Living in southern England - Scottish University?

[Foyled]

Anyone any experience of this, applying, visiting, actually getting a place and the travel once they got there, did the DCS think it was worth it?

I went to St Andrews from London. Loved it. Loved only having 3 streets after living in London all my childhood, loved the beach, the sea. Also feel so lucky I had the chance to live somewhere so lovely so 4 years. Just glorious. And have made wonderful friends - am 40 now and just had two to stay for the weekend. Nowhere better I'd say! Also mum and dad loved visiting! Great places to eat, walk, wander, theatre etc. Pubs aren't as good as when I was there though! Very English public school in in-take (after all - look who met there!) and several of the Scottish students barely have any sort of Scottish accent. Plummy. But never snobby - not in any nasty way I found. And me a little East Ender.

DH has just told me that St A doesn't interview for most subjects - he's not sure of any that do, but doesn't want to be categorical. Loads of American accents in St A! But I've found it a happy mix, managing to retain Fife fishing town charm amongst all the fame.

Thanks for all your help with this, hope it is useful to others too, DD had a few on her list and not sure where St Andrews fits as yet, maybe too high an aim anyway. Do they have open days over the summer habbibu (or anyone else for that matter?

I went to Dundee and loved it. Generally got the train up for interview/open day, and at the start/end of term and it was fine. I visited about 8 universities for open days and it was by far the best one - really welcoming, made you feel they were interested in you (compared to open days at others unis where you generally arrived, were given a map and left to get on with it).

There weren't that many English students there at the time (mid 90s), but loads of Scottish, Northern Irish and Irish. I also really liked that it was a four year course - gave you two years to study different subjects to get a broader overview, then two years of specialisation

I don't think St As has summer open days but def has early autumn ones. 2 of my 6 DCs studied there-loved every minute ! Another studied at Edinburgh-again she loved the city and the uni.

In spite of a strong family association with St A, DD2 didn't use her place for history last year, put off by the rah factor above all. Certainly when I came down to London from my own quite rah university in the 80's, the St A brigade seemed even more opressively rah.

I went to Glasgow Uni from England and loved it. IMHO (and I am an academic) Scottish 4 year degrees are way better than english ones.

(Not rah at all, as you might imagine. Don't think I'd have liked St A's or even Edinburgh.)

Strangely older DD has come home speaking of Rahs at her South Western University, never heard the expression before, although I was reminded of it when Luckywekeptthecot mentioned Scottish people not sounding Scottish and was going to post something but didn't know how to spell it!

DH doesn't know about open days, I'm afraid - I reckon it'll be autumn before the next ones. He like the students at St A, and is very un-rah himself. I think if you just went to an open day you would hear a number of v posh accents, but spending longer there it's a huge mix, with loads of Americans, tbh. I thought when applying myself it would be terribly snotty, but having lived in both Cambridge and St A (when DH worked in both) St A definitely less snotty, more friendly and inclusive. I was slightly dreading St A after Cambridge, but was really pleasantly surprised.

Chaotica, I'm a Glasgow grad too. It makes me laugh when people talk about snotty Russell Group unis - are they really thinking about Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, etc?

fwiw there are plenty of proper scottish sounding people there. Not as many as Glasgow, mind.