Which uni for v academic party child?

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DC is predicted 3 a stars. They want to study history. They are highly social. They love parties and dancing. They have grown up in a big city and they love big cities but not London as they don’t like that idea.

they so far have visited Cambridge and said it was too small with too many serious academic types, Durham too geeky and no clubs, Bristol too diffuse and spread out, St Andrews they cried while there as so quiet, Leeds they loved but worried it’s aiming below their academic potential, Newcastle ditto.

they really want to go to the USA but I can’t afford that. They want to research trinity Dublin which we will look into.

Surely something they have to decide themselves!

Durham is not far from Newcastle for Clubs.

Oxford/Cambridge have 8 week terms so the burden of not being clubby shouldn't be too hard to bear. My party boy went to Oxford (after a gap year), grew up and did his DPhil at Cambridge. My quiet one went to Cambridge. Party boy liked Bristol, Quiet one liked Edinburgh and Durham.

There's clubbing everywhere, to an extent. More important is the vibe a place gives and the quality of the History Department.

Be mindful that prospects for Humanities/History in HE at present are woeful and there are cuts on a scale never before seen. I'd be interested on stats relating to student numbers over the last three years because disengaged staff doing teach out won't be good for inspirational learning. Check the university's financial status. There have been lists in the broadsheets and THE.

Finally, make them think about future jobs and their CV. Grad programmes/Law, etc, are fiercely competitive. Clubbing won't sell them well; sport, music, footlights, debating, College Rep, etc., will.

The accommodation at Bristol is very spread out and some faculties are too, especially with the new Temple Quarter campus (although that won't affect a History student).

Edit to add: I agree it fits the bill in other ways though!

Edinburgh is like this, halls for first year and then students mostly live in marchmonth/bruntsfield 2nd year and above. Fits the bill of academic and party town.

Yeah, but if this poor child has been led to believe she's academically exceptional and can only consider a tiny number of popular universities and she doesn't know Scotland and travelled a long way to St Andrews only to discover it is a two horse town (and one spends every weekend in Dundee) then I can see why she would cry.

I'm old but when I read course descriptions at 17 I didn't know enough to distinguish between them (plus in Scotland your degree develops in a more organic way so the precise honours course doesn't matter so much). I went to Glasgow because it is the biggest city in Scotland (and when I visited Edinburgh I didn't like Pollock Halls or that Kings Buildings were out of the city). DH went to Edinburgh Uni but when he recently went to Glasgow on an open day with DD he was really impressed with how beautiful the University is. I think Glasgow University (which is a Victorian campus in the west end of Glasgow) is a much more immediately attractive University than Edinburgh which is spread across the city.

Oxford in the 2000s was a constant stream of dancing and parties. The 'clubs' were grim, sticky floored affairs but we loved them. There are endless dining (ie drinking) societies to get involved with. It's still a small city but feels a bit less quiet than Cambridge. Also, everyone moves to London at 21 and continues partying there.

Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield (not York, my very academic party animal found York fantastic but a bit quiet and a small city, perfect I would say for kids who aren't big party animals, freshers had lots of options for non-drinkers, it was a close community and very caring....she wanted action though. And got that is bucketloads when she moved to university of Sheffield)

My understanding of Oxbridge, and I may be wrong, is that A stars, and 9s at GCSE are just the first basics that you need - then you need decent extra curricular and to be able to ace an interview. I wouldn’t have thought clubbing and crying would get in. My understanding is that the pressure there is immense, so you need to be very mentally strong. Maybe I’ve put them on a higher pedestal than necessary!

Dd3 went to Oxford and managed to party hard even through Covid. If you’re a party animal you will find your tribe.

Bristol is sort of in two sections - the teaching areas, union and some of the hall of residence in and around the Clifton area, but a lot of the halls and university flats are further out in the Stoke Bishop area. They're about to open a new campus near Temple Meads station.

So it's moderately spread out, but I can't see why that would be a reason for an academic party lover not to go there. OP's child would obviously spend most of their time in the areas where their faculty is and where they live, and if they're that bothered about being spread out they can look for accommodation reasonably near the faculty - e.g. if they're doing arts, humanities, languages, law etc they could aim to live in Clifton. Thousands of students have a great university experience there without any difficulty.

