Fee-free (Scotland) or higher ranking (England)

[Pantsnomore]

DS currently has a mix of conditional and unconditional offers for Economics in England and Scotland. He is currently leaning to Bath over an easier offer which is tuition fee-free from Glasgow.

It is obviously his decision but I’d like to make sure that he’s aware of all the considerations. This is where we are at so far:

Bath (3 years)
Pros
Better ranked
Employment prospects
Prefers the aesthetics & thinks it’s more his vibe (rugby & pubs over clubs)

Cons
Fees
Distance from home / associated costs
His age (he will leave school at 17 and so I think would be bonkers to go this year - not yet sure if Bath would accept a deferred place
Terms of the condition are aspirational

Glasgow (4 years)
Pros
Fees
4 Years
Flexibility if he decides he doesn’t like Econ at Uni
Easy to achieve offer

Cons
Sees it as less prestigious
Too close to home
Thinks it’s more of a clubbing based social scene.

Are we missing anything? Is he mad to consider either a gap year for econ, or to go to England at 17? Anyone know anything about econ at Glasgow and/ or whether there is a more sports / pub based scene there.

Ah, OK. Mine did a year of pre-school prior to P1, which I figured as being equivalent to Reception, when it’s actually P1 being equivalent to reception.

I don’t think it makes a lot of odds - my S1 switched to Yr 7 halfway through when we moved to England (Feb birthday, we didn’t defer in Scotland) and he was ahead in most subjects because they’d covered it in P7. It was only English language that he was behind in - I think the English system is more hung up on grammar.

That’s right. We have pre-school in addition to Reception.

Anyway, my DC found P7 and Yr 7 pretty much covered the same ground so based on our experience I don’t think there’s a lot of difference between the two systems if students are doing A levels in Yr 13 and AHs in S6. The difference is more that Scottish students have the option to go to uni after Highers in S5, which would be significant compared to their English counterparts.