Sports Science

[ihearttc]

DS1 is in Y12 and thinking about University next year. He is currently studying A level PE, Psychology and Geography. He wants to do Sports Science at Uni. I have a feeling he will eventually end up being a Secondary PE teacher as I very much doubt his dreams of working in football industry will actually happen and PE teacher is his next option!
I never went to University despite doing A levels so just trying to get my head around what happens.
So Im assuming predicated grades are put on UCAS form and you “chose” courses based on that? He really wants to go to Loughborough but the grades are AAA at the moment and he thinks he is more likely to get AAB. He has also looked at Nottingham Trent.

Any other suggestions of Uni’s with excellent Sports Science courses? We’ve got through all the courses available and tbh I think he is overwhelmed with choice at the moment and doesn’t know where to begin.

My DS left Loughborough last year after completing his Sport and Exercise Science degree.
I imagine that it'll vary each year but his offer was based on AAA but he got AAB and still got in.
He also did A level PE and Psychology but with English Language as his third.
He found it very tough going. It is heavily Science and Maths based (neither of which he did an A level in) and it was surprising how little sport they actually did within the course.
Having said that, he loved uni life! 🙈
Oh and you get used to them being so far away from home. He was 4-5 hours away. It's hard and I cried every single time we left him there but he had an absolute ball!
Good luck to your DS.

This is what I did when I was looking at universities (in the 90s so no internet so much harder in those days to get the info)!

1. Work out what my likely range was for A levels grades (ie best reasonable to worst reasonable - I think I ended up with AAA - ABC)
2. Get a map with all the universities in the country marked on and cross out all the ones that were “too far” (I decided I didn’t want more than 3 hours travelling - although I lived in the midlands so that just excluded Scotland, South West Wales and the West Country), “too close” (wanted to not live at home) and “London” (too expensive and didn’t fancy it).
3. Checked which universities did the degree I wanted (it was maths so nearly all of them) and what grades they wanted. Excluded all that were above my “best reasonable” (none of them in those days) and all that were more than a grade or so below my worst reasonable (so I think I looked at BBC and ACC but no lower).
4. That left about 20 so I wrote off for the prospectuses for them all. (These days you google!)
5. Read the prospectuses in detail and though about things that were important to me in a course or in a university. I think I excluded somewhere as it had a really high “chuck out” rate at the end of first year and somewhere else as it seemed focused on a different part of the subject to my interests. I also decided I had a slight preference for a campus university rather than a city university but I still applied to one city university that ticked all my other boxes. And I decided on my ideal distance away from home (1 to 2 hours) but again applied to a couple outside that distance because they were good in other ways.
6. Went to visit a few in the summer before applying. (An advantage of living in the midlands - there were many an hour or so away and my mum liked exploring new places so we just turned up and had a bit of a wander. (Not sure it was very scientific - the nicer the weather when we went somewhere the more likely I was to apply!)
7. That left me with 4 “definites” and three “maybes” and six spaces on my UCAS form. Discussed with a couple of teachers when back at school and they both thought that one of my “maybes” was less good than the others. (Ironically Loughborough!)
8. That left me 6. Applied to them all, went to all the open days / interviews, got 6 offers. By this time I was very confident on both first choice and second choice.

All very methodical so won’t appeal to everyone but your son sounds quite scientific so it may work for him…..

Ah feeling a bit better about the physio suggestion now whatever he decides. 😁

Sheffield Hallam
“From A levels including at least 40 points from either Biology, Human Biology or Physical Education”

www.shu.ac.uk/courses/physiotherapy/bsc-honours-physiotherapy/full-time

Bath and Exeter are also top rated for sports science. Birmingham is also rated well. If the grades aren’t hit then Leeds, Portsmouth and Swansea are well rated and make solid second choices. Portsmouth has great facilities and research in extreme climates and survival training more so than some other unis.

The options post degree are really varied from post grad medicine, research, physio, sports nutrition, health promotion etc. Many more options than just PE Teacher. The sports science course is often attached to different schools within the uni so say Exeter I think shares with life sciences and shares classes with biomedical scientists and is based on the same campus as the medical students. Lancaster is one of the few courses attached to the medical teaching school. Swansea is attached to the school of engineering.

