UK University help

[omgshe'sdead]

I realize that the majority of posters on this site are American/go to American universities but if there are any in the UK, please help!

I'm currently applying and really need some details on places like Manchester, Nottingham, London, and any other places worth mentioning. I realize that browsing the university site only reveals one side of the story, so I'd like to know, from a students perspective: How are the cities? How are the actual universities/campuses? etc.

Thanks.

[omgshe'sdead]

Thank you so much. I'm seriously contemplating Manchester so it's good to hear that the city is as great as it's hyped up to be by the 'information' videos and pages on the website. I've also thought about Leicester actually but I've been told that their program for the course I'm applying for is shite.

[omgshe'sdead]

I probably wouldn't be able to function properly if the city I go to doesn't have a good music scene and/or nightlife, so a place like York probably wouldn't fit my interests. I'm not overly concerned about costs (as I was prepared to go to London, afterall). I'm quite athletic so facilities are a concern, although I'm more than sure every city has a functioning gym and football pitch!

[omgshe'sdead]

I actually live in Singapore, although only for the past 2 years whilst I've been doing the IB course, and have previously lived in Sweden (where I'm from) all my life. According to the UCAS requirements, the minimum asking score for the course I'm applying for in Manchester is 33 points, to which I'm getting 34, not to mention the vast amount of extra curricular activities I've done.

Any idea how Hull or Nottingham are, as cities and unis? My university counsellor recommended looking into them.

[omgshe'sdead]

Haha, I guess Hull is out of the picture. Singapore is terrible for gigs but it's such a fantastic city, so it pretty much equals out. Sweden was actually alright for gigs, at least where I lived in the very south, as a lot of cool bands would stop by during European tours that took them through Denmark/Germany. I'm leaning towards either Manchester or Nottingham at the moment, although that leaves three empty slots that I have no idea where to apply to on the UCAS form!

Other options I was given by my uni counsellor included Greenwich, Liverpool, Keele, and Royal Holloway.

[Maxwell]

Hm i've never been keen on Manchester, but it does have the most varied nightlife/music scene.

One of the problems i have with Manchester is the people. Pretty similar to Londoners, just rude, unnecessarily impatient people.

[mushroom]

Both Leeds and Manchester have a good night life but Manchester's is undoubtedly better. Virtually every major tour goes through Manchester where as maybe a third to a half come through Leeds.

The biggest issue for me is where I live so I'd always take Leeds over Manchester but if you're really going to gigs and clubs then Manchester's a good choice.

Where do you live now? and what grades do you get cause Manchester (and most top end Uni's) is straight A's or AAB/ABB. A good technique to lower to asking price is to do a joint honours. I personally never did that but quite often they want significantly lower grades for joint honours.

Leeds clearly has the best venue in the entire country.

[mushroom]

That being?

The Cockpit

[Smeee]

I have a few friends who have gone to Manchester this year (and a couple who have gone before). Those who've gone this year are loving it. Apparently your experience can depend on where your accomodation is though - there are worse areas than others. One of my good friends is staying in student accomodation actually on the Curry Mile and he's having the time of his life. Says its a real vibrant place to be.

My only word of warning is that my cousin went about 5 years ago and said he did have a few problems with gangs and violence. At one point he and his mates took walkie talkies with them when they went out in case they needed to call for back-up haha.

However, everyone I've talked to within the last year has not mentioned any problems with violence... so maybe it's improved? I dont know really.

The Uni itself at Manchester is well respected though. York possibly more so but as already mentioned, it's not the most interesting of places.

Leicester has a great reputation amongst students (highest rated in the country) and another of my mates is doing well there. They've even got a Viking Society! Personally, I'm still unsure whether it's respectability in terms of degrees is really up there with the more established institutions - its only 80 years old (I say "only" but some people make a big thing of it.)

Hope thats some help... If not, just ignore!

[xglassjawx]

I am Portsmouth Uni now, living seconds away from the Wedgewood Rooms. :-)

Third year.

[Chancetobe]

Kind of wish I would have read this before I decided on Queen Mary.

[Melkor]

Dunno if you still want info but some Scottish ones I know a little about:

Edinburgh - Having lived here all my life I can tell you it is a great city and has good nightlife. The Uni is integrated well with the town and is ten minutes from the centre. I went here for a year straight out of high school and left just because I was living at home which sucked but everyone I got to know was having a good time.

