Nottingham university. Views please!

[DinkyDaisy]

Hello,
My ds is going to university open days. Not sure about attending Nottingham this coming weekend. Someone told him it was a rough town.
However, from what I understand a good university and information he has got from an unhelpful friend may well be out of date!
He is not a party boy [yet!] but I would imagine all universities have a mix of students and he would find fellow nerdy types!
Any views on Nottingham are welcome.
Thank you.

I only set foot in Triumph Road once, on the morning of DD's graduation - they have to capitalise while they have the opportunity!

That’s just a bit of a joke between the two universities, I wouldn’t take it seriously. They regularly have freshers nights out together and there’s a bit of a running joke between them that you have to be dumb to go to Trent but it’s all in good humour. Dd has friends from both universities and they all tend to mix together.

NTU has just been voted New University of the Year. It's consistently mid-ranked in most tables and like lots of former polys has pockets of excellence if you dig deep into subject-specific information.

As a generalisation it offers more vocational courses than UoN but it's respected enough to provide a stepping stone to genuinely elite universities for further study if that's what you want (DD2 went on from NTU to do her Masters at the second-ranked university in the UK for her particular STEM subject). Alternatively, 2 years after leaving NTU the vast majority of DD2's friends are in jobs related to their degrees. Hope that helps @Commonhealthgames

Nottingham is a great uni in a nice city but all the on-campus (main not Jubilee) accommodation is catered and thus more expensive.

I personally thjnk that's shocking and excludes students from lower incomes. After all, the uni is on a lovely campus so you would want to live there. Not sure what happens if you want self catering.

We are a very low income family - disabled, tax credits etc- and dd went to catered halls using full grants and loans. It just meant she had a lot less spending money! She had a bursary which helped but she managed to have a great year, lots of socialising etc and didn’t feel she needed to get a job. (She’s now in her second year). So it’s not all richer students there.

I went and I'd say the vast majority of Notts students rave about it. I'd choose it for my own DC every time

That's good to hear @Afterfire. I still think it's a shame that the uni fails to offer an on-campus lower-cost hall. Other unis we looked at had halls costing £4-5k which at least was more than covered by ds2's loan.

I just looked at the uni website and the cheapest on-campus Hall is £195 which for 35 weeks would cost £7k. I mean that's all ds2's loan and more. Just a shame there isn't even one lower cost choice.

Ds is on jubilee campus and stays in Raleigh park. It's not luxury but it is £111 a week I think for self catering which is do-able. It's about 10 mins from jubilee.... probs another 10 mins to main campus

I’m WC and my daughter is there currently, she says that she feels like she’s in another world what with everyone being Southern and wealthy. Obviously it’s not everyone but a vast vast vast majority. Unlike some other uni’s there’s not much extra support if you’re entirely dependent on the loan, but overall she’s happy enough!

My DS is at NTU (his first choice) and it's been a great experience.. he's on a four year course and did a year in industry which he really enjoyed. It seems like an excellent Uni and they have good links with the UoN. It's clearly not as academic as the UoN but for many young people it will be the right choice.
As PPs have stated, it recently won University of the Year Award (Times).

@Ragwort Trent actually ranks above NOttingham in overall league tables

Are you referring to the overall Guardian ranking? If so, they are incredibly (meaninglessly) close with UON scoring higher on most things but NTU getting a high feedback satisfaction score. The Times and CUG rankings have NTU very firmly below UON.
UON seems to be the favoured choice of our local girls grammar school.

@Saladian course it is as private/ grammar schools are obsessed with Russel Group unis!

That was only in The Guardian I believe, the NTU crowd certainly enjoyed it though!

But actually as pp have said there didn't appear to be any real animosity between students at the 2 universities. Friendly rivalry and a hard-fought Varsity competition, but nothing over the top.

Well that's as maybe, but there are several to choose from and I note that that particular school seem to send a lot to UON. I wasn't comparing it to NTU, I was making a general point.

My DD is from a comp. Admittedly down Sarff, but not posh.

I just wanted to add in that ds got offers from RG university’s but chose Trent as his course is ranked very highly in the tables. Both unis do stuff together.

I worked at the University for almost 2 decades and have a few friends that still work there. A few accepted voluntary redundancy during covid but higher education is suffering. That’s all universities though.

At one point approx 30% of our students were from private schools though the overall figures for privately educated children is 7%.

@walkingthecow Your DD is relatively correct but there is another side, the lack of regional accents. Your DD may over hear someone and assume they are southern but they actually just lack a regional accent.

There are areas of Nottingham like any city that I would not want to live in. It had the worst gun crime in the UK at one time.

@Commonhealthgames NTU has more vocational courses and good employment rates. It’s suffers because it’s an ex poly. The Russell group came about because a group of vice chancellors selected themselves and started this group off in a hotel in Russell Square. Bit of an old boys network really.

DD has started to call me duck. Think she's now more a Notts lass than a Berks one.

My brother went to Uni there and loved it so much he then did a PhD and continued to live there. It's a beautiful campus and a generally friendly place with great transport links.

FWIW, my brother died before he finished his PhD and the university were utterly fantastic at supporting us, they went above and beyond. They also awarded his PhD posthumously, his was the only posthumous award on that day and was the last award given, with a standing ovation from everyone in attendance.

He struggled with his mental health (which wasn't linked to his death) and took a break from the PhD at one point also. The uni were very supportive and I think their pastoral care is better than my uni's was, for example.

I’m so sorry to hear about your brother ❤️💐

Congratulations on his PhD, that’s lovely.

Am so sorry 😞
Agree fantastic campus and my daughter was at Nottingham when she became unwell. The Pastoral care was brilliant .Xx

Around 1 in 5 undergrads from private schools at Nottingham Uni

Durham University 38.4
St Andrews 36.9
Royal Agricultural University 36.6
Edinburgh 35.5
Exeter 34.5
Imperial College London 34.2
University College London 32.4
Oxford 31.3
LSE 30.4
Cambridge 30
Oxford Brookes University 29.8
Bristol 27.3
Bath 27.1
Newcastle University 23.3
Nottingham 19.8
Warwick 19.3
Loughborough University 19.3

and a not much smaller percentage from grammars, which might have something to do with it being next door to Lincolnshire.

Queen's University Belfast 64.1
Ulster 39.4
Cambridge 21.4
Imperial College London 20.3
LSE 18.2
Warwick 17.3
St George's London 17.3
Kent 16.9
Bath 16.7
Oxford 16.5
University College London 15.9
Nottingham 15.9
Southampton 14.8
Loughborough University 14.2
Birmingham 13.6
Liverpool 12.6
Bristol 12.5
Durham University 12.4
King's College London 12.3
Exeter 11.9
Manchester 11.5
York 11.5
Leicester 11.3
Sheffield 11.2

with over 27,000 undergrads you 'd hope everyone would find their tribe, but I'd imagine most Nottingham students aren't really that fussed about their friends' educational backgrounds.

Nottingham Trent 7.6% private schools and 5.2% grammar

Went there 25 years ago. Lovely campus and good accomodation

I found it very MC and the campus made it a little insular. Students in Lenton tended to be little disrespectful of the locals with all night parties etc

Everyone found their tribe eventually but it did seem many studying Law or Medicine were pretty monied.