Mumsnet University League Tables 2021

[Aslockton]

Just as a bit of fun, but also because Mumsnet has a wealth of knowledge and experience, would you be able to compile your own university league table. This is on the back of people saying Durham is better than Manchester.

This can be for all universities, or for a specific subject or area (top 10 Northern universities). I would love to see Xenia's top 10 law universities, or the best universities for engineering or marine biology etc.

I'll start...

My top non-Russell Group universities:

1 St Andrews
2 Bath
3 Loughborough
4 Lancaster
5 City
6 SOAS
7 Surrey
8 Sussex
9 Reading
10 Dundee

Top 10 London Universities

1. Imperial
2. LSE
3. UCL
4. Kings College
5. Queen Mary
6. City
7. SOAS
8. Royal Holloway
9. UoA

10. Brunel

@Eightytwenty

Best cities to be a student. Based on a combo of cities that are good places to be, friends experiences back in the day and what I’ve picked up from online research.

1 Edinburgh
2 Oxford
3 Cambridge
4 Durham
5 Hull (so cheap!)
6 Newcastle
7 Bath
8 Bristol
9 Glasgow
10 York

I would add Sheffield to this list

Anyone got a league table of arts unis?
As a scientist, i thought i knew which unis were respected, but DD is interested in art and it looks like most of the Russell group ones dont do fine art, so im a bit clueless.

So based on my DC/their friends/DC of friends who live in London/SE and attend private or grammar:
1= Cambridge
1=Oxford
3= Durham
4= Edinburgh
4= Bristol
6=St Andrews
6= Exeter
6= Warwick
9= Leeds
9= Manchester
9= Bath

Interestingly, very few have gone for (or are thinking about) London unis except for medicine, but i think would certainly put Imperial, LSE, Kings and UCL in the mix if they had not ruled out London

DC of friends and family who live in North England would only have Edinburgh, Durham, Leeds and Manchester from that list (maybe some Oxbridge), and Newcastle, Sheffield, Nottingham and Glasgow would probably also feature.

LSE is very good for all kinds of thing. Lots of boys from my twins' school (a private school but most people are not white) like the London ones not least for the ethnic mix never mind the international reputations. My older daughter had King's on her UCAS list but went to Bristol (she chose Bristol over Durham as did my twins).

As we live in outer London however my children just wanted to get away.

I do think it is interesting that the universities that are popular with students in the South seem to be different from those popular with people in the North (with a small amount of overlap).
I think social media exacerbates this even within universities. For example, my friend's DD (from London private school) went to Bristol a couple of years ago. As well as friends from her school who were also going (Bristol was a popular choice at her school), she was put in touch by mutual friends with other people from other London schools who were going so they were all in contact with each other on social media in advance and applied for the same halls etc. Her halls were very private school heavy and her social circle initially ended up being pretty similar to her social group at home (although she did after the first term make a big effort to get to know new people). It was definitely not snobbishness on her part, just made her more comfortable to know some people in advance of arriving so that being away from home for the first time was not so scary.
Very different from my experience of arriving at university where I did not know anyone in advance (other than a few people from my school who I was not friends with anyway so no great desire to stay in contact)

Similarly, my DD was steered towards a Bailey college in applying for Durham because those are the colleges she got the most info on from people in the years above because that is where they applied. Whereas DD of a friend who lives in Manchester was steered towards hill colleges. So my general impression (which may be wrong) is that there are more London and private school students in the Bailey colleges and more Northern students in the hill colleges. If this is right, again i do not think this is necessarily through snobbishness or inverse snobbishness (or maybe for a few!), more a desire to ease the transition by seeking out the familiar.

It is an interesting social issue as you go to university to meet different people and if instead student choose to segregate themselves by Durham college or Bristol Hall (one o my sons was at Churchill Hall which he says has them most private school pupils of any hall in the country although that may be a myth and as his room was so small and no bathroom with the room in a block known as Shanty after Shanty town perhaps only those used to boarding school conditions are prepared to tolerate it.....). My sons have loads of non white friends from school (at one point my son was the only white boy in his class at his private school) and some avoided universities which they thought did not have enough BAME students.

Anyway I hope university can continue to be a place where you meet people who are different from how you are so you get to broaden horizons. I think that still happens very much and is one of the good things about it.

Whyohwine, DD decided quite late to take a gap year. She had started out thinking she would apply for more traditional halls at Bristol, attracted by recommendations from school friends and because she liked the idea of formals.

A year later and this was the last thing she wanted. Too much like her rather trad private school. In any case the London network was in the year above so not available to cling to in her early weeks. Her close friends, including one made during her gap year are not privately educated and not from London and the South East, and in the main not from cities. She is in touch with friends from school - lots down from Oxbridge and now working in the City, but she has clearly moved on.

DS went to LSE and his friendship group reflected the diversity of his course and the societies he belonged to. There may have been a public school clique but he never found it. He had plenty of friends from London but they tended to be state school educated, often first generation British and University, for whom a local well regarded University was an obvious choice.

I have no idea what kind of school DS friends attended in Durham ... it's not a question we think of asking 🤷🏽‍♀️

What about the top ten of "Largely Ignored by MN" unis?

