Scottish universities

[Stanleysaway]

I have a DC in S6 who wants to study languages. Does anyone have any useful info on Scottish universities? So far we've had a look round the university area in Glasgow, which went down well. We've also had a walk around St Andrew's, which went down less well (due to its size). DC likes Edinburgh, but I'm put off by what I've read about the Vice Chancellor and how he's dealing with woke issues, with some senior staff calling for his resignation. I've also heard that it's going downhill in terms of general quality. But I'd like to know more, to help with a comparison between Glasgow and Edinburgh. A plus point for Edinburgh is that the modern languages degree is 4 years, not 5. Is anyone in the same boat as us?

Here's the admission stats for Edinburgh:

www.ed.ac.uk/files/atoms/files/scotland_and_eu_admissions_statistics_0.pdf

Friend's DC is at Stirling doing languages and business and enjoyed the first year last year despite the difficulties. Stirling is small compared to Edinburgh or Glasgow but decent compared to St Andrews.

I have one at Strathclyde and one up at Aberdeen both enjoying their courses (not languages) and DC living up in Aberdeen really loves it.

You could also look at the student satisfaction scores. They must be online somewhere. Edinburgh does poorly for most subjects for having large tutor groups etc and not much contact with academic staff, but I am not sure about other unis.

St Andrews just came top for student satisfaction again but it is a bit Marmite, my DS likes it because he finds big cities overwhelming but i can see you would be put off if you were into a greater choice of nightlife or more anonymity.
One of his pals from school is doing languages and IR at St Andrews, there's a lot of choice for joint degrees, Persian and Arabic are popular, don't actually have much detailed info as DS is a History student.

I know some students at Aberdeen studying languages and they are v happy there - no specific info I’m afraid. I don’t have a DC applying for a few years but based on research done for the older two in general I’d pick Glasgow over Edinburgh.

www.theguardian.com/education/ng-interactive/2019/jun/07/university-guide-2020-league-table-for-modern-languages-linguistics

I work at Glasgow and there are some problems in social sciences,, rumours of redundancies and restructuring that could potentially affect teaching. I don't work in that department though.

Also lots of complaints of racism and sexual harassment.

Stirling has a good reputation for languages.

DD has just finished 1st year at Edinburgh. Loves the city. Finds the teaching a bit variable. Not languages though. Has had 2 flatmates studying languages. Both happy with courses although have found step up to uni work in the languages they didn't study to AH tough this year. Agree about looking at satisfaction scores for the subjects your DC is interested in but look carefully at the sample size plus not sure how reliable student satisfaction scores are. Certain unis including some of the good London ones do poorly as well. Maybe student expectation plays a part. DD says if you are okay with low contact hours and are sufficiently self motivated then it's a great place to study with a super choice of subjects. However if you need more hand holding then go elsewhere. DD not bothered about 'Woke' issues although I guess that could change if it means lots of good staff leave. You could ask about the department turnover if your DC is concerned.

I studied languages at St Andrews (a looooong time ago ). It was very literature based, which I was happy about (as I loved English , especially analysis of books), which I planned (and did) to compensate for by doing a year in France (which added a year on to my degree, but I was going a year "early", at 17.5, because of my Scottish education, so I'd factored that in).

St Andrews is very intense, being so small and effectively a giant campus, part and parcel of a medieval town. Ds describes it as a "Giant Hogwarts" when he went to the Open Day and hated the feel of it. I couldn't argue with him on that - it is - but I had loved it.

On the other hand, he went to the Aberdeen Open Day under duress after being persuaded to do so and loved it. He's now done 3 years there (Politics and International Relations): just finished Junior Honours and going into Senior Honours.

No idea what the quality of their Modern Languages courses is considered to be - but the Uni as a whole has a good reputation (or it did before Covid). It's a good cross between the tradition of St Andrews (with the old Uni buildings in Old Aberdeen), but still with some of the benefits of a city, but not as big as Glasgow.

Strathclyde is another option. I know one of the MFL profs there. Again, no idea of the perception of quality.

YeDancer I have name-changed but I work at Glasgow in Social Sciences. What are the rumours about restructuring and redundancies? The College is expanding and taking on staff as student numbers are increasing.

This does not help the OP, sorry. I don’t know much about modern languages at Glasgow, I am afraid. The university is taking tackling racism seriously as well as addressing historical legacies of slavery. Not sure about sexism because I don’t know what specific allegations are meant.

Redundancies at Glasgow? That's a real worry. Yes @YeDancer do you have any more info? Sorry op to derail your thread.

Stirling is great for languages apparently and it's a good uni campus wise.

re: redundancies etc, my bestie works in the School of Education at Glasgow and it is definitely happening in that school and the business school and rumours of it happening in other schools too.
She's a UCU rep so maybe speak to UCU.
Seems to be mainly professional services, estates, facilities,.
She didn't say about academic staff.

Which languages will your DC be applying for Stanleysaway ? My DS wants to study predominantly German probably alongside French with German courses being more limited. I think it’s only offered by Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, St Andrews and Heriot Watt. We’ve done similar walkabouts in Edinburgh, Aberdeen and St Andrews and ‘attended’ the Edinburgh virtual open day a few weeks back.
It is interesting to hear up to date experiences.

