Universities for Engineering

[Stockpot]

DD2 is applying for engineering courses that start in 2025. She wants to aplly for general engineering or MechEng. I’d like to canvass opinions about which courses she should consider. (I studied humanities and really don’t have much to go on besides guides and open days. They all looked fantastic!)

DD2 is predicted 4 Astars in Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Chemistry. Her teachers advise that she shouldn’t need back up options below AAA. DD is a little anxious and thinks maybe an AAB option would be a good idea. But you only get 5 choices and the top tariff unis tend to be a crap shoot, so I hate to see her waste a choice.

She will try for Cambridge and has ruled out Imperial. She is dyslexic (a slow, but able reader), and an avid hockey player.

Any places spring to mind? Should she have a B-eng course as a back up, rather than all M-eng? Is an AAB standard offer a sensible mitigation, or a wasted chance?

Sheffield
Bath
Loughborough

Same discussion here! Watching ☺️

Dd applied for mech eng. She went for manchester, imperial and UCL as first choices and glasgow and Edinburgh as back ups. She discarded after visiting Nottingham, Bath and Bristol.

I went on all the visits with her except Bristol and UCL and my personal take on the departments was: Imperial was vibrant and exciting but a bit presumptuous, Nottingham and Endiburgh: dull and a bit apathic, Bath ok, Manchester and Glasgow: really good, lots of practicals, energetic professors.

She decided on Manchester 🙂

Things may have changed but when I went it was pretty easy to switch between BEng and MEng (and vice versa) so no huge benefit to applying for the one with the higher boundaries. The trick is keeping your grades high enough during the course. This was a while ago, mind! Worth asking the admissions tutors at the open days.

Manchester
Sheffield
Southampton

That's exactly the advice my DS was given at open days for admission this year.

Bath, Bristol are good for all types of Engineering. Sheffield is great as a back up and they have plenty of accommodation even if it’s your insurance.

Glasgow is good!

Thank you all for taking the time to respond. It’s good to see that some of your suggestions are on her radar.

My son got an interesting offer from Warwick. He applied and got an offer for A*AA for the MEng which could be converted to AAB for the BEng (Reality is that if performance is good enough for MEng he could transfer across).

He was predicted 3 A star but the end he got Astar AB and they accepted him on the MEng anyway. He has been getting a lot of hands on experience through his student projects. Even has a part time engineering term time job in term time for next year. I've been so impressed with the university and what it has to offer.

Some Engineering departments offer, effectively, a BEng safety net in the sense that if you narrowly miss your MEng offer on results day, you are given the opportunity to take the BEng; obviously you may get the opportunity to switch back to MEng later in the course. U of Notts offer that option, I believe. You probably need to check with department admissions directly as it is not always spelt out on websites. That would allow you to put MEng options from leading unis on all 5 UCAS choices but still have some further reassurance.

One aspect to think about is funding. You get undergrad funding 'scope' for your course years plus a grace year. So, if you were taken onto a 3 year BEng without placement year, and had not used up your grace year, you could, I assume, upgrade to the 4 year MEng without placement year at a later point and still get funding for all those years, but you would not get funding for all the years of a 5 year MEng with a placement year. Others will be better placed to advise on this. Obviously uni fees for a placement year are usually only 20% of the normal charge and you are receiving a salary but I do not know if you can apply for funding for, say, years 1-3 and then 5 and skip out requesting funding for year 4.

@PerpetualOptimist If you do MEng with a placement year you can get funding for all 5 years. My son has just graduated from such a course. It’s very easy to change as you go along in terms of student finance, his placement was very last minute and it was not a problem updating the funding.

@Decorhate - great, that is good to hear; thanks for clarifying.

Loughborough do contextual (one grade lower than typical) offers for disability, Sussex would consider but you need to email them.

Southampton open day this year they talked about everyone does general engineering in year one then chooses their options mech/chem/elec etc and various combinations of modules in years 2&3.

I don't think with 4 A star predictions she will necessarily find it too much of a 'crap shoot'. Obviously Cambridge is, and she's excluded Imperial but the others probably not so much.
My dd had 3 A star predictions and got 5/5 offers (electrical&electronic apart from Cambridge) had 5/5 offers from Cambridge, Southampton, Manchester, Sheffield and Nottingham (the last was something of a space-filler at a lower tariff as she'd ruled out a few others she'd considered eg bristol).
The thing to remember when looking at applicant to offer ratios is that some will be the aspirational choice for some candidates, the realistic for others and backup 'lower' choice for ones like your DD.

