Probably a stupid question but how do you go about choosing a university?

[Exhausteddog]

I feel a bit silly asking this but how do you choose which unis you want to visit/put on a short list? What makes one better than another?

DD is currently in year 11. She's done well in all subjects (although I'm mindful I think they made the mark scheme quite generous) but she's drawn towards creative subjects, and that's what she is planning to study at A level and potentially beyond.

SIL said she advised her DC to choose unis within a 2 or 3 hour drive of home so they could visit regularly (my DSis went to a uni 6 hrs away and was really homesick, but it meant she rarely came home for weekends and it was a long way for my parents to drive to see her)

DD is incredibly shy. She won't even say hello to a (very nice and friendly, female) neighbour, or answer the door to people she knows. She has talked about trying to go to the same uni as a friend. I know you probably shouldn't choose a uni based on where friends are going but what, ideally, should we be looking at? (if 10 unis have a fine art course for example, how do you narrow down which ones to visit or consider on a shortlist?)

I think I wouldn’t worry about it too much yet, if Y11.
Need to have a better idea of which A-levels she’s doing and poss degree subjects. The long list/short list will heavily depend on predicted grades and entry requirements.

Preferred courses, predicted grades then after that best unis for your subject, location, amenities etc

This was many years ago but I studied a fairly generic subject so I chose 6 northern towns at random (RG university towns) and plonked those down. I was in London and wanted a change! Then out of the 3 I got offers for I visited those and decided which one I liked the best.

Probably not the best way!

The way I should have done it I would look at the course I wanted to do and see what offers were generally made and if I would meet those. Then compare the different universities based on those. The internet makes this easy. I was pre internet!!

Sounds like she should go for a smaller campus based university like York or Warwick if she's shy. Going with a friend can be risky as people are less likely to approach a twosome. Maybe she could join a club she's interested in and make friends that way.

Particularly for an arts subject, you ideally want to go for the most prestigious and highly ranked university you have a shot of getting into. Obviously other concerns apply, like whether you will be happy there, etc, but ultimately if you want it to pay off in job opportunities afterwards, these things matter. Look at where unis are ranked overall in e.g. the Sunday Times list and also the rankings for the specific subject.

Also, without wanting to be unhelpful, if your DD can't speak to anyone, that is going to be a major impediment to working. Has she held any jobs at all? Can she e.g. deal with making an appointment for herself? Interviewing?

I wonder how you even know what courses there are - obviously you know about the popular ones like psychology / English etc but what about all the things that are new possibilities to them.

Is there somewhere you can plug in a level subjects and it comes up with suggestions?

Town or campus?
Do all 1st years get a place in halls?
Access to an amateur orchestra/ice rink/bmx track/real tennis court/facility for whatever pastime she’s into
Ease/expense of travel home
Leavers’ destinations

I chose the course first then looked at the unis that offered that course.

I knew a big city like London, Manchester or Birmingham was too much for me then (from a small market town) so went for campus unis. There were only 6 unis that offered the course I wanted to do when I'd discounted the cities so that was me done.

I visited them and just loved Warwick. I felt at home there.

If your daughter is very shy a campus uni with some smaller accommodation might help her.

Some people do whole spreadsheets but others go on friends, prestige, sound of it, some nebulous 'feel' thing. DD was set on London & prestigious, so that was easy enough. I wanted to keep DS out of London & within 4 hour drive of us, so I kept suggesting the better Unis that left & he chose (UCAS) from them, including 2 local.

I also (for DS) sorted the choices a bit by prestige/UCAS points expected, so he kind of chose within each UCAS cluster, which one seemed ok. He has offer-holder events coming up, will see what he thinks after those!

ps: DS is yr13, & only barely managed to just choose, 5 weeks ago.

I 'helped' ds like this. He's quite academic and knew he wanted to study computer science.

I googled 'top universities for computer science'. Lots of lists came up. I discounted the Guardian one because they lean heavily on student satisfaction which to me isn't the point of a degree. I put the top 15 from four of these lists into a spreadsheet. For each of these courses I googled what their usual grades/subject offer for computer science was. I then sorted each of the four lists of 15 into order by their grades offer. Obviously a lot of universities came up on more than one of the lists.

In the meantime ds decided helpfully that he didn't want to go either to Scotland or London. This helped a lot in terms of reducing options. However, he did want to be at least an hour away.

