civil Eng- warwick or southampton as firm?

[groundhogday2day]

hi, DD has offers from warwick and southampton for civil engineering, both same requirments. felt very safe and comft at both, accomadation seem on par price wise. She also has an offer day at Bristol which has thrown a curve ball by lowering the levels needed, she will see it in April, but as a parent i am concerned at the horror stories of the accomadation crisis, with strudents having to travel 40miles to get there as she will not cope well with that. However, totally her choice. we will support her as best as we can, but low earners and she is middle of 5... so, we know warwick is a good uni however, I dont hear it mentioned alot for engineering. they seemed keen on supporting kids to get chartered afterwards, southampton i hear mentioned alot for engineering, so she is very stuck on what to firm/insure between the 3. any advice on future prospects etc...? in an ideal world she would have both as her two but the level requirements are the same so that feels a gamble. brain says to write bristol as insurance due to requirments to be lower, if she feels comfy there when we visit, heart says not. she is still waiting for bath offer/reject, but i feel as she has been thinking about the others that one is not on the radar. any advice that i can throw her? thankyou!

@groundhogday2day DH has a medium sized civil engineering consultancy with one office in the midlands. They recruit graduate engineers from many universities. It’s not uni that makes the difference, it’s the skills the graduate possesses.

There is little discernible difference between these three. Warwick is very much a premier university for engineering but so are the other two. Employers care far more about skills and attributes than university attended at this sort of level.

I am assuming it’s Meng? These courses are all approved by the relevant Institutions (of which she needs to be a student member) and no employer will think one is better than the other. If it’s a BEng course she will need to do a masters after to get Chartered. Maybe this is what Warwick refer to. The MEng is a quicker and cheaper route. If it’s BEng, switching to MEng is often possible.

It is actually employers who work with the institutions to ensure engineers follow the requirements for becoming chartered. Look at www.ice.org.uk for details. My DH hasn’t studied at a uni post degree to get chartered and I don’t think employees have either but short courses are probably available. Being chartered is the pinacle of engineering and highly desirable.

Bristol is a wonderful place to study but you must firm it. Do not use it as insurance. That’s the main issue with accommodation. I don’t know about accommodation at the others but Bristol is very different to Warwick in that it is not campus. It’s in the city although some accommodation is in Stoke Bishop 2 miles away. I’ve not been to Southampton but none of these unis are a bad choice and anyone graduating really is employable as long as they have the requisite skills.

this is very informative and very helpful, thankyou for the reply. I will explain all to her. yes, its Meng, I will get her to look at the ice org. thankyou for all the info! its good to know what they are actually looking for with the graduates.

University Offers Coming In 23/4 - part 2! www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/4981432-university-offers-coming-in-234-part-2

This thread might be useful. It has this years university admission discussions on. There are quite a few parents who have older children at the universities you mention or whose dc have applied for engineering who might be able to help.

thankyou! i will go and have a look!

Hi, OP -

Former admissions tutor here, STEM subject in an excellent Russell Group university.

@TizerorFizz talks sense and Bristol might be the right choice for DD. I am not writing to debate the merits of these 3 very fine Engineering schools, because a student can launch a wonderful career from any of them.

I just want to caution gently that DD needs an Insurance choice with a lower offer than her Firm choice. If Bristol is her first choice, that’s great. But then Warwick and Southampton are out, because the chances that they will be accepting engineering students who are by implication 2 grades off their offer are very, very small.

I realise that DD and you may have already known this, in which case I apologise. Although many do not, so perhaps this may be of use to someone else. Best wishes to DD

@groundhogday2day Does she have other unis she is waiting to hear from?

hi, DD is waiting on bath, warwick and southampton are A*AA, but Bristol have offered ABB, which is what we werent expecting, tbh. She has self taught herself Further Maths instead of doing the EPQ which she had wrote about in the personal statement aswell as self finding some workexperince with Airbus which i think helped with the offer, on the offer day warwick said if a student misses a grade they will look at it carefully, but we didnt think to ask southampton as we are a bit new with all of this.

@groundhogday2day Thats an amazing offer from Bristol. Thats below the contextual offer. I’m biased as DD went to Bristol and lived with two students doing civils. They liked the course but its a few years ago now. Did she just apply for 4? In many ways these are all similar so what one was meant to be insurance?

I think what we will have to do nearer the exam results date is get a good list of clearance uni's, and what they want as we really should have thought better about the insurance. we really should have done more research about firm/insurance grades before putting these choices.

Unless things have changed a lot in the last few years, there can be a good bit of leniency on results day for Civil Engineering. Bath & Southampton were taking lower grades on the day when Ds did his A Levels. AAB I think. Southampton was in clearing that year.

She needs to be sure she likes both her choices well enough to go there, regardless of the offer.

Warwick’s first year is a general engineering year. Ds did not want that so didn’t apply there.

Each university has a slightly different focus, should not make a huge difference but might be relevant if she already has a preference for the area she wants to work in.

Bristol obviously had a very good reputation & it’s nice to get a reduced offer. I always feel it is more suitable for very confident students though. Just a feeling.

That is an absolutely amazing offer from Bristol. The fact that DD is teaching herself FM is highly impressive. These may be related.

But it means you need to assess the chanes that Warwick/Southampton will take ABC. I’d have thought those grades would rule Warwick out so the question is, what grades was Southampton taking for Insurance last year. The grades they took in Clearing will be a good guide if anyone can contribute?

TBH I think a young person who can attract A star AA offers and teach herself FM is very likely to make ABB if she chooses to firm Bristol. However it’s living on the edge!

thankyou to you all for the advice, she should make all the grades, (stress permitting!) but its taking that gamble with the choices. you all have given great thought and advice, it will be interesting to see what she makes of bristol on the offer day, i am hoping it will then be clearer to her on where she feels she will fit in. My main concern was if we were cutting of her chances of job prospects by chosing one over the other, but that doesnt sound like a problem with any of these, which is reassuring and refreshing. I feel like hibernating till aug!

@groundhogday2day She really won’t be cutting off employment prospects with any of them. I’m surprised her school didn’t advise looking at an insurance uni. There are some really good courses at the former polys for example. I would assume she is pretty sure of her possible grades given where she applied. With clearing, just make sure there is accommodation.

I think she should have a good look at Bristol. I’m not sure everyone there is confident (DD is/was) but others are just “ordinary” young people. They do of course grow in confidence as they mature. Bristol also do a study abroad year that can be wonderful. Engineering anywhere is a very full on course so making friends in your cohort is pretty easy.

I think she needs to decide if city or campus is important to her. There really won’t be much difference in topics taught. Year 1 might be taught alongside others but that makes little difference in the long run. Civil Engineering degrees still need the requisite modules to satisfy the Engineering Council.