St Andrews University concerns

[woollymammal]

All advice gratefully received.

DD has an offer (Biochemistry) but a family friend has suggested that she thinks twice because of how the 'SNP extremist position regarding gender ideaology and anti- English sentiment' might affect teaching.

Is this valid? I know there was hoo-ha when an article printed in a student mag deriding Sturgeon was defended by the local NHS head, who called the Uni 'anti-scottish, full of oxbridge rejects' but as far as I could tell, the University dismissed this.

Its such a far way for her to go, and in a small isolated town, I'm concerned that if it is a rampant hotbed of politics it will detract from her experience.

(Exiled Scot myself, and DD is, yes, oxbridge reject 🤷‍♀️)

Just to chip in, Dundee has one of the best biochemistry departments in the world. If she’s considering a career in that field, she should consider it. Especially as Dundee is less isolating than St Andrews IMO.

OP, if this is a head vs heart decision based on the Guardian League Table, you and your DD might want to research that resource. It weights student satisfaction highly, and I would agree that by reputation students are happy with St A’s.

But you say your DD has a particular and, I imagine, rather intense career focus in mind. The research reputation in the area - the recent REF results - are also important. Good REF results may correlate with better placement opportunities, if DD wants a placement. The Times League tables and others incorporate research rankings; the Guardian (which I value for its own reasons) does not.

@Newnamenewme23 Yes, and really good connections with Ninewells. I suggested there, so we visited Dundee & (randomly) walked round the University campus on our trip to St Andrews and Edinburgh, but she preferred the small town environment to the bigger town/city. (She has an offer from Manchester which would also be a good shout for biochem but she doesn't fancy it for the same reason).

@poetryandwine Yes; I saw reference to this in an article in The Saint. We'll check it out. (I expect St Andrews relative smallness limits the quantity of research but research is a bit above my paygrade; I'm an architecture graduate).

I think The Times league tables are behind a paywall - could you point me to other sources please?

Thank you for suggesting another angle to approach her decision by. Last night, something she said resonated with my knowledge of her lifelong functioning, that 'where I go is not going to matter if I'm not comfortable there' and I realised that maybe therein lies the conflict - she feels St A would serve her better but Bath would suit her better.

My own enquiry has been around the student experience, comparing St A & Bath using the National Student Survey. They broadly compare, except in a few (quite important) areas: at St A, 79% of students feel part of the community on their course compared to 52% at Bath; 86% of St A students feel staff value students opinions v 67% at Bath; 93% of St A students feel they received good advice from tutors about study choices v 65% at Bath; 86% of students at St A feel there are opportunities to apply what they have learned v 70% at Bath.

So....

I will be glad to take a look at REF results, @woollymammal . Are we looking at Biochemistry or Neurology or what? It won’t be until later today

I agree completely that your DD needs to be comfortable! I don’t think any perceived differential in prestige between these options will matter in the least to her future

52% feeling part of the community on the course is a bit of a red flag to me and TTTT I am surprised by the relatively low Bath statistics you cite. However the respondents will sadly have done the majority of their UG studies during the pandemic, when many otherwise excellent programmes experienced problems in teaching and learning - particularly around maintaining a sense of community.

Your DD might want to join the online forum TheStudentRoom to ask about the experiences of students on the two programmes she is comparing. Many replies are candid and thoughtful

@poetryandwine That is very kind of you! I have had a look, but am not sure what I'm looking at 😬 If it is RP rank, then B has (risen? Is that positive?) from 35 to 28, and StA has (fallen?) from 32 to 36

I've also looked at THE: B & St A are level pegging at 28=, B has dropped 14 places by this metric.

QS world rankings show B dropping from 166th to 179th & St A dropping from 91st to 96th...so just staying in that top 100 ☺️

Oh, idk, statistics, damn statistics. I think she'll go to the place holders days and just know 🙏

I take your point about the impact of the pandemic and the disgruntlement that may be reflected in the survey results. St Andrews students would perhaps, in choosing a small, isolated town, be more accepting of the privations and perhaps, since their population dominates the town, did not feel them so keenly.

@poetryandwine

Yes, biochemistry, not biomed.

Hi @woollymammal, I generally find the National Student Survey (NSS) helpful but am careful only to use info where the underlying sample size is 100+ (which usually means analysing at the department level and not course level, where such data is available on Discoveruni).

Yesterday I did look at the NSS data for the biochem integrated masters at both unis and could see the StA sample was 15 and the UofBath sample was 45; these are low and means the data may not truly reflect the likely underlying position within the group being measured. So it is a case of focusing on other source of info and feedback, I think.

