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Higher education

Talk to other parents whose children are preparing for university on our Higher Education forum.

Original poster

Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester or Warwick unis for MFL

57 replies

MsFogi · 22/02/2024 17:59

DS has offers for these unis and literally no idea which to choose. Does anyone have any valuable insights? I am worried about the cost of accommodation in Bristol but also wouldn't want to put him off going there if that would be the one that is the most highly thought of/best prospects for grad schemes etc. He doesn't seem bothered about the usual city vs campus etc. either so no help there and we have visited all of them!

OP posts:
Maybeicanhelpyou · 22/02/2024 18:09

Distance from home??

Piggywaspushed · 22/02/2024 18:16

Has he been to offer holder days?

Oblomov24 · 22/02/2024 18:39

Which language, what part of the country are you in, which is furthest away.
What is the course like, good options for supporting topics? I have a bit of a love for Birmingham because back in my day is was the crème for languages and I missed out on not studying Russian there because I didn't get BBB.

Original poster
MsFogi · 22/02/2024 21:24

In some ways distance is not an issue for us - we are a couple of hours from Bristol, and have a lot of family in Leamington Spa and near Mancs so he wouldn't be far from us/close family at any of the options. Language would be German and then Russian or French. We're going to the offer holder days (hopefully they'll be more helpful than the open days!).

OP posts:
tennissquare · 22/02/2024 21:29

I'm sure the offer days will help, my dc is at Warwick and loving it and has ended up in a very reasonable priced hall (under £5k pa), the location is campus based as you know, it's a bus ride to go to anywhere that isn't the local supermarkets on the edge of the campus.

Piggywaspushed · 22/02/2024 22:12

I definitely found offer days eye opening.

Original poster
MsFogi · 22/02/2024 22:14

Piggywaspushed · 22/02/2024 22:12

I definitely found offer days eye opening.

In a good way or a bad way @Piggywaspushed ?

OP posts:
cestlavielife · 22/02/2024 22:15

Look at the study abroad placements which has the best?
What do they do about placements in Russia?
Can they go to some place more interesting like to cote d ivoire for french instead of france?

Piggywaspushed · 22/02/2024 22:28

MsFogi · 22/02/2024 22:14

In a good way or a bad way @Piggywaspushed ?

Show quote history

Ha! Both !

poetryandwine · 22/02/2024 22:53

How much instruction is back to being delivered live, and how important is this to DS? This is a good question for Offer Holder Days(if DS cares). Be wary of waffly answers!

Crunk · 22/02/2024 23:27

Are his offers all the same?

we are making similar decisions (though a year behind, just deciding where to apply to at this point (German and Russian too!)

Decision making here has centred on campus v city and the placement year. My dc wants to do a split year but needs to find out whether (given current situation) she can go to a Russian speaking country. what does your DC want from his?

From your list we ruled out Manchester - simply because my DC knows the city quite well and wants to go somewhere new. I thought it looked excellent otherwise and Bristol, because of accommodation

TrulyScrumptiousTS · 22/02/2024 23:30

They're all pretty similar and none will elevate any job prospects more than the other for a MFL degree

Therefore he needs to go visit them on their offer holder days to get a feel for them

Helplessandheartbroke · 22/02/2024 23:35

Manchester but I'm biased as it's my hometown and I love it

Delphigirl · 22/02/2024 23:53

there is nothing to choose between them in terms of prestige and employability and quality of language teaching generally. There may be something to choose between them in terms of eg Russian language teaching - have you looked up student satisfaction ratings for both Russian and German? They may all be very similar but occasionally there is an outlier that shows a really rated dept or one with eg serious organisational problems. Otherwise if he has done all the offerhokder days he just needs to make a decision. Where does he think he would prefer to spend 3 years? All things being equal he might ditch Bristol as the accommodation is rubbish in first year and expensive the other two. You could ditch Manchester as having appalling 1st year accommodation too, that would certainly be a reasonable thing to do.

Piggywaspushed · 23/02/2024 06:37

One thing my DS did (after offer days) was draw up a list of criteria (about ten categories) and then I read them out and he gave each uni a score (this was weighted - some things were /10 and some /5). The one that won went as his top offer, once he had examined whether he was pleased or not, instinctively, with the rank order.

He is at Birmingham by the way but not doing MFL.

Piggywaspushed · 23/02/2024 06:38

(It was also a good way of removing myself form being too influential in his decision making!)

mimbleandlittlemy · 23/02/2024 10:37

poetryandwine · 22/02/2024 22:53

How much instruction is back to being delivered live, and how important is this to DS? This is a good question for Offer Holder Days(if DS cares). Be wary of waffly answers!

In the case of Birmingham I can answer that question. It has been all live lectures since my ds started MFL there in 2021.

