Essex Uni - published offer requirements much higher than you’d expect! Why?

[Namingchangeagain]

DD (lower sixth) and I been looking into uni courses. She’s veering towards continuing French and starting a new language (German? Spanish?) and possibly with something a bit more vocational alongside (IR, business, translation?).

We are pretty keen on Bristol, Exeter, UCL, Nottingham - and then started looking into insurance choices. Essex is well regarded for languages so we thought that might be an option. However, stunned to see they want ABB - same as DD’s RG unis!

So my question is why you would apply to Essex when there are RG unis wanting the same grades that are above Essex in the SUBJECT league tables? We really wanted to apply to Essex as an insurance option but it is no insurance if they want the same grades.

We genuinely don’t get how Essex fill their language courses. Any insight welcome!

Even I know that York and Lancaster are far better regarded than Essex. Had to Google plate glass - meant nowt to me. Sussex I can’t comment on. But not all plate glass unis the same. DN firmed Cambridge and insured York - he’d never have considered Essex. His current Cambridge Prof was an undergraduate atYork

I'm not sure if this is news or not, but a lot of Essex academics are Oxbridge-educated. They are no less clever than someone teaching at a more prestigious university.

Ds and I impressed by 2 politics academics we met and taster lecture from Essex at offer day.

@Namingchangeagain
You have mentioned 4 really popular RG universities. For less popular single honours MFL, I know one of those is less choosy. Not what Dc wants though! Plenty are ABB entry too. Lancaster for one.

If you look at universities like Queen Mary, Cardiff, Liverpool and a few others, they might have greater flexibility. Especially for German. So few students take it. Spanish and French are more popular. So by adding German, DC might attract a slightly lower offer. It’s vital to think about future careers and which course is better for that. Lancaster for example is better than Essex for example.

Essex is well regarded for languages so we thought that might be an option. However, stunned to see they want ABB - same as DD’s RG unis!

So my question is why you would apply to Essex when there are RG unis wanting the same grades that are above Essex in the SUBJECT league tables?

Well, you've sort of answered your own question. If Essex is well regarded for languages, there will be a lot of people competing for places on language courses, hence the entry requirements will be higher.

League tables are meaningless. They have less than zero value in informing decisions on where to study. They exist to sell advertising space on newspaper web pages, nothing else. The fact that other universities are above Essex in subject league tables does not mean their courses are better. It might just mean more of their students have music grades and horse-grooming qualifications (which carry UCAS tariff points); it might mean their spend per student and/or staff-student ratios are higher.

And, as others have said, the Russell Group is a marketing campaign. Russell Group universities are not inherently "better" than non-Russell Group ones, especially for undergraduate study.

@NoNotHimTheOtherOne
That really isn’t correct overall. RG Plus grads still get better earnings. It’s been well researched. You cannot compare the bottom 25 in, say, the CUG, with the top 25 which include Oxford, Durham, LSE, UCL, Imperial etc (world renown universities) in lots of the subject lists where they specialise. RG Plus (Bath, Lancaster, St Andrews and Loughborough) really means research intensive. That matters. That’s why they are more sought after. Lower down RG, not so much but it varies from subject to subject. However you are wrong to suggest league tables are worthless. The Guardian excepted!

Also universities big themselves up by asking for higher grades than they actually accept. MFL students are thin on the ground. Essex just won’t compete with Durham or UCL for example. They are not going to get 100% ABB students for MFL.

However you are wrong to suggest league tables are worthless. The Guardian excepted!

The Guardian league table is no more or less valuable/worthless than any others. It's a bit of a meme here to say that the Guardian table is a joke but the Sunday Times table (which a tiny fraction of the population is able to see) is "sensible". This view is entirely attributable to snobbery: The Sunday Times puts the universities at the top that people expect to see at the top, but its methodology is designed specifically to do that, because that's what Sunday Times readers want to see. As I said, the purpose of the tables is to sell advertising space.

From the point of view of medicine, I know the tables are misleading because they push Scottish universities to the top owing to Scottish qualifications' carrying more UCAS tariff points than English/Welsh/Northern Irish ones. There is also the issue of St Andrews being ranked highly on student satisfaction even though it has no final-year medical students and shouldn't have anything at all in that column.

Also universities big themselves up by asking for higher grades than they actually accept.

