DD is prioritising student satisfaction so ruling out a lot of RG unis

[Satisfiedstudent]

My DD thinks student satisfaction is one of the most important factors in university decision-making so she is ruling out a lot of the top universities. She says most of the Russell Group unis are very poorly rated and whenever I suggest somewhere (Cardiff, Birmingham…. ) she whips out the Sunday Times guide book my mum bought her and promptly dismisses it. My DH thinks this is reasonable as a happy student is more likely to do well but I am not so sure that student satisfaction is the be all and end all and wonder what you all think?

FWIW, DS picked a course with low student satisfaction scores as he was heavily swayed by other factors.

As it goes, those students were right. Digging down more deeply on Discover Uni tells you more than a raw score. DS swapped course within 3 weeks, and he wasn't alone.

Moral of the story - ignore low student satisfaction at your peril.

Then she choses accommodation which doesn't require you to move your stuff out at the end of each term (tends to be catered halls as they then rent the rooms out) and you do it once a academic year and she gets the train or flies etc at Xmas and Easter breaks.

Also tell her to get a job like most other students do......

It's not up to you which university she goes to as long as she is happy (shes also got to be accepted first!) Trust me I have seen many a unhappy student who felt stuck because of cost and parental pressure it does not make for good mental health, learning achievement or general well being.
The place has to be right for her get a list and do some open days including Cardiff if you want!

Please be v careful with the student satisfaction thing. Those figures can be manipulated.
Both my daughters and me and my dh went to RG unis and all had great experiences.

One thing I would think about (I'm not being a doom merchant here) is distance from home. My dd, encouraged by me, chose a university almost as far away from home as it's possible to get. It was fantastic-until it all went horribly wrong and she was 400 miles away. I reckon 2/3 hours away at most is ideal.

Student satisfaction room surveys are not a good measure. One Uni was near the bottom one year because they revamped the lecture theatres snd students didn't like the new seats.

Most students never both go fill the survey in, it's mostly the ones with a grievance, so they are a bit loo sided.
Go to open days and talk to the current students. They'll be honest while walking on tours.

Apologies for atrocious spelling. On a bumpy train.

I've studied at several universities including 3 RG and 4 no RG and the non RGs gave a much better student experience and better learning experiences. The prices of paper might not be held in quite as high regard in certain circles but the knowledge and skills I gained were superior.

@235rssf this is why the NSS is flawed. At the University where I work we are not allowed to influence in any way. The Office for Students is very clear on the use of inappropriate influence

www.officeforstudents.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/student-information-and-data/national-student-survey-nss/promotion-of-the-nss/

To be quite honest, I didn't find they were!

I don't think 'RG' is the be all and end all. But as a major graduate employer, and having been through the milkround myself. A lot of top universities are 'RG', but I wouldn't consider all 'RG' top. It's a marketing tool.

In terms of selectiveness, some unis have a brand name regardless of the actual degree: Example
Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, Imperial College. Domestically and internationally.

But then you have universities like Nottingham who take transfer students from their foreign campuses with a low academic average (55%). They also pride themselves on offering the 'same degree' here and abroad. (https://www.nottingham.edu.my/AboutUs/Campuses/Malaysia.aspx#:~:text=The%20University%20confers%20exactly%20the,residential%20accommodation).
https://www.nottingham.edu.my/Engineering/Departments/Chemenv/FAQs.aspx#:~:text=Yes%2C%20it%20is%20possible%20under,course%20at%20the%20UK%20campus.

There are other non-RG with a stronger brand name like Bath, and St Andrews.

RG are supposed to be research intensive but then again, that depends on your specific course.

Then below that you have the ex-polys, and others. Again that's very course dependent. Staffordshire for example used to be well known for giving their students a good grounding in computing, making them write code for the Linux kernel. That's the very heart of many major systems. Doesn't mean that all their degrees are equally good.

As PP says , you really need to research but the trouble with that is many people do 'generic' degrees for the sake of it - bit hard to decide between them in that case.

I think it is a useful measure but she needs to look at it for the subject (see discover uni website) not just the uni. I think it is good at identifying the extremes of a really well run interesting course (satisfaction in 90s or even 100 across a decent cohort of say 30+) and a really dull course/chaotic sept/where something is going badly wrong (satisfaction below 70) but less good to identify the mass in the middle. I wouldn’t cross out a whole uni if the course looks good on that metric.

To pin decisions about university choice primarily on one factor is not wise but equally it is sensible to take account of satisfaction data in some way and not simply dismiss that as flawed because it reveals results we don't want to see.

Some points to consider:

Sample sizes - if you look at satisfaction data at the course level, sample sizes can be very low; data at the faculty level has larger samples and so is more likely to reflect the underlying reality.

Time-lags - data currently published is influenced by the (often extremely negative) experiences in 2020 and 2021; some unis handled the pandemic disruption very badly, others with a more can-do attitude; relative performance might change as conditions evolve.

The key drivers of satisfaction tend to be around academic contact time (STEM courses generally do better because of this) and timeliness and helpfulness of feedback (which is another variation on the theme of academic contact).

I would encourage your DD to look at other factors first (broad ranking, course focus, employability data, physical setting, distance from home etc) and then use satisfaction as a potential factor for consideration once the initial selection pool has been identified.

