Why do some unis seem to have lots of threads?

[MeshMesh]

As a longtime reader of higher education threads on MS, I can’t help but notice some institutions seem to generate far more than their fair share of threads. I’m curious as to why this is.

For example, there have long been ‘Parents of Durham/Oxbridge/Warwick/Imperial students’ threads, but no equivalent threads for any of the big city unis, such as Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Birmingham, or Glasgow. This is deapite these having many tens of thousands of students.

Similarly, Warwick, Bath, Edinburgh, Durham, Oxbridge, St Andrew’s, and Exeter all seem to generate all sorts of threads on everything from courses, to parking arrangements on moving in day. Yet, there are less commonly such threads for the big city unis.

Why is this?

Is there less of a “showing off” factor with the big city unis? Do the kids at the higher tariff unis have more support issues? Are these unis more complex in some way (eg college systems). Or, is it simply a reflection of the demographics of Mumsnet and the uni choices made by their DC?

Mine got that and is at Brum!

I've enjoyed introducing my husband to the Bath parents Facebook group so that he can see how mild my helicoptering is compared to everyone else in there 🤣

When DD was an undergraduate there wasn't a parent's group for her university. I think university parents groups are more of a recent thing.

I think it’s because there are certain markers of prestige that are valued by that demographic (although not all are present in all unis of course): old buildings; smaller towns regarded as middle class and ‘safe’; greater presence of private schooled students.

The northern and midlands city unis don’t deliver on these so much.

There are certainly some universities which seem to attract longer threads - possibly making them more noticeable - as they often attract a robust discussion about the types of students who do or who are perceived to go there.

There used to be a couple of (affluent) posters on the higher education threads who were pretty sneery about young people in the North being too scared to venture South for university, preferring to stay within their comfort zone.

Your post indicates that this is also true of students in the southern half of the country as well.

Accommodation and travel costs are often a big factor influencing university choice. DD didn't look at London for example, and decided that due to Cross Country's abysmal rail service (among other reasons) that Bristol was out.

Interestingly, DD's Northern university was in a smaller city, had some attractive old buildings and had over 22% privately educated students. All of state educated DD's best friends were privately educated because she doesn't have preconceived ideas about privately educated people.

I recall these posters. A few years ago someone here shared some data showing the majority of students, whether from the north, the south, or anywhere else, tend to choose a university within a particular radius of home. Yes, there are few higher ranked places that attract students from a wider catchment. But, it wasn’t the case that northern students were less geographically ‘adventurous’ than their southern equivalents. Happy to be corrected though if I don’t recall this correctly.