Agreed. This is one of the things that UCAS is aiming to deal with. It will be publishing the grades that have historically been accepted as well as those stated as entry requirements.

RG Plus grads still get better earnings.

Future earnings are strongly dependent on your family's socio-economic status and school type. As RG universities have more students from better-off backgrounds and private schools, this is inevitable. It doesn't mean their courses are better.

It does. By every metric, research universities are harder to get into and have the most competitive courses and some are world leaders. Some other universities have great courses but overall they are not recognised by anyone as being anything special. They are old colleges of HE serving the local population. This has value of course but it’s not the same as a top research university.

If students don’t choose the best universities because they get crap advice that all universities are the same and the best are snobby, then is it any wonder these people under achieve? You do them a great disservice by pretending the universities are equal and then blaming lack of social mobility on other factors! It’s reprehensible and makes my blood boil.

If any young person has the capability, the desire and the ability to do well, aim high and go to the best you can. Meet people who have ambition and drive. Aim high for employment. Don’t listen to people who keep you in your place. Ever. And escape from what others map out for you.

@TizerorFizz DD received a briefing pack from school saying that, for the FIRST time, actual admissions grades will be visible on UCAS. So Essex (and other universities of course), despite publicly advertising ABB, will need to say what they actually admit students with. Do you know anything about this? It sounds great - universities should be transparent IMHO

@NoNotHimTheOtherOne i meant to tag you into the previous post too as you clearly know about this new feature whereby UCAS will publish actual entry grades (so useful!)

Not a language student. But ds is currently at Essex. He is my 3rd child in University. I cant fault Essex from how they dealt with Covid to what ds is learning. How they encourage and support their students.

Ds is growing and developing and doing really well. His older sister went to a "better" University. Comparative it was not. They had no care for their students

I would agree with the poster who said Essex is a great University however I may be looking for different things to you.

I have had - in the past - due regard for Essex. It is a lovely campus uni. What gets my goat is that unis advertise entry grades (to boost their reputation/attract international students) that are utterly divorced from reality.

Fact is that Essex seem to accept BCC for languages as a matter of course - yet they advertise they want ABB. I am a relatively savvy parent who knows that some unis over promote.

However, most students looking at UCAS and uni websites take their published entry grades at face value. It is high time for more transparency. Universities such as Essex publishing ABB when they take BCC does our DC a disservice

@enko I should add that I am delighted your DS enjoying. I singled out Essex and their vastly inflated published offer because my DC taken aback. Many other unis do this too and I think it is quite wrong. No beef with Essex any more than the others! All best to your DS

@Namingchangeagain The tool showing historic grades on entry has been available to advisors for a couple of years. It's becoming available to students (through the hub) sometime soon; there's more info in the report here: www.ucas.com/file/672901/download?token=VccObZXZ on page 5.

Like I said ds is not doing languages. For me personally I feel we can get too caught up in grades. May not be what you look for. The course ds is doing Essex did not inflate for.

@Enko @Namingchangeagain
There is definitely an issue for MFL. My DD did her MFL degree from 2010. She went to the offer day at Manchester. For one of her MFLs there was only one other student there. I was invited in to have a chat with the lecturer too. She told DD that they didn’t care what she got in her third (and 4th) A level as long as she got the grades in her 2 MFLs. So even as long ago as that, Manchester were “openly” reducing their grades. Universities are desperate for MFL students. “just give me a ring if you have a problem with your results”. The lower acceptance grades would not apply for over subscribed popular subjects. MFL needs the students. Courses are closing and had prior to 2010 at some universities (Sheffield and Exeter definitely).

Also, if you get the grades, and are happily on your course, how do you know who Essex has let in with lower grades? What grades have the other students got? If you are a student, you don’t go around asking other students if they have BBB when the published offer is AAA for example.

I did think the info was out there for schools. However too many schools seem to believe all universities are equal.Mainly I suspect because teachers have not fully understood what it takes to get a hugely competitive job. Extra info will help savvy people know where to take a punt, but over inflating grades in a prospectus beefs up the university to make it look something it isn’t. I still think some Dc will be duped.

Any half decent prospective MFL student really can look at the top 15 universities and stand a chance of getting in to the ones not wanting AAA if they don’t quite meet the published target. And AAA isn’t asked for very often!

@Justcannot that is great. Thank you for the link!