As far as going to interesting countries for French, I sort of hope they don't go to Cote d'Ivoire. Not high on the list of places the FO suggest as safe and the universities are very risk averse for the year abroad because even though they basically wash their hands of the kids while they are away for the year, they do, in theory have a duty of care. DS's risk assessment for Japan was interesting given it has some tricky geological problems. He did get an email from UoB after the Japanese earthquake last month checking he was OK, which was lovely, but he was at his German university placement at that point.

If there are any 4th years at the open days, quiz them very hard on how supportive they thought their department was in the application process for the year abroad and how much they enjoyed it while they were there. They will all have been through the mayhem of Turing, rather than Erasmus.

buggybored · 23/02/2024 11:04

DC has offers for two of these (joint honours including Russian). Aside from the v unscientific ‘gut feel’ (on which basis DC has discounted one) I’d suggest looking at number/nature of contact teaching hours and options for the time abroad - Russia itself obviously no longer being a possibility. FWIW, Bristol is first for Russian on at least one of the uni guides but unfortunately no personal experience of it (yet!)

thing47 · 23/02/2024 13:06

What about the 'university experience' beyond the academics @MsFogi?
What are his outside interests and hobbies – music, sport, drama, debating etc etc?

Birmingham and Manchester are going to be quite different from Warwick…

Oblomov24 · 23/02/2024 18:03

I don't know much about Manchester or Warwick I'm afraid, but Bristol has a superb reputation for its BA Russian, I did my MA Russian there and the BA students were satisfied.

AnotherMFLMum · 23/02/2024 20:45

DD had 5 offers for MFL last year, she went to all the offer holder days and ended up deciding on her 'gut'.

She had a personal taster lecture in German in Warwick that she really enjoyed (the lecturer did it all in German which was a huge plus for her but just shows you how low numbers are!). Warwick was an easy distance from home, great transport links and perfect on paper. But for whatever reason she didn't 'feel' it for the campus and is happy else where.

Another relation did an MFL degree in Manchester, he was in Russia when the troubles started and had to leave, I think the uni was quite supportive. Apparently his uni accommodation was shocking but he didn't seem to care. He's not a gut feel type of person though (autistic) and decided using world rankings tables.

So it really does depend on the individual student but I'd still recommend going to the open days if they can. They're all good unis.

TizerorFizz · 24/02/2024 07:11

@MsFogi DD did MFL at Bristol. If you apply on time, first year accommodation isn’t rubbish! You can look and find cheaper options. Bristol is a big city and accommodation is only very expensive near the uni. If you need to save on rent, it’s possible to live further away. Everyone does this in London without complaint. . DD looked at Manchester on an offer day and found it very underwhelming. Warwick is very different from Bristol but good for careers. I don’t know much about Birmingham.

DD is now a barrister and a barrister friend is a Warwick linguist. Both are unis with plenty of dc aiming for high paying jobs. That suited dd and she went to lots of careers fairs for law and got all the info she needed for her career with like minded other students. So think about what he might want to do in the future and where gives him a better launch pad. If he does French, Bristol uni has links with Geneva Uni and that’s a better choice for semester abroad than many French unis.

girlgonenorth · 24/02/2024 08:04

My daughter loved being in halls in Stoke Bishop in first year in Bristol, the accommodation in definitely not rubbish! Living in private rentals in from second year is expensive, but similar to Edinburgh, Glasgow etc. I’m not sure how it compares to Birmingham or Warwick, I imagine they’d be a couple of hundred a month less, as DS’s house in Leeds currently is (We’re paying £450 there and it was £650 in Bristol)

Piggywaspushed · 24/02/2024 11:02

Birmingham is similar to Leeds, possibly a tiny bit more . If students weren't so in thrall to the idea of the en suite it could be a lot cheaper but it's actually quite hard to find a student let in Birmingham without an en suite rammed in to each bedroom!

The advantage of Birmingham accommodation over the others listed (I don't know about Manchester) is that the student accommodation in years 2 and 3 is clustered in Selly Oak which is very near to the university - so no need for bikes, cars, buses etc.

Watch out for 12month lets ... not something we had encountered in DS1's uni accommodation elsewhere.

Piggywaspushed · 24/02/2024 11:11

I haven't looked it up for two years or so but if employability is a factor, Birmingham often comes near the top of those tables. I imagine the others are good too. Like delphi says there is very little between them. I'd be tempted to look at student satisfaction scores on Unistats as that can unearth a few factors, and then see if the offer holders' days match some of those scores.

Certainly the low scores for the original course were born out by a chaotic OHD at Birmingham (different course!). DS still went ahead and firmed it, mind (his spreadsheet put it top)... by Christmas, he had changed course!

He would definitley still recommend the uni itself, though.