Glasgow - Off here next year. First thing is amazing nightlife and a vibrant city, even if it is a tale of two cities with quite a lot poverty kicking about but it gets a bad rep. A lot of my high school mates go here and love it. Some really cool buildings with the uni and while not as respected as Edinburgh still a quality uni.

Stirling - Really beautiful grounds but the halls are pretty terrible and the city seems quiet. Heard good things though.

Aberdeen - Meant to be good nightlife. Not sure about the uni, but the people I know are enjoying it.

Probs didn't help as you seem to be looking at England but hey, no tuition fees up here!

[Melkor]

So you wrote about Scotland and failed to mention heroin, obesity, bad football teams or violent crime? Epic fail.

joking

Sitting here on bail with a needle in my arm eating my McDonalds in my Hibs shirt I resent you leaving out that I already have two kids.

But hey, no tuition fees!

[Melkor]

Just imagine how fat people in Glasgow would be if it wasn't for the heroin.

Hahaha, you know it is bad when heroin is the healthy choice. There is a place in Glasgow where a five minute walk will see the average life expectancy go down by 20 years. Banter.

[Catharsis]

Being at Sheffield I am very biased to it but it is a great university, at least if you are studying Biology. The city is great and all of the Uni campuses are very close to both the city and the Uni itself. They just built a whole load of nice new accommodation and everything in general is pretty cheap here. From what I've seen the university is more modern than some of the other higher end universities and the student union has been voted best in the country quite a few times.

I looked at Nottingham and found that it was similar to Sheffield except that it is a campus university, so if you like lots of grass and all your shit in one place take a look.

All of the London Universities sort of have the same vibe about them, that is, expensive but high quality. Living is a killer but you do get to be in London, one of the best cities in the world. Obviously the nightlife will be good and there is plenty to do, but it isn't my thing.

Bristol is a prestigious University, may contain a little more than a few Oxbridge rejects but nevertheless it is a nice place. Quite an old style university, not many of the facilities looked up to date but the teaching quality is high. City was nice and the campus is close it, accommodation a little far away though.

In the end I'd say the most important thing is to go and see them.

[littlevictories]

Dunno if you still want info but some Scottish ones I know a little about:

Edinburgh - Having lived here all my life I can tell you it is a great city and has good nightlife. The Uni is integrated well with the town and is ten minutes from the centre. I went here for a year straight out of high school and left just because I was living at home which sucked but everyone I got to know was having a good time.

i've applied to edinburgh! the city is amazing but its really hard to get into so im not getting my hopes up!

i've been offered places from leeds and lancaster, they're my safety choices, but lancs is giving me a scholarship so i might go there if i dont get any of my other choices (edinburgh, cambridge and bristol.)

[Catharsis]

Sheffield is not a great city. It's horrible.

I didn't notice?

Why do you think that?

[ammar]

London - Great universities, amazing nightlife, amazing city, very multicultural, modern (especially central london)...
basically its great except its quite expensive. Why are people hatin on London? Generalizations don't help anybody. :)

[ammar]

I don't really see how tourists are bad...? Plus the amount of tourists ain't even that much except in summer...
Why do you think everyone in London is rude?

[Melkor]

i've applied to edinburgh! the city is amazing but its really hard to get into so im not getting my hopes up!

i've been offered places from leeds and lancaster, they're my safety choices, but lancs is giving me a scholarship so i might go there if i dont get any of my other choices (edinburgh, cambridge and bristol.)

Yeah, I worked decently hard at high school to get in and managed to get into English Lit which is one of the tougher non-medicine/law courses but just hated not being in halls. I wasn't wasting the coolest time of my life not having fun so I thought fuck it, much rather have a good time even if I have to go to a slightly less respected Uni. Honestly though, I still love the city itself so if you do get in you will have a ball.

What did you apply for?

[needles & pins]

I'm looking at UK schools for graduate programs and I've done the research/narrowed down my choices, but I have a question I think some of you in this thread can help me with. On most of the applications it has a section at least similar to this:

ACADEMIC QUALIFICATIONS – SCE/GCE, other School Qualifications and HE/FE Qualifications
Subject and Level / Examining Body / Exam Date / Results / Grades or Bands

I have a general idea of how the UK education system works below higher education, but I don't really know what to put in this section since my schooling was structured differently. I'm going to send emails to the international offices of the schools, but thought I'd ask here as well.

[cheezwhiz]

bumping because of serious confusion

I'm transfering over to the UK, one year into my AA in English. Apparently I'm honestly mentally challenged and/or are trying to sabotage myself unconsciously because I put Kent as my firm choice before reading the conditions of my acceptance (I know, I know. Trust me I've already beaten myself up about it plenty). They want my AA before I can go, which is obviously not happening in a month, so my application is being reconsidered. I don't understand how this happened in the first place since my application states that I don't receive my degree until 2010.

