told her that.

So can I say to you now that you are making assumptions about someone you know nothing about. You have not met her. Her way of thinking and the works she is involved with are nothing special in London.

What makes you question her empathy? She is the sort of person that will provide a ready made network for fellow students without connections.

She may sound privileged to you but nobody ever gave her a leg up. She is not from a privileged family. Schools such as Eton do outreach work in her school and have helped with oxbridge interview prep for those that wanted to go to oxbridge. Hers is not the kind of school privileged families send their children too.

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Piggywaspushed · 23/02/2020 10:05

My DS is doing politics and IR at Lincoln. 97% state school and lots of Northerners. Brexit central and a very marginal constituency. Lovely city with high rates of homelessness. Isolated, and yet it has branch of Joules , a castle, cathedral and a thriving pub and café culture. Maybe your DN would like this milieu.

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MilouSnowy · 23/02/2020 10:06

because you are

Is that to me Hugo, may I ask why?

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Piggywaspushed · 23/02/2020 10:07

milou with London comes a privilege and leg up that those from within London simply do not see.

Eton shows no interest is schools in the sticks, I can assure you.

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Sostenueto · 23/02/2020 10:07

I don't think my dgd would like to meet your dn because she would not like her condescending, narrow, uninformative attitude towards those she seems to deem below her cafe culture!

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Hoghgyni · 23/02/2020 10:10

You do realise that they are nothing special in any other part of the country as well? Did your DN watch Little Women over Christmas? You seem to have modelled her on the March sisters.

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Hoghgyni · 23/02/2020 10:11

Our DC don't actually need your DN's connections. They appear to have a far broader outlook & connections of their own. BTW, What was the sudden relevance if Latin?

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KittyMcKitty · 23/02/2020 10:13

Milou of course she is privileged in terms of her access to education, family support etc etc and if she plans to spend 3 years picking up coffee and salads from cafes she has clear financial privilege.

People are people - not subjects for part of her research and networking opportunities. The fact that she / you cannot see that makes me question her empathy. You paint her as being a saviour - it could be that you are doing her a miss service and if that is the case I apologise but seriously the “everyone can learn maths and music” comments show such a lack of understanding.

Anyway I’m sure she will achieve her dreams.

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MilouSnowy · 23/02/2020 10:15

milou with London comes a privilege and leg up that those from within London simply do not see. Eton shows no interest is schools in the sticks, I can assure you.

I wasn't aware that Eton don't have outreach programmes outside London. Why not? That really does seem very strange to me.

London school children already get plenty of help from all the universities here. There are children from around 100 different schools attending Saturday schools in UCL and LSE. And some would also attend a further two weekday evenings and this starts from Year 9 or 10 all the through to Year 13. So I wouldn't say they'd begrudge kids from outside London getting help from the likes of Eton.

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MilouSnowy · 23/02/2020 10:16

Sostenuedo

Thanks for letting me and that's absolutely fine.

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