Best unis for maths

[Dangermouse999]

DS is in y12 and we’re looking at going to some uni open days.

He’s planning to apply for Maths and is probably on track to get 4 A stars in Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Comp Sci.

He's considering the following:

1st tier: Cambridge/Oxford, Warwick
2nd tier: Bath, St Andrews, Durham, maybe Edinburgh and Bristol
3rd tier: Exeter, Lancaster, Southampton, Loughborough.

He prefers a smaller to medium size town, definitely not London and he's not a big partying kind of person.

Does anyone have any experience of these unis / other suggestions / any advice in general for Maths degrees?

York would be a good location and we have friends whose kids are there and enjoy it.

But it doesn’t seem to rate that highly in any of the maths rankings

We’ve talked about it. Imperial would be the obvious one to consider but it’s about 80 minutes door to door by train and two tube journeys. UCL would be slightly closer.

Yes, it would be cheaper than uni accommodation but I think he’d miss out on the benefits of living away from home as a young adult and being able to take advantage of the full student experience.

We haven’t ruled it out though.

Sorry I can't explain this in more detail but just to agree that admissions for maths at Cambridge via Step is indeed brutal. DD and several college friends have places for other subjects but they all agree that their most academically able friend missed out on his maths place despite 4 x A*s due to the Step.

I have a kid at York studying History. I wouldn't automatically think of it as a top place for Maths, but it would definitely be a lovely place to live and study if the top choice(s) didn't work out.

@TizerorFizz Re Bristol- I was super clear I was talking about when I was there, many years ago. It was another poster that said it is still full of public school students.

I think my strictures re the spread out nature if the uni remain; you're not going to convince me it is a campus.

I believe Cambridge has a better reputation for maths than Oxford, ideally Trinity. But I’m sure either is great. 😁

The different unis will all have different interests amongst the staff which will come out in the courses having different modules/focus, even at undergraduate level. And of course very much so at postgraduate level. If he has any idea of his preferences it would be a good idea to look closely at what modules are offered in years 2-4. So, whilst in general Cambridge does have the edge over Oxford, it's not necessarily always the case, depending on his interests.

Another way of slimming down the number of choices is to see which unis are really strong in any extracurricular activities he's keen on. For example in my day Sheffield was the climbers uni and Leeds was big on caving.

I see noone has mentioned Edinburgh, and I know it's only a maybe for your DS but it's my alma mater and I can't give any other useful information, as I graduated a million years ago, so I just want to say it doesn't feel like a big city - and I say that as someone who went there having grown up a tiny rural village. It has some of the disadvantages of a big city, i.e. students are very dispersed for socialising, partly because the Union - Teviot - was an absolute no-go in my time, just because it was so dull. I'm sure that's changed now though! But on the otherhand, it's really beautiful, big enough to have loads of stuff to do and easy to get out of to go to stunning beautiful countryside (something we did as students to clear our heads after we'd had too many nights out, so pretty regularly!). No idea if it does a year in industry for maths but, if it does, your DS should do it and would have no worries about all his friends having moved on when he gets back, as all degrees in Scotland are 4 years, which is another advantage imho. He'll probably have a great time wherever he goes, though, so my advice would be to focus on the degree itself and go for the one that best aligns with his interests.
(Edited for annoying typos!)

Edinburgh has just dropped 6 places to #15 for Maths.
Not shabby though, still top 20!

@AudiobookListener In DHs day it was Student Ents concerts. Like Leeds a great cv of well known bands!

@Tkaequondo which list are you looking at for top 20 maths universities?

DS is thinking of applying to LSE, Oxford, Warwick and Bath but can’t decide on a 5th.

anywhere North of Manchester is too far in his opinion so that rules lots out!

Nottingham? I did go there but on a different campus tho visited Main Campus a lot. DD went to an offer day there and I was quite impressed.

This is CuG. 1-12 for 2026. Nothing much north of Manchester. Next 8 includes Southampton and Loughborough as well as Manchester, 4 Scottish unis and Belfast. Then it’s Nottingham. Exeter and Sheffield. That looks like loads to me!

I think ds needs to look more closely at Manchester, Nottingham and Loughborough.

His other choices are pretty aspirational so having a couple of safer bets would be a good idea.

DC1 is at Bath. First year on campus, en-suite with kitchenette was £825 pcm. Shared house this year is £550 plus around £35 utilities.

We live in Manchester and DC has made noises about staying in Bath permanently.

DD1 is at St Andrews, she is not studying Maths, so I cannot comment on Maths there. But I can say that the town and the college are utterly charming. There is a beach, an old harbour, a ruined castle, quirky traditions and quaint stone buildings. Housing after the first year is expensive, though.

With (hopefully) Cambridge as firm, definitely think really hard about insurance. Lots of insurance offer holders at Durham this year have been kept waiting for accommodation offers or given private accommodation (still affiliated to a college but a way out), and I've heard of similar issues for insurance offer holders at Warwick, Bristol and Bath. As has been said, maths doesn't lend itself to taking a gap year so you do have to be very prepared for an accommodation scramble if you are 51st percentile in STEP, or else have as your insurance a uni with lots of accommodation but likely lower tier for maths.

My daughter is going to Warwick and some students did miss out on campus accommodation this year - although most are on campus. But they don't distinguish between firm and conditional offers. Students with insurance offers can also apply and the accommodation is allocated after results.

Does anyone have any experience of these unis / other suggestions / any advice in general for Maths degrees?
Does he have a plan? Is he thinking U/G degree then work or is he thinking of carrying on to P/G? If the latter then he could do the first degree at any University (within reason) and then afterwards apply to one of the First Tier for P/G.
He could therefore narrow his U/G search based on his preferences - academics (Pure Maths opportunities), preferred location (small/medium town), co-curriculars, extra-curriculars "happiness in life", etc - and leave the COWI experience for later.

the compete university guide, sorry I should have said

I attached the CUG earlier. Probably most reliable guide.

I think maths at some universities has a head of steam where students are looking for highly paid careers. Others have students more likely to look for solid but not necessarily exciting careers. So atmosphere might matter too. Who you are with and whether you are prepared to get swept up in the whirl of application rounds for top jobs. Or not.

I just politely want to remind people posting on these threads the MNet description of the Higher Education talk board

"Talk to other parents whose children are preparing for university on our Higher Education forum."

I'm off the opinion that as long as it's a decent enough uni (so not like Coventry, university of Westminster etc...) a maths graduate would do really well.

Note on London. I think these imperial and UCL would offer a wide variety of mathematics modules to take. LSE not so much. It'll just be social science applied maths.

Thread police?

I agree with this. A solid RG / RG adjacent university is going to have a perfectly good Maths dept.