Hiya, I’m a bit late to the party but have a child doing a biology degree at another place but we looked at degrees at both campuses in Exeter Uni - I’m assuming you are talking biological science at Exeter rather than the zoology or conservation based degrees at Exeter uni Penryn/Falmouth campus?
Our experience of the two campuses and their teaching teams interaction and engagement was poles apart. This was in summer 2021. Exeter main campus really couldn’t be bothered in engaging despite DD writing several emails asking for a chat to someone when she visited for a campus tour.
Exeter Penryn Falmouth were frankly amazing!! The head of department gave my DD 30 mins face to face ( outside due to covid) where he chatted through the courses and suggested based on her interests an alternative to the one she thought would be the best fit. The facilities and engagement with conservation was superb and students happy and lecturers keen and engaged with undergraduates and not just their research. Visit indoors in small groups with masks - where main Exeter campus refused any indoor visiting. The only reason she didn’t firm was it was a bit remote for her and very very far from home plus the courses at Falmouth specialised a little too early so I can easily see her going there for a masters.
Right - back to how to choose between.
Forget reputation of uni as a whole and think about the following:
Choice and variety of modules - are there plenty of things she’ll want to study in 2nd and 3rd year?
Does the course allow her to have several outcomes - more microbiology, more conservation, more crop science or ageing or genetics etc
Some parts of biology are new at degree and become firm favourites over others.
Does the course allow her experiences in conservation - my daughter partly chose her first two based on international and UK conservation and ecology trips.
I’d not bother with integrated masters. Why?
Do a straight degree with OR without placement or year abroad.
Then either choose to stay at the same uni or a different uni for your masters depending on your research interests once you get to third year. Some unis will be world leaders in certain subjects and others not even research in that area so the ability to swap is preferred if you want to consider research later.
Also being able to show you proactively chose your masters based on a specific specialism shows someone considering you for a PhD or a research assistant job that you are actively searching out opportunities.
I’d not worry about the Uni rep too much and let your daughter choose the course and the opportunities it brings.
Which course at Exeter is it ? Exeter Penryn at Falmouth or main campus.
I’ve worked at a leading uni in biological research and have lots of friends who are researchers and lecture. Opportunities to help with research in the summer breaks are always useful to ask about.
Having a good research rep means nothing about how good they are engaging with their undergraduates it’s often only massively relevant when you get to MSc and PhD level. I’d look at Discover Uni and the satisfaction scores for each course (make sure they have a representative sample of students) then I’d look to see if the lecturers were contactable and the course was running smoothly scores over the overall satisfaction.
Are the courses all f2f or are online lectures continuing ?
My daughter found some courses (York) on offer day mentioned it had its lectures online only with only practicals f2f which cut down contact time massively. She discounted this from position 1/2 to 5 in her list as a result.
We didn’t look at Bangor (think she discounted Wales and Scotland and London for different reasons.)
Super good luck with this !