1. Salford
2. Gloucester
3. City
4. Sunderland
5. Worcester
6. Plymouth
7. Leicester
8. Herriot Watt
9. Bath Spa

10. Aston

Members of my immediate family have connections to 2 of these, one of which may have awarded them a PhD.

Ahh, coming from Central London has its advantages. A place for your friends to crash if attending a medical conference in London, somewhere for Asian friends to store stuff when they go home for the summer, a venue for the post exam BBQ. We have had important parcels delivered to our house and met more when DS ended up in A&E after falling off a climbing wall. (I suspect Xenia has had a similar experience.)

Several of DDs friends did not know London at all, and she has enjoyed inviting them back with her for the weekend. I also met various flatmates, and their parents at the start and end of the year.

We probably saw less of DS in total, even though he was only down the road, but we saw him more frequently in that he would either pop home for something (after checking what was for lunch/dinner) or I would text if I was passing and stop for a coffee. We have always gone to LSE public lectures, so he used to join us if he was interested in the topic. One way or another we met quite a few of them.

Continuing a tradition as my dad worked in London and use to take me out for rather grand lunches, till he gave up and opted for a carvery (Simpson on the Strand?) and watched proudly as I polished off three full helpings.

DS probably knew a bit more about the backgrounds of the other Londoners as they were living at home and so home and University lives were even more inter-twined.

It was nice, and nice to then meet the parents on graduation day.

That said the more defined course based friendship groups tended to happen in second and third years. DS was one of only nine who graduated from his course so they had become really bonded. You may well find the same.

@Malbecfan

What about the top ten of "Largely Ignored by MN" unis?

1. Salford
2. Gloucester
3. City
4. Sunderland
5. Worcester
6. Plymouth
7. Leicester
8. Herriot Watt
9. Bath Spa

10. Aston

Members of my immediate family have connections to 2 of these, one of which may have awarded them a PhD.

Wider family and circle, graduates of four, to my knowledge - and one of them a PhD from one (the one with a big park next to the campus and connexions to a dead king in a car park).

Connections.

Have been looking at the ex-pats in France website too much since DD has been over in Aix-en-Provence...

@Needmoresleep

Ahh, coming from Central London has its advantages. A place for your friends to crash if attending a medical conference in London, somewhere for Asian friends to store stuff when they go home for the summer, a venue for the post exam BBQ. We have had important parcels delivered to our house and met more when DS ended up in A&E after falling off a climbing wall. (I suspect Xenia has had a similar experience.)

Several of DDs friends did not know London at all, and she has enjoyed inviting them back with her for the weekend. I also met various flatmates, and their parents at the start and end of the year.

We probably saw less of DS in total, even though he was only down the road, but we saw him more frequently in that he would either pop home for something (after checking what was for lunch/dinner) or I would text if I was passing and stop for a coffee. We have always gone to LSE public lectures, so he used to join us if he was interested in the topic. One way or another we met quite a few of them.

Continuing a tradition as my dad worked in London and use to take me out for rather grand lunches, till he gave up and opted for a carvery (Simpson on the Strand?) and watched proudly as I polished off three full helpings.

DS probably knew a bit more about the backgrounds of the other Londoners as they were living at home and so home and University lives were even more inter-twined.

It was nice, and nice to then meet the parents on graduation day.

That said the more defined course based friendship groups tended to happen in second and third years. DS was one of only nine who graduated from his course so they had become really bonded. You may well find the same.

This sounds lovely Needmoresleep

Nothing wrong with that city @MarchingFrogs. We went to see the new resting place of said king in February 2020. DH removed his hat as we went into the cathedral and was thanked for doing so as apparently very few tourists do. It's a very friendly city and there are some amazing eating places there.

Cambridge is definitely not warm.

@Malbecfan

What about the top ten of "Largely Ignored by MN" unis?

1. Salford
2. Gloucester
3. City
4. Sunderland
5. Worcester
6. Plymouth
7. Leicester
8. Herriot Watt
9. Bath Spa

10. Aston

Members of my immediate family have connections to 2 of these, one of which may have awarded them a PhD.

Bradford university rarely gets a mention on MN. My best friend with her three grade As went there back in the 80s, turning down Oxford!

Two of my friends with the most (conventionally regarded as) 'successful' careers (though jolly fulfilling in a personal way, I'm sure they have been, too) took joint honours at Hull and at RHUL.

My kids school top choices are

Birmingham
Leeds
Nottingham
Birmingham
Leeds
Nottingham
Birmingham
Leeds
Nottingham
Trent

Erm, and that counts as pretty much it. 40% of the year group went to Birmingham last year. Makes for excellent broadening of their horizons and social life

I think only one person from DD's year went to her university. We are in Yorkshire, and the furthest South university she looked at was Bristol. She took an immediate dislike to it. The horrendous journey on the way home just confirmed she definitely didn't want to go there. With hindsight (mainly covid related). I'm glad she chose a university only 2 hours away from home (Newcastle).

Interestingly, her best friends are from Surrey, Bristol and Dorset. The ease of getting to the airport on the metro in Newcastle makes flying an attractive prospect, plus fast rail links to London.

What would be your top ten campus universities? I saw Keele mentioned upthread, where else?