One thing for your DD to consider is that, in having thought about and researched her options, she now has a good understanding of some of the issues that might presents themselves at either uni and so be ready to adapt and thrive at either location - and that, in itself, can give comfort. Neither choice is risk free and both are offer fantastic opportunities in their various ways.

@PerpetualOptimist Wow. I'd never have thought to check the sample size, thank you, it certainly puts a spin on it.

We are absolutely with you on your second point, sadly from recent first hand experience (which is probably impacting her - and my - overthought approach). She won a scholarship to attend a boarding school in the countryside for 6th form but realised it was a big mistake and we had to move her after 6 weeks. She says she joined knowing the student cohort would be very different to her (v studious, reserved) but she wanted to try to be more like them (school had a large 'creative' contingent but was trying to build up its academic intake). The experience really affected her for a while but she has learned from this, about who she is and what her needs are.

DD is at St Andrew’s and is now settled into her first year. The faculty don’t seem to be particularly hard left. Though I do think universities and academics tend to lean left anywhere.

I wouldn’t make professorial ideology a deciding factor.

If your DD fancies Bath, she should go for it. Rankings move around. And I think narrow differences in ranking are irrelevant to her future prospects. On the other hand, her feeling happy and engaged in her studies will make a big difference.

@woollymammal
Several elements of this discussion have interested me. She didn’t like boarding school. My DDs loved it. One went to an arty one. So, won’t St Andrews feel like a boarding school? Plenty there will be ex boarders. You do have to get on with others who are not identical to you, even at university. Not every box can be ticked.

She can get home from Bath if she needs to. I read what she wants to specialise in, but: will she really do this at St Andrews? Could she not do this specialism as a further qualification ? What work experience might Bath offer that’s useful for her research goals? St Andrews cannot be the only leader in this field.

I don’t find the Guardian tables very useful. I don’t think employers do either. World ranking makes little difference either in the uk. Everyone will care about what you can do not whether the university was 99 or whatever in the world. Ultimately that means 98 are better! So Conference League in football terms. So somewhat pointless evaluation of what a university is worth. Also employers don’t pick someone purely on university attended.

The Complete University guide puts St Andrews 2nd and Bath 5th for Biochemistry. So hardly miles apart.

I would reassure you that St Andrews has not fallen prey to undue influence of radical student or Scottish politics ( Edinburgh is much worse), it seems to do it's best to ignore them as much as possible, most of the staff are from elsewhere as are the majority of the students (only a third Scottish). It has a Lib Dem MSP not an SNP one, besides the Scottish public are not as enamoured of certain radical policies as Nicola likes to suggest.
It certainly still seems a comfortable place for the studious young person who wants to work hard and have a fairly wholesome time, at least it was for my DS who graduated last year.

Hi, again @woollymammal

The RP component of the REF stands for Research Power. It is the average rating of submitted research x no of submitted researchers. I think. (Academic units that do not submit all staff except teaching specialists are somehow penalised.) Thus if two units have the same average rating, the larger one will have a higher RP ranking (lower number, as you surmise). So St A’s fell significantly. Unless it shrank, the research this period was less well rated.

The RP rating is robust. A lot of thought goes into developing the standards, training the raters, etc.

The QS rankings are rather different. The greatest component, 40%, comes from spamming academics worldwide asking us to participate. They say there are attempts at quality control but there are consistently dubious outcomes. No one I know believes U Pennsylvania is (significantly!) better than Princeton and Berkeley overall but this has been the recent QS result; even weirder, U Manchester ranks more highly than Berkeley in recent years. Ridiculous. There are many similar examples

Also QS use citations per academic per year, which is a very crude metric, and either number or percentage of international staff (somewhat reasonable) and students (a political nightmare). The short version of this is that I would ignore the QS rankings! The Shanghai World Rankings of Universities or some such are somewhat more objective, particularly in STEM, but I would not make this a criterion for UG study.

I think your DD’s instincts and your own should be your guiding lights. If you are concerned about the THE data, you might want to look up its components. Could low NSS be part of the problem with Bath? @PerpetualOptimist makes an excellent point regarding sample size, and I do think the pandemic may have skewed things (though of course I cannot know).

Sometimes parents on this Board worry because their DC are making decisions with high stakes outcomes. Happily your DD is in a great position. She only needs to figure out what she wants, and follow her heart. Both options are great.

@Stockpot 100%. She just has to decide which one she thinks she'll be most comfortable - for her, that means where she feels she can best fit in. Another couple of visits should determine this, as far as she is able to.

