Which business management degree / university???

[Larsson11]

My son is in Y13 and hoping to get AAB - ABB and is gravitating towards a Business Related / Business Management degree and wondered if anyone had any insight into the different reputable uni's offering this course.

I think he would suit something practical focused rather than theory, where the tutors are engaging, interesting modules, have the opportunity to get some practical experience / placement year, possibly go abroad for a bit and a good balance of UK and international students.

He thought Bristol was amazing but AAA probably a push. He had high hopes for Sheffield Uni but the international speakers on the open day were actually quite difficult to understand. I think he would like to go somewhere with a good night life so is gravitating towards biggish cities.

Also, does anyone have experience of career prospects with Business Management degrees and know of any good business degree apprenticeships - (doubt he would want to be accountant)

Would he be eligible for contextual at Bristol, they have a very long list of state schools they give contextual to and that would lower entry grades.

Exeter has a good reputation and several business courses including year abroad and I think the social life is still quite active if smaller than Bristol.

Bath is excellent though unless can get a lower offer, also higher on entry grades. Social life reasonable and can travel to Bristol if want Bristol social life.

Lancaster has an excellent business school. If he is looking for something more practical though, has he considered an apprenticeship?

The only person I know with a similar degree did it in France (included something like term in South Africa, term in New York, term in London) and they now work in events management organising events for a famous football club and then afterwards for a luxury brand.

He does go to a state school but I don't think he'll get a contextual offer as it's not on their list. I'd like him to consider Exeter but he has it in his mind that it's mainly posh students. Again, Lancaster I have hear good things about the course but he thinks it might be too quiet for his liking. He is going to look at degree apprenticeships but it's just getting the time to do the applications.

Has he considered Nottingham?
DD was torn between a Town and a Campus Uni and Nottingham seemed to offer both

Strathclyde.

Amazon for degree apprenticeships but they might only offer to current employees (not sure). Person I know took a job with them during lockdown and then signed up to degree apprenticeship.They use Exeter.

Yes, Nottingham is on his list but he missed the open day. Working for Amazon would be like joining the Galactic Empire

Loughborough university have various undergraduate degrees with a placement year with AAB requirements.

Manchester metropolitan was very good for international business, I was there for an open day with my year 13 son. I also have a business degree with a placement year. I was very impressed with the course, it seemed relevant and hands on.

Have a look at Loughborough - consistently in the top 10 across all of the tables for business / management and has a 4yr Bsc which is very well regarded. I think it is AAB. Bath and Warwick are very well regarded but will be AAA, Leeds was also AAA when my DS was applying. Sheffield and Newcastle also wanted AAB.

Personally, I think there are so many business related degrees and with the massive rise in popularity in Economic degrees, I think business graduates will face stiff opposition in applying for graduate positions so needs to go to a reputable uni in this field and in my view have something to set him apart (i.e. placement / year abroad / internship experience).

@Larsson11 So he’s not happy with foreign accents or privately educated dc? No prejudices there then!? An open day isn’t really indicative of who’s teaching undergrads. He’s not going to get the top business schools so I would have thought Sheffield would tick most boxes. Nottingham has quite high private school numbers but Liverpool won’t. I think lots of these grads do have to compete with economics grads so getting to the best uni does matter and all the extras mentioned above.

@TizerorFizz It's not that he is unhappy with anyone having a foreign accent, it is just the reality that sometimes peoples accents can be so strong that it can be a quite a challenge for students to understand them especially in a large lecture hall. You might find this view politically incorrect but thick accents can impede communication. Hence why there are no BBC newsreaders with thick scouse or glaswegian accents.

I would also add that privately educated does not necessarily equal posh

@Larsson11 He might have some problems in many unis then. The main point is that DC do have to accept not everyone will be like them and, on open days, not everyone speaking will teach them. Possibly no-one. It’s just not a great reason to ignore a uni like Sheffield.

full disclosure, I teach in Sheffield Business School (Hallam not Uni of Sheffield) and also went to Loughborough. Worked with a few different unis and been to so many Open Days in recent years, helping my young adults find their direction in HE - unis are far from homogenous, you will have all sorts of folks (staff and students). Some departments are very different to other departments in the same uni

You may be doing all this already but . . .

Definitely dig around with the contextual offers, unis use all sorts of different rules so it may be that you are eligible at one uni and not an others

Definitely look for unis that offer placements, employability is a big challenge for Bus & Mgt graduates. Unis with excellent employability stats usually have good connections with industry

Also think about joint degrees, sometimes less competitive on grades, often give you more flexibility.

Couple of things I see in the students I teach is that they chose business and management without really exploring the modules - modules vary massively from uni to uni so make sure you have plenty of good choices that suit you

Also, I see students mature really quickly and actually want to move towards certain topics / themes and away from others - having a uni / degree that offers lots of options, even the opportunity to swap to a different programme after year 1 can be really helpful

You mention 'practical' versus theory - studying Bus & Mgt (and many other subjects) at uni will involve developing critical thinking skills and writing skills - that's inevitable. You will explore the theory underpinning practice and be challenged in your thinking.

Where I teach (Hallam) I find quite a few students who chose Hallam for its reputation for teaching with a practical approach and having many experienced practitioners as tutors (its a post 92 Uni that historically was practitioner biased where Uni of Sheffield had a more 'academic' bias and tutors expected to have PhDs). IMO you are likely to find the more elite / academic unis to have less practitioners teaching BUT I dont know that to be true any more, so definitely something to look out for at Open Days

Ridiculous to rule out Sheffield because of foreign accents. Every university will have some international faculty.

@BobtheFrog Theres another thread showing how difficult placements can be to come by. I know the old polys can have great links with business but the student still has to compete for the placements. From what I’ve seen unis advertise a few and help students write a cv and apply. They might be successful but many give up. It is not always great advice to say go for a course with a placement when they are like hens’ teeth to actually get. SH might be completely different but I would urge caution on believing all of these students actually get a placement and anecdotally many are applying for 20 plus without success.

I agree, one of my Open Day questions is "what % of students for the uni find a placement for" (and what % of students find their own)

I didn't initially get a placement in Loughborough through usual channels but one of the academics asked around and got me something

But some unis dont even offer anything, IMO that's a reason to avoid them

Have you looked at Queen's University Belfast? Their Business Mgmt degree is a 4 year course with placement year, and the entry requirements look like they might fit. The new business school seems to have great links with industry

Apparently the Open University has one of the best business schools in the world. If he's aiming for the top business schools fair enough, but if it's a choice between a middle ranking one, then working while studying at the OU might be the better option.

Most people when working do the MBA. It’s a better bet and any degree holder can do it. Or even non degree holder in the right job. OU is a bit lonely for an 18 year old. It’s also somewhere people go with lots of work experience so no doubt they look brilliant as most students there are mature and have a job.

Just resurrecting this thread as my child doing exactly the same this year- same grades, same bucket list. Would be very grateful to know -what did your son decide in the end?