One thing she should think about carefully is about doing general engineering vs a single field. At the time dd was applying, she wasn't at all convinced anywhere offering Gen Eng apart from Cambridge would sufficiently allow her to 'generalise then specialise' - both in terms of course content and wouldn't have provided the full CEng accreditation level from the IET for elec. eng. This may have changed, but definitely something to check. There do seem to be more courses offering a common first year which is helpful I think for those who might have chosen Gen eng if they weren't 100% sure which field they were aiming for.

Cambridge was a huge workload, delivered fast. While there should be extra exam time for those with dyslexia that doesn't help the intensity of the course. I wouldn't want to discourage your dd from applying but go into it with eyes open! For work-life balance and time for hockey she might thrive more doing straight mech eng at one of the other excellent courses available.

Thank you @ErrolTheDragon. I’ve had some of the same thoughts/concerns. I don’t have the heart to dissuade her from applying to Cambridge when her predictions are so good. But I do feel protective of her. I have to trust the process. Luckily there seem to be more than a few good schools to choose from.

I would highly recommend Manchester

You have some great suggestions above, OP. There isn’t a dud in the bunch. My two cents:

Sheffield may not, overall, be in the same category as some of the stronger universities mentioned. But it punches well above its weight in Engineering. Both employers and academics (should DD wish to continue her studies) know this

@ErrolTheDragon ‘s thought’s on the Cambridge workload for a highly able student with dyslexia seem spot on to me

I agree with the school that AAA is an adequate floor for DD’s Insurance offer. I am a former Russell Group STEM admissions tutor and I like to see applicants choose an Insurance choice two grades below their PGs. This assumes their PGs are not wildly optimistic, of course. I am also assuming DD will have the exam support that someone diagnosed with dyslexia should get.

Loughborough has an outstanding reputation in STEM Teaching and Learning. This may be of interest to anyone with DC interested in STEM.

Hi Stockpot, my DS is just about to start year 1 of a mech eng degree at Sheffield. He had astar a a prediction so lower than your DD and didn't have physics or further maths which limited where he could apply (had maths and two other sciences). He got offers from Birmingham Nottingham and Exeter of AAB. He chose Nottingham as his insurance although personally I thought Birmingham looked good at the offer holder day and open day. I think for a lower grade back up Loughborough would be an excellent choice as very good for engineering but he couldn't apply due to how lack of physics so we didn't look at this in detail. From what I could see at the open day and offer holder day (I'm not an engineer) the department at Sheffield was the best of the ones I have listed above. We also looked at Lancaster which I thought seemed student focused but he said he "didn't want to go to university in a field" and would possibly be lower grade wise than your DD would need

Most of his friends with physics and high predictions looking at engineering went for Manchester as the dept sounded excellent (and they all liked the thought of Manchester)

In terms of AAA offers for engineering last academic year (it may have changed) there weren't many places giving out AAA offers. Bristol Sheffield Manchester Durham Bath also required at least one A star. Warwick was AAA offers but we didn't look at that one

Thank you @poetryandwine , very useful food for thought!

Just to add all the mech eng departments we asked said it was possible to swap between BEng and MEng if met grade requirements during course.
Ruled out Scottish courses due to the length (and therefore cost of additional years accommodation etc)

Oh, I forgot to mention that throughout STEM movement between BSc and M(Subject) in both directions is indeed routine. I have never heard of anyone making good progress as defined by their School being refused the ‘upgrade’ (provided they comply with deadlines), and those on the M(Subject) programme not meeting this standard at the end of Y2 are usually moved to the BSc.

So no worries there

My DN was predicted 4 A stars which he got. But, no offers from UCL, Bristol or Imperial at all. Had interview with Oxford , but no offer.
Luckily, Manchester offered early in process and he was very happy to go there. Great facilities, vibrant department, interesting city. Started this week and it so far seems like an excellent match for him.
So another vote for Manchester.

Yes, I have heard of more than one candidate who never heard anything from Bristol at all, no rejection, just ghosted. DD really likes Bristol too. Worries me a bit. This happened to her older sister with Edinburgh, never heard anything at all.

You hate to waste precious choices on schools that don’t even evaluate you.