@TizerorFizz I don't jnow whether she'd have disliked another boarding school but in this instance she went there thinking she could reinvent herself, be someone who didn't care much about working, or learning, or idk...morals sounds a bit prissy so I hope you get what I mean, she's not a party girl, is quite reserved though when she is comfortable she can enjoy herself. Her brother boarded & she is fine around all his friends. Its a first degree and of course she can develop specialities in time, but I think she is looking for some sense of shared interests/common ground, given the boarding experience. But yes, you are spot on.

@Wbeezer Thank you, that is really reassuring and good to hear.

I ❤️ mumsnet.

Hello again, @poetryandwine ! Thank you for bearing with me & being so helpful and informative. Would the RP drop be something to worry about, at UG level? And I hear you re Berkeley & Manchester (and my mind is going to that paper last year about Japanese cartoons 😉).

I think what this thread has done is sort of smoothed out the differences between the two choices, freeing the way for her to make a decision purely on her gut feel. As you all say, either will be fine, what matters is she gets behind her choice. TY all

Hi, @woollymammal

I don’t think the falling RP ranking will affect UGs unless the academic unit is shrinking, which is one way the ranking can decrease. If the academic unit shrinks there will be fewer courses, project supervisors, etc. Tutorial groups, seminars and labs will be larger. Informal placement networks and other networks will be smaller.

If the research wasn’t as highly ranked this period that isn’t going to affect UG life. Another possibility is that St A’s has held steady but some of its previous competitors have been making good appointments and leapfrogged it

I had to google your reference to Japanese comics. I’m guessing you are referring to something, allegedly scholarly, at U Man last year? Written up in the Daily Fail. Just …. yuck. U Man has had a number of tone deaf episodes recently, which is too bad as the place has a rich history in STEM research and currently boasts two Nobel laureates in Physics

@poetryandwine I'll try to make some enquiries about the academic unit as that would be a bit of a worry - it seems unlikely though and I think I read something about how a change in parameters meant regional universities were getting a look in. Re U of M - maybe the expose was a good thing...stops the rot.

Anyway, forward we go. Many Thanks.

My DD is doing biomed at Bath. She's 2nd year and has secured a placement for 3rd year. Since she started, Bath have created a Life Sciences Department. They feel very much on the up. Many 1st year modules are the same biochem and biomed. Many varied options to choose in 2nd and final year.

She absolutely loves her course and learning at Bath. It's what kept her going when she had some social wobbles in 1st year. Not sure about Biochem but Biomed at Bath was the only uni of her choices which demanded As in chemistry and biology.

She made good course friends early on as fewer than 100in her year on her course. And of course she loves living in Bath.

But I'm sure if she'd applied and been offered St Andrews, I'd have the same dilemma as your DD and you!

That was exactly our gut feel at the open day talks. There seemed to be a focus on flexibility, and accommodating individual strengths rather than 'this is how we teach and you'll all have to adapt to it'. For example, they mentioned there is space for different approaches, that some might be maths-led but that others are not, and I think thats what interested DD as her third subject is psychology as she is interested in the epigenic aspect of protein folding, particularly in Alzheimers.

It is a dilemma. As I mentioned earlier, I wonder if the pull of St A is a hangover from the Oxford rejection, the thought of being accepted by one of the big 3? Is that what makes it difficult to dismiss?

We are visiting Bath on the 15th of Feb. If anyones DC are around on that day, she'd be very interested in having a chat.

@fortyfifty ⬆️

It is a dilemma. As I mentioned earlier, I wonder if the pull of St A is a hangover from the Oxford rejection, the thought of being accepted by one of the big 3? Is that what makes it difficult to dismiss?

I can understand that, certainly.

We were the COVID 6th form years so only visited 3 unis, and saw the outsides by ourselves. DD was firmly decided on Bath after visiting, even though it was grey cold and raining and students weren't out their flats. She knew what she wanted from her course and could see herself living happily at both the uni and in Bath city. Hopefully your DD will get the feeling one way or another where she'd fit best. If she doesn't choose St Andrews, she could pursue Oxbridge (or London unis) for postgrad.

There are quite a number of 3rd year placements offered at Bath uni. It might be worth finding out if there's an opportunity to work on Alzheimer's related research if she opted for that.

@fortyfifty That was exactly her response...really till she got the Oxford interview. The whole family can imagine her at Bath. We'll ask more about placements & research at the offer holders day. Many Thanks.

The thing that would put me off St Andrews would be the availability and cost of accommodation,I know lots of students live in Dundee
The other thing that put my biologis Dsis off is that there is no bursary for students from low income families

Have to say that's not true - re bursaries.

As an alumnus who funds 50% of a (partial) bursary at St Andrews I know there definitely are bursaries available there.

A variety of bursaries are available with different eligibility criteria.