Unis for Computer Science within 3 hours of Essex

[Ozzie9523]

We're now looking in more detail for next year. DS wants to be within 3 hours drive of Essex. Currently we have Birmingham, Southampton, Queen Mary in London and UEA. We are looking at the course content for each uni. I wondered about Royal Holloway which I understood has a great reputation for Comp Sci, but it is number 39 in the Complete University Guide league table, having gone down 11 places. Does anyone have any idea why this could be? Are the league tables the be all and end all? It's our first time doing this and we're finding all the research quite overwhelming! Thanks

Warwick? RH is very overseas dependant for reviews, most home students don't bother with the surveys and NUS discourages it. Is it 39th for Comp Sci or overall?

Yes 39th for Comp Sci

University of Kent at Canterbury?

Without being able to see the previous year's tables it's difficult to see why Royal Holloway might have dropped 11 places.

In The Guardian's table it has dropped from 19 to 39, so 20 places. The two things that have changed significantly between 2020 and 2021 there are staff-student ratio and average entry tariff. Both of these could be accounted for by last summer's A-Level fiasco, which might have led to them taking students with lower grades to fill places on the basis of algorithm grades and then ending up oversubscribed when everyone shifted to centre-assessed grades.

I don't think university league tables are worth anything even in the most stable of times. I really think it's very unwise to rely on any tables based on data from 2020 or 2021. Because school league tables are based on official measures, they have been suspended for 2020 and 2021 because the data are unreliable. University league tables just use invented scores with little valid explanation of their methodology and exist primarily to sell newspapers. If they were official tables they would also have been suspended.

The times is usually a better indicator in league tables. DS1 looked at RH and went to the open day a few years ago. He was put off as the students were not very positive as there was quite a bit of weekend commuting, some were complaining of ghost town. He wanted the whole university experience. Not sure if that was a one off. It was a lovely place to visit. DDs best friend is doing the MEng with an additional years placement at Southampton. Apparently it’s good for the placement as there are some good companies to work for with Southampton being the most prestigious of the universities in commuting distance of the companies.

Nottingham, Loughborough, Warwick, Surrey, Sussex, Reading

Sheffield, Leeds, Bath and Bristol are only a bit further

I wouldn't go to RH, it's in a village and the nearest place to go out is Windsor.

Essex uni is one of the top universities for computer science

Don’t forget to look closely at the course contents, as some CS sciences are maths heavy and some are more practical. My neighbour raves about Southampton for CS.

Sussex could also be worth a look?

CS courses CS not sciences 🙄