Should you pick RG over others? Where to apply for Psychology…

[LottieLovesLemon]

DD looking to study psychology. She wants to apply to 5 from this list of 6

Bath
Loughborough
Manchester
Nottingham
Southampton
Warwick

Having just completed the open days she’s now deciding which one to knock off her list.

Should she prioritise applying to RG?

Entry requirements range from A*AA to ABB

It seems a very popular subject to choose so she’s keen to get her degree from the University that would help her job prospects the most.

Personally I'd knock Southampton off of that list.

What did she think of the places and Cities when she visited? They are quite varied.

Do you mind me asking why?

Bath is meant to be very good, it was one of my yp's choices. I wouldn't necessarily prioritise RG over non RG, especially with a subject like psychology. I'd make sure the course was BPS accredited, that's more important than RG. My up did end up at an RG but not because it was one. It was the uni they felt most at home at, and they really loved the research opportunities there

She should write pros and cons for each uni and choose the ones she can see herself at and studying with.

She needs to make sure the course she applies for is accredited by the British Psychological Society so that she will get Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership of the Society. Sometimes psychology departments offer several different courses and they won't all be accredited. If she doesn't do an accredited degree she would have to do a conversion course after graduating to proceed to any of the specialist postgraduate training schemes, e.g. clinical psychology.

Degrees with a placement year are often a very good bet. If she wants to stay in psychology for her career she will need work experience to proceed.

That was her least favourite based on her visits so if she had to decide now she’d probably knock that off but we are all trying to do as much research as we can.

All are BPS accredited. She chose the 6 having researched the courses online and then was planning to use the open days to knock one off!

All the courses she’s considering are BPS accredited. I think she would now consider Y3 placement year having listened to the open day talks. It sounds very worthwhile to me.

It's less prestigious. I taught Psychology at a Sixth Form. I went to Warwick myself. Lots of students I taught went to Nottingham, Loughborough and Bath. The top students didn't tend to look at Southampton for Psychology. All BSc. single honour courses for Psychology will be BPS registered. It's sometimes joint hons. Courses that are not. It's also more expensive to live as based in the South.

It was another poster who asked why but the answer is helpful to us too. Thank you.

Taking Southampton out of the equation, are Bath and Loughborough less prestigious/well considered by employers than Warwick, Manchester, Nottingham? As part of our research we are trying to understand if the RG element has any factor here or not.

If your DD is planning on staying in psychology, such as doing educational or clinical, as these are public sector jobs/trainings employers don’t get to see which uni she went to. (Uni might be asked to confirm degree confers GBC, but wont be available to short listers). The most important thing is that she is happy and gets a good degree classification. Most further training requires a 2.1 or first.

I would say Warwick is usually considered the most respected on your list.
Loughborough is at least as respectable as Manchester and Nottingham. It's higher on the league tables.
Cost of living is very high in Bath and accommodation a bit of a nightmare so that would put me off, although student experience is generally good.

But I agree with PP, go for the one she had the best feeling at where she is most likely to get the highest grade.

Definitely go for a course that offers a placement year. This has helped my son so much with getting assistant psychology posts since graduating last year. It’s so competitive and relevant work experience is essential.

Keep at least one on with a lower grade requirement to potentially use as an insurance

Thing is @LottieLovesLemon your two non RG choices there are on the list known as RG+ which basically means they are as well respected (esp for certain subjects) as RG (esp lower-level RG to coin a phrase – where I would include Southampton, Cardiff, Newcastle, Liverpool). RG+ also usually includes Lancaster and St Andrews FWIW, not that that is relevant here.

They are all good unis of course – so I would suggest she considers other factors as no one is going to say (objectively) Southampton or Nottingham is “better” for psych than L'boro or Bath.

So other factors – for example city (Manchester, Nottingham) vs smaller place (Bath, Warwick, Lboro). Campus vs not – Manchester uni is mainly in thre city centre, whereas Lboro and Warwick are very much a big campus in a small place, and Nottingham is a big campus a few miles away from a big place.

Accommodation is a factor - Bath is very expensive for private rents, Lboro and Nottingham less so, tho all on campus halls at Notts are catered = £££.

I also suggest listing at least one that has a lower typical offer than she might get. So if she is hoping for AAA, list one that offers ABB.

Have you looked on this year's complete university guide rankings for Psychology?

My DD applied for entry in 2025 with grades in hand to the following (in no particular order)

Bath
Edinburgh
Oxford
Bristol
York

The only place she didn't get into was Oxford. But the courses at the other places varied wildly in terms of content / placements / MSci options etc.
Some of them, Bath for instance say that they get so many applications that they only use the PS as a tie breaker. Others clearly read it in some detail and asked further questions about the content (course related usually).

I would agree with Southampton as the one to shelve.
she should pick one lower grade one as insurance but apart from placement year I would choose where she feels like she would enjoy living. The Uni experience is much more than the course. Think about the practicalities of accommodation, what was here feeling about the department, what specialisms might she be interested in as 3rd year options.
At work I work alongside lots of clinical psychologists and they would all agree if she wants to follow that route it’s gaining experience that matters. If she’s into neuroscience go where they have good labs for that. If on the other hand she is doing psychology because it interests her but she plans to do something else like civil service or grad schemes then look at the employment destinations.
RG is not that relevant to most employers now.

It's also more expensive to live as based in the South.

If cost of living is a major issue, that would be a reason to ditch Bath, not Southampton.

Bath is extremely prestigious, especially for psychology!

It is also very high up the employability rankings, largely because so many students do placement years which increase employment chances. The grad market is horrifically tough at the moment so that sort of thing matters more.

That is really helpful. I had no idea about RG+. I saw that written somewhere recently and assumed it meant the best of the RG ones! Thank you.

Having read (on this thread) that Bath get so many applications they only use the PS as tie-breaker, I assume they wouldn’t let you in on results day if you missed the grade. Is that true of all/any the others too?

At the Nottingham open day they pretty much told her she’d get in even if she missed the grades “as the Uni want us to take more students”. Weirdly that put me off especially as it was followed by “they took too many last year really”. BUT it would be nice to know that she had a little wriggle room on results day.

It's actually really hard to get offers for psychology so be prepared for rejections. It's just about the most popular subject these days. Bath don't drop grades.

Yes my dd didn't get into Bath due to a dropped grade (B in biology).
She went to her insurance which was Warwick but I think Warwick now has higher requirements, it use to be AAB.

Psychology at Bath with the placement year is the most competitive course and you have to get the offer and then the grades.

That is very useful to know. Bath (that exact course actually) is the one I was most impressed by (but the decision isn’t mine to make). She won’t want that as her first choice if there is no wriggle room to drop a grade I don’t think. They want A*AA.

She really liked Warwick. They are AAA or A*AB.

She also really liked Loughborough and was keen on Nottingham too. And Manchester actually.

Thankfully at this stage it is just choosing the 5 and then the next big decision comes once she has some offers.

What are her PGs @LottieLovesLemon bc that’s the most important thing in a way. If Bath wants Astar AA and she has PGs of ABB then I wouldn’t personally waste a slot on it. OTOH if she is PG AAA then it is a good aspirational choice.

You cannot expect any uni to drop grades tbh. Some will, some won’t. Some will for certain courses, in certain years. Nottingham has appeared in clearing lately for some surprising courses but that's no guide to future performance.

In DD's year (2019) very different courses at different unis were in clearing from DS2's year (2021) when (for example) Loughborough had nothing in clearing and didn’t drop any grades (tho that was a weird year bc TAGs.