When he got his predicted grades, we started visiting universities/places around the level he was predicted, plus one or two lower down. And having visited 6, he chose 5. One of them he liked but then they also put his school down for contextual offers, and he picked that one immediately.

What subject does she want to do? Look on UCAS course search which unis offer it.

What grades is she likely to get? Research which universities this would meet the entry requirements for.

How far from home would she be happy to go?

Would she prefer city based or campus based?

Look in detail at the modules as courses with the sane name can vary wildly.

Does she want a year studying abroad or on an industrial placement?

Are there any particular sports or interests she would like to carry on with? Look at the sports and societies on offer.

League tables - there are overall ones and ones for each subject area.

Accommodation - catered or non-catered? Halls or a shared house? En-suite or shared facilities? What's the budget?

Lots of things to consider!

For a subject that ultimately leads to professional registration or chartership, ensure that the degree is accredited by the appropriate professional body eg: BEng Civil Engineering accredited by the Institution of Civil Engineers. This makes the path to chartership as simple as possible.

Having gone through uni choices twice I would say first check what grades open what uni choices up. Then check the courses to see if they are a good fit. If this is too many to choose look at uni rankings and scores.
For tie break analysis also compare costs of halls, as this could be a deal breaker.
For me student satisfaction was actually a big deal as you want a happy child.
But the most important factor we felt to be considered was it a nice town? Are there nice places to explore or is it just shops. Is it a nice place to live. One ds chose a seaside which was just a lovely experience and all the students seemed happy to be there.

Is there somewhere you can plug in a level subjects and it comes up with suggestions?

Yes there is:
www.informedchoices.ac.uk/

My daughter's school also gets all sixth formers a subscription to www.unifrog.org/ which is all about choices post 18. Worth finding out if your year 11's intended sixth form does similar.

I do think art is a little bit different though. My dh got a place on an art degree but he was only ever going to apply to the nearest institution!

my dds both looked at guardian list of best unis.
looked at the area, looked at the course, visited

also availability of part time work, which discounted one

agree with not too far from home

Much like a car, you buy the best brand that you think you can.

I did it by:
Cost of accommodation
Cost of stagecoach home
Not too close (so my mam and dad wouldn't expect me back every weekend)
Sounds like a 'proper' place (eg. City name university)
Then I checked the ranking for my subject

I'd spend the next couple of years encouraging your daughter to be independent, visit a few unis see what you think.

Going with a friend is a risky strategy. The easiest time to make new friends at uni is in the first few weeks. That’s also the time when it’s easiest to cling to the people you know.

If she goes with a friend who then spreads their own wings a term in, she will be worse off than if she went alone to start with.

I picked a range for applying: 4 I could get into on my predicted grades, and 2 that were a bit easier (for insurance). The 4 were spread across London/northern cities/campus/Oxford. Then I got a feel for each at Interview and picked from the 5 I held offers for (not Oxford)

Campus may be better than city if shy. Guardian list by subject good idea. Look at student satisfaction. Find out about course, how taught, any small groups, contact hours etc Size of course.
Check accommodation. Self catered may be easier if shy and think about numbers per flat. Small numbers, may not click with anyone. Large numbers, son in flat of 21, may not be easy. Also how they allocate accommodation, a few do questionnaires on personality etc, most don’t bother.
And visit some. Not too early to get a feel. And definitely limit distance from home, you can visit, they can visit etc
And maybe look at ways to increase confidence now, any part time work, social activities possible? Anything in summer holidays.

Ideally you should consider these in this order ( but people often don't!!)

Course and course content
Entry requirements
Employability figures ( on a course level)
Live at home or move away
Campus or not a campus based university
City or more rural
If moving away how easy is it to travel home on public transport
Accommodation

You should also visit each university on your shortlist

Fwiw, there have been some very interesting threads in the Higher Ed topic about how the overweighting of "student satisfaction" has led some unis to spoon-feed students and to basically keep lowering standards so the students aren't challenged or made uncomfortable by them. I would be pretty sceptical of that figure and would weight academic rigour a lot more highly. I think a uni should be challenging and as long as it is basically well-run, the rest of your happiness there comes from it being the right "sort" of environment for you (urban Vs campus, scale, offers a wide range of activities) and from your own mindset and ability to embrace it.

Problem with academic rigour is it is based on research outputs. Undergrads do not do research and some unis do research at expense of good teaching and student support.
Work for a uni.