St Andrews and Aberystwyth - disparity

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DN is at St Andrews and loving it. When she applied, literally no one warned her off by commenting on how small and remote it is.

DS (with less stellar predicted grades) has applied to Aberystwyth and is planning on firming it. Cue literally everyone we know saying how small and remote it is. It is driving him crackers (and yes he has visited).

Thoughts?

My thoughts are that Aberystwyth seems far more remote than St Andrews. I live in St Andrews and it is small but lively and you can get to edinburgh fairly quickly. It is also a very well known uni but I imagine many won't know there is a uni in Aberystwyth. I know I had no idea. I'm not sure what else you want to hear?

I not only graduated from Aberystwyth, but worked as an elected sabbatical student union officer for a year and still live in the area, having made my home here.

Aberystwyth is a lovely town for students; it consistently rates very highly for student satisfaction and the university accomodation and other facilities are excellent. And we have a National Library. And clean beaches.

Most pubs ever in Aberystwyth!

Could it be that not everyone knows where St Andrews is? Whereas Aberystwyth is obviously in Aberystwyth!

Aberystwyth is fantastic everything you need is there

Now bangor that's small

Aber is awesome

Odd comment. St Andrews Uni is in the town of St Andrews just as Aberystwyth Uninis in the town of Aberystwyth

Er......🤔

St Andrews also has many pubs and amazing beaches so they really seem quite similar.

Sorry worded that badly, I mean that Aberystwyth is better known as a city in Wales, whereas St Andrews is a smaller city (or town) and people are less likely to know where it is?

I have been several times (staying at the University for academic conferences) and a friend has a DC there.

I really like Aberystwyth. I'm sure it's a good place to be a student, and the sea is wild and wonderful on that coast.

It's a MONSTER walk up that hill from the town to the University though! Very good for all-round fitness 😁

Are they all mnetters and having their minds blown at the mention of a non-RG university? And spluttering out a comment about its remoteness in order to detract from their pearl-clutching?

Er @LachrymoseLeeches St Andrews is bigger than Aberystwyth ( slightly) very ancient and is also well known because of hosting major golf tournaments.
St Andrews has Dundee very close by and Edinburgh also easily accessible.
Honestly it's not remote, only people with a bias towards big centres of population further south would think that.
St Andrews is higher ranked as a uni so perhaps people think it's worth living further away for the opportunity and didn't want to put your DN off but feel it's more debatable for Aberystwyth.
I have a good friend who lives in Aberystwyth and really likes it, I hope to visit at some point

Aber is remote, no big cities near by and poor rail links to the rest of wales. However it is a fab town, good pubs and places to eat, but yes the hill to the uni is huge!!

Fair enough - Aberystwyth seems more familiar to me, but that's possibly only because I've been there (and it took several hours through mountains, so I do think of it as remote). Whereas I have never been to St Andrews and only have a vague idea that it's near Dundee -and therefore I wouldn't think of it as particularly.

Aber is definitely remote I applied their but went to Swansea instead as was worried coming from a large town it would be too small. One of the stations on the train from Birmingham was basically in a field full of sheep.
Know St. Andrew's pretty well from going there as child as my grandma lived in Fife. My mum said one of school friends who went to do medicine in the early 70s did a lot of drinking while she was there. It doesn't have a station either but isn't far from Edinburgh or Dundee. Very cold and windy though.
Probably is the difference in reputation and Aber is less well known.

St Andrews is close to Edinburgh, Dundee and fairly close to Glasgow. In fact, it's not far from about 80% of the population of Scotland.

Good public transport links too.

Ancient university, well known as such.

Aberystwyth seems like a nice town but is remote and the uni is nowhere near as well known.

Every student we have ever sent there, and everybody I know who went to Aberystwyth absolutely loved it, and have gone on to have successful careers in all sorts of areas.
We are in S Wales so Aber is accessible by car and coach. Trains go cross country to England.
St Andrews asks higher grades and is very prestigious and an hour from Edinburgh so more accessible. A number of our top students apply there along with Oxbridge.

Obvs i know StA isn't RG, but it's RG+ and annointed as one of the few acceptable institutions in here.

Well, they are both very remote to be fair. St A's very northerly and on the North Sea. Must be bitter in winter. Aberystwyth will get a lot of rain, I would think? Another remote uni would be the Penryn campus of Exeter Uni which is the far end of Cornwall.

DS is studying at Aberystwyth and loves it. Yes it's remote, but that means people don't go home at weekends and the social life is great!

Academically, no it isn't RG but many departments are well respected. DS is studying Politics and that came 4th in the UK in the guardian rankings.

You may wonder why I'm labouring the point about St Andrews not being remote but it's nothing like Cornwall or the edge of North Wales, it's only just outside the central belt of Scotland where most of the cities and airports and venues and people are! It's very Anglo centric and inaccurate to say it is and flipping annoying! It's not the North Pole! ( And surely half the coast of the country faces the North Sea)
It's not remote, it's not like its up near Wick! It's just a long way from where you live!

Are they all mnetters and having their minds blown at the mention of a non-RG university?

Neither St Andrews nor Aberystwyth is a Russell Group university.

My youngest is at Aberystwyth and loves it. I really enjoy visiting, too. It feels lively to me, if a little bit small. It has pretty much everything students need, with lots of really good cafés (Sophie's, I'm looking at you). Although transport links aren't great, it does, at least, have a railway station, which St Andrews doesn't.

I know StA isn't RG, I said so. But it is RG+, so widely accepted as being equal to or better than some RG, and therefore implicitly included in the umbrella term.

This is bonkers. If you live in Scotland you know exactly where St Andrews is. I haven't a clue where Aberystyth is beyond the fact it's in Wales. Obviously it depends on where you're from.