So, my question:

If I put Kent as a Firm choice, does that cancel out the university I put as Insurance? The whole UCAS process confuses the shit out of me and I can never get through to their customer service because phone cards hate me. Basically I need to know if Kent ends up revoking their acceptance, is the other university still holding my spot?

[cheezwhiz]

very desperate bump

[chella182]

No, if you don't meet the requirements for your firm choice then your insurance choice looks again at your app and decides if they're going to accept you or not. I'm pretty sure that's how it works, anyway. The university you've put as your insurance choice will be aware you've put them down as one of your choices, so yes, they'll hold a place.

[Andypeebs]

bumping because of serious confusion

I'm transfering over to the UK, one year into my AA in English. Apparently I'm honestly mentally challenged and/or are trying to sabotage myself unconsciously because I put Kent as my firm choice before reading the conditions of my acceptance (I know, I know. Trust me I've already beaten myself up about it plenty). They want my AA before I can go, which is obviously not happening in a month, so my application is being reconsidered. I don't understand how this happened in the first place since my application states that I don't receive my degree until 2010.

So, my question:

If I put Kent as a Firm choice, does that cancel out the university I put as Insurance? The whole UCAS process confuses the shit out of me and I can never get through to their customer service because phone cards hate me. Basically I need to know if Kent ends up revoking their acceptance, is the other university still holding my spot?

If Kent revokes their acceptance then your other choice will still hold as an insurance choice. Putting Kent as your firm choice will only effectively cancel your insurance choice if you meet the requirements to get into Kent.

I hated the UCAS process so much; only marginally less so than the Student Finance process.

[chella182]

Aw, I hate student finance a lot more - the forms et cetera and the questions they ask are so infuriating!

[MorningStar10]

Im looking at Leeds/Nottingham, the fact that Rock City and Cockpit are such awesome venues have definitely swayed my opinion.
Anyone go to these unis, or can give me feedback about them?

[paper halo]

Im looking at Leeds/Nottingham, the fact that Rock City and Cockpit are such awesome venues have definitely swayed my opinion.
Anyone go to these unis, or can give me feedback about them?

Go to Leeds. It's a better city and has more venues. Rock City is currently stuggling, sadly.

[chella182]

Was gonna say, Rock City wasn't that great when I went - much prefer the Cockpit.

That being said, I much prefer Newcastle over them both :stickout:

[MorningStar10]

Was gonna say, Rock City wasn't that great when I went - much prefer the Cockpit.

That being said, I much prefer Newcastle over them both :stickout:

I've got a friend who is 20 at Newcastle, and he raves about it, however says the strangest thing is sometimes girls go out to 'pull' with their mums, and has been approached several times by mums who then introduce him to their daughters and a mate of his has actually went in a taxi back with the mum and the daughter ha.

Yeah Rescue rooms by Rock City is pretty cool though, and they have a really good Drum n Bass bare called Stealth but i think i will be going for Leeds.

[Metal Now]

I am Portsmouth Uni now, living seconds away from the Wedgewood Rooms. :-)

Third year.

You lucky bastard. Close to my favourite venue.

[deanster321]

I decided not to apply til this year, because I'd left a very small but necessary detail off my UCAS form and didn't find out for a while after I'd originally submitted it, and I wanted a year out anyway. But yeah, this thread might prove useful for me.

[SilverWings]

I'm waiting on my results so I can go to the University of Worecster in September. I only need CCC, but as expected I'm still pooping myself.

[chella182]

I've got a friend who is 20 at Newcastle, and he raves about it, however says the strangest thing is sometimes girls go out to 'pull' with their mums, and has been approached several times by mums who then introduce him to their daughters and a mate of his has actually went in a taxi back with the mum and the daughter ha.
Haha well I've never heard of that happening before in Newcastle, certainly not if you're going to the rock nights.


I decided not to apply til this year, because I'd left a very small but necessary detail off my UCAS form and didn't find out for a while after I'd originally submitted it, and I wanted a year out anyway. But yeah, this thread might prove useful for me.
Problem there is, if you haven't actually applied, you have to apply all over again when you do want to go. The way most people take a year out is apply in their final year of college, but select the option to defer a year. This helps as well if the entry grades for your course go up, you still get assessed on what the grades were when you applied if you defer a year.