Hi, OP -

This is a great post. Major British cities will not let DC down, and there are excellent students everywhere. You need to find your tribe.

I find a party animal DC with these PGs refreshing, and I’ve had a few such students ‘learn how to actually think’ and really excel. They can be a lot of fun to teach.

However DC (and others) may also be interested to know that nearly 80% of predicted grades are wrong, with the majority too high. Worth keeping in mind in case there the lure of complacency is felt.

Best wishes to them.

My niece has recently graduated in MFL from Oxford, she did not have all 9s (only ~2000 kids a year get that), in fact she even had some 5s and 6s and her school told her she wouldn't be successful if she applied. They didn't require Astars either.

Very tactfully put 'the lure of complacency' 😂

Bristol really would work.

(mother of highly academic party animal who went to Bristol and loved it )

Writing so many places off so quickly … Princess and The Pea / Goldilocks vibes.

St Andrews they cried while there as so quiet

A normal reaction would be to think, ‘okay, this doesn’t seem to be for me, what are my other options’. To stand there and cry, seems ….odd. Are they ready to leave and live independently at uni with this sort of reaction to a visit of a potential uni? As a parent, I’d be worried.

University life offers so much more than a party scene, and your daughter really should look also at things like the activities and clubs on offer through the student union and elsewhere, OP. It's probably time she grew up a bit anyway.

Why not do a gap year, go to south east asia or central America to do the party circuit, and get it out of her system? Then use a better metric to choose a university...

OP: the course content and structure are the most important elements , plus how much teaching time, how much face to face teaching etc.

Beyond that the feel of a University and town. In a campus Uni they will be living off campus after first year anyway, so ‘spread out’ .

I think some people are reading too much into the crying. Some people cry very easily. It doesn't necessarily mean that she is immature.

Agree with this DS is at Bristol and boy oh boy does he party!

DD has a friend at Bristol and they are out clubbing every night, think they get used to the layout, Exeter is also known for parties. Oxford has a fair amount of parties but not so much for clubbing. Most of the northern cities.

Bath doesn't offer history but if she would consider similar subjects like politics, its a campus university and there is some partying there and can also tag on to the Bristol partying.

I would seriously consider a gap year though if she's rejecting many universities, wants to go to USA and has partying as her only criteria. She could travel abroad for the gap year.

Cardiff uni is fantastic for nightlife! It’s a city uni with a campus feel, everything is close together and it’s close to the city centre.

Also, OP, a few of the most competitive American universities and elite four year colleges - we don’t have this concept here, but the education can be extraordinary - now offer financial aid, including to international students, that must be seen to be believed.

I have posted piecemeal about this previously on the Board and it has only increased since. Eg Harvard, Yale, Princeton, U Chicago, Amherst (one of those elite four year colleges), but the list goes on.

EG Harvard: family income to $100K - students get a free ride, to $200K - students get a full tuition waiver. At Princeton and Chicago the respective figures are higher. The upper limits are not cliff edges, either.

Many of these make needs blind awards, meaning you are considered for admission without regard for ability to pay and then the money is found. ( I think my list above is needs blind but I wouldn’t take an oath). Not all that make good aid offers are.

The awards I have written of are grants, not loans. I don’t think it would be prudent for a British student to get caught up in the American loans system.

Anyway, that list is just the tip of a large iceberg. The catch is that admissions to these institutions is incredibly competitive, making Oxbridge look easy. OTOH there is no discrimination against Overseas students and there is some interest in creating an interesting and balanced intake each year.

Where I’m going is: if DC is serious about America, it might be worth one or two sessions with a professional specialising in US uni placements for British students to get the latest updates, and assess their chances for the kind of aid necessary to make this happen.

You need a good one. Perhaps some MumsNetters can advise.

I think Warwick is far removed from being a party university city!

I've had two completely polar opposite DCs. One has been a mega party animal since 15 and loved going to uni in a big city. The other will be starting year 13 in Sept 26 and is only interested in smaller cities. I can't imagine either of them would have cried after visiting a city that was potentially too quiet or too busy.

OP, are you sure there isn't some underlying emotional issue here with your child? They don't seem ready to go out in the big wide world by themselves.