It is more maths and bio medical science based than some people anticipate but the first year covers any biology needed for those who didn’t do biology at a level and it’s often asked for an a or b in maths at gcse to be sure of coping with the biomechanics. I think Bath and Loughborough both asked for a 6 or above in maths when we were looking while Exeter accepted a 5.

I think that Physiotherapy, like medicine or dentistry is one of those subjects where no-one cares where you did your degree, the NHS is always short of physios. It also helps if you have some knowledge or work experience.
A nephew did physio at Manchester Met and has a job lined up.

Hi @ihearttc Loughborough is vv competitive for sports science. Ds2 is there and loves it (biology not sport) but didn’t get into the uni footy team and he is pretty good, so that is a consideration - standard is very high. He has switched sport with great success tho.

We know ppl doing sport science at Swansea, Sheffield Hallam and UWE in Bristol who all have done or are doing well. Also from a sports POV, some unis that field lots of teams for BUCS include Cardiff Met, NTU, Nottingham, Leeds Beckett. Hth

My DS is interested in sports engineering but there aren't many courses and they're all pretty competitive to get into so he is also looking at sports science and physio as well as more general engineeting courses. He's doing GCSEs currently but all being well he us going to do maths, physics and PE for A level. He's found courses in all his possible subjects where that combination of A levels would be acceptable. There seem to be quite a few physio courses where PE is accepted in place of biology so I wouldn't rule that out completely OP.
DS was torn between biology, PE and psychology for his 3rd A level but he thinks he's likely to get a higher grade in PE than biology, and psychology is an unknown so a bit of a risk. I was quite pleasantly surprised to find out that PE was acceptable for such a wide range of University courses as I was a bit worried it might limit his choices.
University wise, obviously Loughborough is his first choice but he also fancies Bath and Leeds and we have a friend who has been very happy at Stirling so that's on the longlist too, as are Strathclyde and Nottingham Trent.

MrsAvocet Swansea has Sports Science based on Bay Campus with the engineering school and a biomedical engineering course.

Thanks HannahDefoesTrenchcoat. He's not really considered any Welsh Universities - don't know why,there's no reason not to - but I will suggest he looks at Swansea. It's a very long way from home for us, but then so is Bath and he is keen on there. From purely selfish perspective I'd prefer somewhere a bit nearer home but what will be will be!

BTW to those saying Loughborough is their first choice but unlikely, it's still worth putting it down. You may be lucky and get an offer and then you may get the grades. Friend's lad put it down with not a prayer really (offer is AAA, predicted BBC IIRC) and nothing terrible happened. I mean, he didn't get an offer, as he expected, but at least he had a punt. He is the one at Swansea and enjoying the course and the location.

I do think there is something to be said for not going too far tho. Friends had DC at Canterbury and Stirling (I am in East Mids) and it is a right pain to go and pick up - involved an overnight stay more or less - plus not really feasible to pop over for sports fixtures. Glad both of mine chose to be < an hour's drive away. It's not the only factor but I think it is worth bearing in mind.

Echoing Piggy, Hull offers more than one course and is a partner to the GB Olympic team. Biology doesn't seem to be essential.

DN graduated in sport science from Southampton about five years ago. Loved it there and is now moving up the ladder as a primary school teacher.

Watching for ds2.

I think this is pretty much a dead thread but in case it is of interest my eldest is now in final year at Swansea and loving it and doing really well. She spent a year in California last year studying at California State Uni and took classes in areas outside of pure sports science as had become really interested in nutrition and public health. Now in her final year it’s been helpful that they have a medical school at Swansea as she’s been able to get placements with health professionals. Her boyfriend is more interested in the engineering side and took classes in pure maths while studying last year in the States. The other benefit we hadn’t ever considered is that the cost of living is more manageable in Swansea and they both have managed to get jobs on campus.

In case it's helpful, there's an interesting thread here about the glut of PE teachers: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/ami_being_unreasonable/4938268-if-your-child-is-thinking-of-being-a-pe-teacher?page=1