Which universities in the UK are “prestigious”? Or does it depend on the course?

[Icelolly44]

Is it related to general league tables, or league tables for the course? (These seem to change a lot year on year so are they reliable?)

Is it related to being Russell Group?

Does it matter if you go to a prestigious uni or not if you come out with a degree at the end of it from both?

Does it improve you employment chances or eventually the salary you can command?

If you have a likelihood of high grades, is it better to go to somewhere deemed more prestigious or with higher entry requirements than somewhere with a comparable course with lower entry requirements, if you got a good feel for both.

DD is panicking about which choice to firm for a science subject- with 5 offers of varying grades- she has narrowed it down to 4. Loved them all on offer days and would enjoy all. Should prestige or league tables make the final decision, or should it be where she may have a better social life?

There must be one or two that she is drawn to more than the others? They are all good unis.

@Icelolly44
It was you that mentioned social life! We didn’t worry about coming home. It was a rare thing! Social life at Bath won’t be the same as Manchester! However if social life is not really that important, Bath does have good employer relations. That said, plenty of scientists don’t do it but do a masters to enhance the skills employers want.

Lough has 2 levels , Athletic Union & varsiety . AU is elite , varsiety is lower level & more fun. DS plays varsiety rugby and has a great time even though he’s not a great rugby player.

the facilities are outstanding though.

My DS had these in descending order for natural sciences.
Cambridge
Durham
Edinburgh
York
There was one other but cannot remember it. He researched them quite throughly, no idea if they are prestigious just due to courses or not.

OP, you've listed five universities, but your earlier post said that your DD had narrowed it down to four for firm choice, so which has she ruled out?
Does budget play a role in choice of university? I suspect that from second year onwards, accommodation in Bath will be pricier than the other places you've mentioned.

Of your uni list, OP, I think only Bath and Lboro offer a placement year variant of their biology courses (need to check); U of Leeds does give the option to take one if requested but that would not be the norm and your DC would be out of synch with most of their peers on a 3 year trajectory.

As others have indicated, full year work placements can be hard to secure in biology/biochemistry/chemistry areas. However, the Bath or Lboro placement year option would still be valuable if your DC was not fully committed to a biology-related career. A placement with a non-bio employer would enhance prospects if that was a route to be considered.

Other factors to consider are the availability and cost of accommodation after first year. Bath is a beautiful city but is expensive and that would need to be anticipated when budgeting. Finally, U of Birmingham is to an extent, as you are probably aware, 'a campus within a city' so there is potential to tick several boxes.

We recently went to a talk on universities (DD is year 12) and the school quite hypocritically said to not fixate on oxbridge and RG universities...even though all their stats to encourage 6th form entry included what % past students went to oxbridge and RG universities.

@Fizbosshoes
Depends on what you want after graduating. For Biology, why not go RG or RG plus like Bath and Loughborough? They are probably offering the most academic courses and have the highest academic requirements for entry. However you can move to RG after post 92 or from anywhere for masters. Many will do this. It’s still true that RG has an edge on salary. If that doesn’t matter, then go anywhere that suits. However schools are naive if they think all universities are equal. The League tables say something different. Even league tables for dropping out tell you a lot.

I live right next to bath Uni- places a lot of emphasis on placements and is a lovely cozy campus in a very nice setting. It is however out of town, so there's a lot of toing and froing and as others have said whilst we have lovely pubs, parks, cafes and funky bars, it might not suit anyone wanting loads of clubs and a big city vibe etc - it will also be slightly more expensive on accommodation - although not drastically so as there is shitloads of it and the international students want these mini hotel type places . From what you've said about your daughter I think she would like it - I think it's less overwhelming than some of the big city Unis - it's also the Times university of the year and in top 100 in world for grad careers

Manchester

Yes haven’t fully considered budget, apart from excluding London.

Where did he pick in the end? Did he get all offers?

I meant social life as opposed to nightlife, meaning should you select mainly based on course or mainly based on where you feel you’d fit best, if struggling to choose!

We are huge procrastinators which doesn’t help in this situation!

She is drawn more to some for course and others for sport/social

Accommodation can be patchy for first years at Bath and Manchester. If she ends up commuting from outside because of this it could dent her social life. Birmingham has been brilliant for my science daughter this year. Lots of teaching hours, lab work and fantastic accommodation/flatmates.

If she visited them all …. where does she see herself? Where did she felt she fitted in and could live there for 3+ years?

Absolutely this.

My DD can make a decision about whether to consider a uni only by visiting it and getting a feel for it. DS wasn’t interested in this but vvv crucial for DD in the decision making process.

@Icelolly44 Are there really huge differences between course content? If she likes an aspect of a course that no other university provides, then that’s the one to go for. Any larger university will have plenty to do. Plus only you can answer the question on budget and if she’s likely to come home much. If you have not considered budget, you probably don’t need to.

The Complete university guide ranks these as: Bath 7, (Manchester 8), Birmingham 18, Leeds 27, Loughborough 32. If I was advising I really would say Bath. If she’s not after nightlife, it’s a no brainer! I might then be looking at Birmingham: although as a city I prefer Leeds! Very little between them.

However I think Loughborough is a bit isolated. My thoughts are influenced by my DDs who liked a broad social life and not one just on a campus with no city nearby. They liked galleries, bars, museums, coffee shops, and even a wide variety of places to walk to/visit. However DC are all different but I think you are really coming down to which type of location because surely courses are all perfectly good.

Also don’t assume all options will be offered. These can change if a lecturer leaves. Or is on maternity leave or writing a book.

In the (paywalled) Times Good University Guide, Bath, Loughborough and Birmingham (in that order) are well ahead of Leeds for Biology, if that helps. Bath is at 8th overall for Biology.

There's plenty to do in Bath. It depends a bit what a teen is used to but it's a thriving tourist city and hardly a backwater.

We are procrastinators too! When DS was picking , we made list of criteria (eg location, transport me, cost, course, sports, city, safety, accommodation, league table, employability stats) and he rated all of those out of 10. Then put his top scorers as firm and insurance.

*transport home

@Icelolly44
He chose Cambridge, it was a difficult decision as he really liked the sound of Durham but we live quite near to Cambridge and its got a very good reputation it was definitely the right choice however the work load is massive. He received offers from all others except Edinburgh.

The list will always be Oxford and Cambridge, Durham etc down and has not really changed for decades.

So the ones chosen Manchester, Leeds, Loughborough, Bath, Birmingham - those are defnitely next tier down than the person with the list with Cambridge, Durham etc on it above.

However people get good jobs from places like Manchester (I did law at Manchester and did fine from there - I did not get an offer from Durham nor Bristol sadly)

Prestigious? Only those two I'm afraid.
Good (some even excellent)? There are a few if you can dig them out from beneath the spin.

Thanks that’s good to hear!

She has loved all on visits/offer days and the favourite has changed each week. There are pros and cons to all