Good universities to shortlist for mechanical engineering

[Boymum71]

My DS,Year 12 is looking to study Mechanical Engineering at university. We would like to take him to open days in the spring but how do we start making a shortlist? We have been told to take league tables with a pinch of salt . He is fairly academic but not Oxford or Cambridge.
Any advice on how to decide which ones to shortlist would be helpful please so we don’t waste weekends travelling all over. What needs to be considered apart from the league tables ( that don’t agree with each other) TIA

My son has been rejected from bath and Bristol with A A A predictions and a strong (we thought) statement. Feeling pretty despondent

Oh dear. What were his other choices? Does he do FM? They must have really strong applicants. Or lots of deprived applicants.

What’s FM?
He does have his three other choices but is so demoralised.

Further Maths. You don’t necessarily expect to get all your top choices. I’m guessing if you do not know what FM is, this might be the reason for the rejections from very competitive university courses. But he has got 3 other choices so let’s hope they give him an offer. He’s doesn’t need to be demoralised just yet.

My son didn't do further maths. He did technology advanced higher instead which now doesn't exist but which he found really useful in his course as lots of electronics in it

@2Rebecca
Did he do mech eng at Bath or Bristol?

I’m guessing if you do not know what FM is, this might be the reason for the rejections from very competitive university courses.

Calm down, @TizerorFizz. No need for this.

??? Well most people whose children take the subject would know what it was. It’s a common term. Sorry if anyone is offended. But the DC is demoralised and still has 3 uni options so I wondered why this was the case and suggested a reason.

@kindlekeeper, is your DS feeling despondent because Bath and Bristol are the universities that he had wanted to be able to have as his firm and insurance choices, or (quite understandably) because of being rejected per se? Where are his offers from?

Both are A*AA. However both are competitive courses and look at GCSEs and A level subjects taken. Bath look at PS, and are looking for quite a lot of evidence that an applicant has done extra work to support their application, Bristol consider PS as a tie-breaker. It’s possibly just a case of stronger applicants. However there are other universities that are pretty good.

As someone mentioned previously Strathclyde is definitely worth looking into

No he was at Strathclyde.

Warwick and Bristol are both good.

Despondent as really wanted south west. Has offer from Manchester.

No didn’t do FM, but A* prediction for A level maths. Not good on acronyms and doubt that’s the reason! His dad has an Oxford maths degree so aspiration etc isn’t the issue and this adds to sense of deflation no doubt.

According to his school careers lady it is apparently not an uncommon scenario this year. Huge numbers of excellent candidates who deferred because of covid and in some instances were offered large financial incentives to do so

OP,

As a former Russell Group STEM admissions tutor I think you’ve been given many good ideas here. I think Sheffield, and likely Strathclyde and Swansea, under-rated in the public perception. Given the challenging times we live in, programmes that offer work experience may also be worthy of particular consideration.

@kindlekeeper - I am sorry your DS was rejected by his top two choices. It is an awful feeling. If he applied to Mech Eng, which is my working assumption based on the title of this thread, then Bath do prefer FM. I am not aware that Bristol do but as PP and your DS’s school have said, it is an awful year. If Bristol had a lot of deferrals last year perhaps they had few places.

I know it is of limited comfort now but you mentioned he is accepted at Manchester, an excellent choice academically. The option for a year in industry mentioned by @TizerorFizz upthread would be very appealing to me.

Sheffield is very highly rated for Engineering and shouldn’t be under any radar.

I also think that it’s hopeful to expect to get an offer if you are not doing the subjects a university says it prefers. Reading all admissions criteria is worth it so options are not wasted. However universities like Manchester are well regarded for Engineering so the offer is hardly a poor one.

Strathclyde is presumably 5 years for MEng but it’s AAB - BBB so far lower grades expected for MEng and, quite possibly, easier to get into, when compared to Bath and Bristol, for DC with high grade A levels but no Further Maths. It’s a highly rated course and a bit of a steal at those grades.

Swansea is really good for engineering and have been really strong on support and teaching through covid. My colleague did aeronautical engineering at imperial and said they worked together with Swansea students on some projects. My daughter is really flourishing there.

Leeds is excellent for both engineering and general student experience.

I work on one of the biggest engineering projects in the country hiring a number of mechanical engineers, and some of our strongest/most well rounded come from Uni of Surrey.

DC's shortlist, after visiting, for MEng was:

Bath
Bristol
Leeds
Loughborough
Imperial
Southampton

And chose Leeds, with Bath as insurance. I would agree that Sheffield should be on anyone's list too.

Worth knowing that at many places mech, auto and aero eng have a common Y1 and Y2, giving flexibility on what they finally choose to specialise in. DC applied for aero but changed to auto before starting.

www.amrc.co.uk/pages/about

UCLAN is excellent.