I don’t know about specific universities as mine aren’t at that age but I do know some parents of students living in accommodation in Edinburgh and apparently the cost is astronomical. Don’t know if that helps?

Out of curiosity, I've just looked at the cost of uni halls for Edinburgh and it's pretty much on par with anywhere else and in fact they do have some cheaper than I've seen elsewhere. Not everyone needs to book a catered ensuite room at top dollar and that is expensive everywhere. I'm sure private flats might be expensive too once they are out of halls but interestingly, local rental in Stirling seems to be higher than Aberdeen. Aberdeen have a lot of spare capacity in terms of flats.

One of my leaders at Brownies went to Herriot Watt. She had a fab 4 years with her year abroad too.

Some cheaper accommodation in Edinburgh if you are prepared to go without an ensuite and cook for yourself. DD paid around £4300 last year for self catering, shared bathroom right on the Meadows. She's working this summer and is paying around £500 per month including bills in a private flat however room is massive and flat in a great location. DD has a uni job next semester and in exchange for tasks gets 75% off accommodation and food (full price in catered halls DD is going to is £7300 but there are more expensive options).

Edinburgh is definitely not out of line with other uni accommodation. I think you just have to swallow hard and accept that first year is likely to be the most expensive year. At least in Edinburgh you can opt for specific accommodations, self catered and shared facilities for cheaper options. My middle child at St Andrews was allocated a tiny shared room in the first year accommodations lottery. It was catered and cost almost £8000. Her room in a shared flat this year is £700 plus share of bills. The student loan definitely doesn’t go very far!

My niece is at Stirling studying languages. Now obviously she's nothing to compare it to and last year was CRAP for everyone but she seems happy. Hated the elective she took, geography, though. She had 5 A at higher so could've chosen anywhere.

LizzieMacQueen I do think the other subjects to be studied alongside are pretty important given they usually have to study three for two years for arts degrees. That’s what I’m encouraging my one to research, alongside specific module choices etc at the various universities.

Thank you all for your thoughts.
I like the idea of Aberdeen, but the modern languages syllabus seems to be geared at becoming a translator, which I think would be a really tough / low paid career to go into, and would perhaps not suit DC or stretch them as much as a more literature / culture based course.
I've heard that Stirling is good at ML, but I've spoken to someone there and was told that you only need a B in French Higher to go there, and that it's common for students starting there to have extremely basic French (and that's not starting French from scratch). DC will have Advanced Higher French and would probably find that frustrating.
I personally like St Andrew's and I've heard good things about it, but I think DC wants to be somewhere bigger and grittier.
I'll have a closer look at Herriott Watt and Strathclyde, but I think the main choices are Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Looking at other module options is a good point - thank you.

@TheGoodDoctor

Which languages will your DC be applying for Stanleysaway ? My DS wants to study predominantly German probably alongside French with German courses being more limited. I think it’s only offered by Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, St Andrews and Heriot Watt. We’ve done similar walkabouts in Edinburgh, Aberdeen and St Andrews and ‘attended’ the Edinburgh virtual open day a few weeks back. It is interesting to hear up to date experiences.

What are your / his views? DC wants to study French and Spanish.

One thing to remember is that for Scottish students the offer rate for them is lower than for rUK so ‘choice’ requires a good look at the offer stats if you can find them, and making sure that you have a good mix of universities without fixing on one as an offer may not be forthcoming. Found a file on a FOI request for St A, Modern Languages 2018/2019 was 21% offer rate for Scottish Students vs 68% for rUK and slightly higher again for international.

One v frustrating reality of the cap on Scottish Student numbers.

So that could mean that even with good grades, Scottish students don't get offers (and English students do)? So should a Scottish student with good highers apply to some universities which according to their websites ask for lower highers? So they could end up going to a Scottish university which is much further down the League Tables (and further down their wishlist) than they would get with similar exam results from England?

A 21% offer rate from St Andrew's is considerably lower than the offer rates from Oxford and Cambridge.

@Stanleysaway

So that could mean that even with good grades, Scottish students don't get offers (and English students do)? So should a Scottish student with good highers apply to some universities which according to their websites ask for lower highers? So they could end up going to a Scottish university which is much further down the League Tables (and further down their wishlist) than they would get with similar exam results from England?

Yes. Absolutely. Many stories of students with straight As failing to get their place they wanted at Edinburgh and St Andrews. Anecdotally and ime, Glasgow tend to offer all applicants meeting the criteria.

When we were applying, someone on here said to apply to one real stretch, one aspirational, two that you are pretty sure to get offers from and a complete dead cert for no 5. DS1 got 4 out of 5 unconditionals and DS2 only got one offer which was from his aspirational choice. Nothing from those he thought were good options or his safe bet.

Coming from an area of deprivation or a lower performing school can help, I think Unis have been told to increase the number of students they take from these categories as well as those with disabilities, but their quota of spaces hasn't been increased overall as far as I believe.