I agree with those who say you should be the arbiter of where she goes to uni just bc you are topping up her loan.

It would be perfectly reasonable though to point out that if she is a very long way away, you will not be able to visit often and she will not easily be able to come home. This may not be an issue but it should be thought about IMO. I say this often on MN but my DS is at a very nearby uni – he was even grumbling about how close it is before he went, and of course he misses out on the possibility of exploring a new area. BUT the fact that he is less than an hour’s drive from home means I could go and watch him play his sport all through the season, which I know means a lot to him. Obv this or any similar issue may not apply to your DD OP. My DD was also at uni quite locally and was able to commute in for one year when it suited.

But your DD needs to decide what is important to her – and as others mention, a book detailing student satisfaction, while worthy of consideration, is only one factor. DD just pointed out that satisfaction on the survey will be wrt a range of courses - not necessarily hers.

Things worth considering IMHO:

What course? How is it taught and examined? Is the uni well rated for the subject? What facilities, what module choice is there?

Does she want a city with all that offers, campus with its wonderful feel and access to lots of student activities, or somewhere in between?

Sporty uni, coastal uni cheap halls, catered halls, frozen north or well-off south? All of these are factors, yes along with RG (FWIW neither of my two uni DC went to RG), and yes, along with student satisfaction.

Encourage her to book on to some (many?) open days this summer, and also go and look round a few places. DS2 was doing this in Covid times so we just went to look at some places to get the vibe. So if you run out of time and dates for open days it’s still worth visiting.

There are lots of non RG unis near or fairly near Kent which are perfectly fine (Essex, Reading, Bath, Surrey etc)

aaargh I meant to say you should not be the arbiter of where she goes (etc) sorry OP.

What I mean is, it's her decision; I would hate to have thought that my DC were choosing where to spend two years and £50k based on whether I wanted them to go there.

my 2p worth having just been round a load for my DC going this Autumn, and my work which I volves selling IT services to Higher Ed: a) RG is great and all but research quantity and quality has bugger all relevance to an undergrad b) there's surprising little difference between unis these days (excluding Oxbridge maybe which we didn't look at) now that students/parents are paying. They are all businesses now and compete for students so all (most?) Have a basic minimum of accomodation standard, facilities etc.

She needs to work back from the job she wants as a graduate, then look at the linkedin profiles of newly hired people in those roles and see where they attending university and go from there. She is going to invest £9250 plus other costs into this each year so a bit silly to go by silly surveys.

Although I had 3 children who all went to Bristol University and loved it, that was not their reason to pick it.

I would try to go to the hardest to get into universities based on her likely A level works and work downwards from there.

I think it's worth balancing out a wide range of factors- location, student satisfaction, rankings by subject (as opposed to general university league tables) and employability.

RG isnt always best, but equally I think you are right, student satisfaction is not a brilliantly unbiased measure. Obviously it's important that she's happy, but individual satisfaction will depend on the individual department and staff who she is dealing with, so the university-wide score is not necessarily going to reflect her own experience anyway.

If its a vocational subject, it would be well worth researching which courses are rated by people in that industry too.

She'll have her whole life to regret choosing a university that is poorly regarded by employers.

I suspect the reason for her stubbornness and fixation with this one (likely false) element is nervousness about the prospect of leaving home and her familiar school/ college/ 6th form and trying to make a new home from home elsewhere.

Burn that book your mother gave her, and take her on trips to a lot of different universities.

Try to get her to think in the long term, not in terms of where she'll spend the next three or four years. If she digs in and refuses, then maybe some deep conversations are necessary, where you should try to find out how anxious she is about her future as an adult.

Can you afford a gap year? Some kids are not really ready emotionally for university. Sometimes a year spent finding their feet on their own in unfamiliar settings can do a world of good.

Agree with Xenia.

I'm still completely bemused that OP's dd this is her main criteria. I'm staggered. Surely most students start of thinking which Uni is the best for my subject. Will I get the grades to get in. No I won't get into that so then you work your way down. Then every other factor comes into play: do you wanna particularly go to a certain city/Uni: Cardiff, Edinburgh, Birmingham, campus, cost, near to home, all other reasons.

To base it on this, primarily, is just odd.

She can also drop out and change if she feels it's not for her! In the first year especially, a lot of 'core modules' are a repeat of A-levels /fundamentals which should be the same across most unis, for 'most' courses.

My cohort had a fair few change uni. There's no shame in it.

It's much, much harder to do it the other way though.

How many students know exactly what they want to do when they graduate?

Many degree courses start off as being fairly general and students then specialise in the second year. For example DH started off studying material sciences then speciaised in ceramics. At 18 he had no idea what direction his career would take. He then became a leading expert in his field.

Many of DD's cohort sstarted off with biomedical sciences then specialised in genetics, immunology and pharmacology after particularly enjoying those modules.

I think Xenia's advice is excellent for those students who have a fixed career plan, but for many young people it is more fluid.

I should have started my post with "how many students know what they want to do after they graduate when they start looking at universities?"

I don't know why this amazes you
We are talking about 16/17 year olds at this point. At one point my son's main selection criteria for choice of uni location was 'does/does not have a Nandos' 😄 (he has matured a bit during the journey but this OPs DD is still at the beginning)