Universities...

Former Member · October 2006

I need people's opinions on the seven universities I have on my list, so that I can cut it down to six. I want to do English and Creative Writing, and atm I do IB. The pass mark for IB is 24 points, and I'm predicted somewhere around 34. The highest you can get is 45, and anything above 34 is pretty good. So anyway, my choices are:

Northumbria (which is where I want to go and will be my first choice), although I don't know the IB entry requirements, it's 280 UCAS points.

Chester, 30 IB points, 240 UCAS points.

Chichester, 28 IB points, 220-40 UCAS points.

Huddersfield, dunno the exact requirements, but a pass.

Manchester Met, 28 IB points, 280 UCAS points.

Plymouth, 26 IB points, 240-280 UCAS points.

Winchester, 24 IB points, 220 UCAS points.

So, like, if anyone could tell me what the universities are like and stuff...that would be nice

. Thank you kindly and stuff

.

xx

Former Member · October 2006

Well manchester met is the place to be blatently (I am biased) I had a quick look and you'd be on all saints campus which is where I'm at it city centre on oxford road which has one of the biggest combined campus (eg man uni and mmu) in Europe. So yeh lots and lots of students. Halls are great. That said my best mate has just started up in newcastle and is ravin about it

Former Member · October 2006

Well, Northumbria is the only one I've been to see *as yet*, and I loved the city and the course looked absolutely amazing, but I'm trying to narrow down my options as to which ones to have a look at as well. Thank you though lovely

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Former Member · October 2006

Former Member · October 2006

sophia wrote:

Oh you KNOW you want to come to Manchester :hyper:

I might be coming to the Open Day

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Former Member · October 2006

Former Member · October 2006

sophia wrote:

Ooh you better be meeting up with me for drinkies young lady

Depends who's coming with tbh

. We're blates meeting up with Kirsty as well though ;p.

Former Member · October 2006

Chichester doesnt have an amazing reputation tbh, even if you will only be an hour up the road from me. Compared to Brighton/Sussex unis (both of which are very good) its a pile of shit, I know a couple of people that went there and dropped out by the end of the first term.

Plus chichester is as far as I'm remember pretty quite and not really student friendly, unlike brighton.

Former Member · October 2006

One thing is that they all seem to have pretty low offers compared to what you're predicted, like I said earlier, it's worth going for a couple of high ones!

Former Member · October 2006

Scary Monster wrote:

One thing is that they all seem to have pretty low offers compared to what you're predicted, like I said earlier, it's worth going for a couple of high ones!

Thing is, I'm not confident I can get the grades I'm predicted. My teachers seem to think I can do better than I think I can. I want to make sure I can actually get in to university, ya see.

Former Member · October 2006

That's why you get 6 options of places to apply to! And you don't have to decide until like April by which point you'll have a better idea of whether you will get those results or not.

Aim for a couple of high ones, and then 4 others. Don't forget, when you make your choice you get an insurance option too!

My main offer was AAAa, my insurance was CCC, I got something between the two in the end, but am glad I'm not on a CCC course (most of the time).

Former Member · October 2006

I'm obviously another biased person, but if I was starting my University "career" over again I would've probably gone to Northumbria. I obviously can't tell you about the course you're looking at but I can tell you hand on heart that the city is abso-bloody-lutely fantastic (as you've seen already for yourself, to an extent) and no one I have met who has come to study here has regretted it, which is why most of 'em are still around as lazy graduates. It hasn't lost its charm for me in 21 years and counting, that's a fact :thumb:

I won't babble on too much about how utterly fabulous Newcastle is as it speaks for itself, but you are a wise lady having it as your first choice and I definitely don't think you'd regret coming here. The English department is raved about by my friends who have studied there, just to tack on a brief mention of something that is actually academic

Oh, my second choice of those would be Manchester, most definitely.

Former Member · October 2006

Chester, Chichester and Winchester are all quite small places with relatively few students. Things to be looking at there will be student facilities and accomodation potential.

Former Member · October 2006

oooh yeh we should turn your trip to the open day into a manchester piss up:p

JsT · October 2006

Huddersfield is the biggest town in the UK, oh yeah. Its a big town, big big student population, plenty of shops, alcohol and cheap living. Leeds and Manchester aren't far away either for big cities. The campus is all on my one block in the town centre, all the pubs/clubs/accomodation all within a short walk. The uni is good for English too apparantely. Plus you get me and Violette, and you aren't too far from the Manc scummers

and Huddersfield is higher rated than Manc too! and Huddersfield is highest for Student satisfaction than any of the others.

You know where to go!

littlemissy · October 2006

A friend went to Chester uni. She loved it and would highly recommend it

Former Member · October 2006

Though Winchester is a completely awesome city, the Uni is really, really bollocks. It only became a Uni two years ago and during term time, Winchester is not that studenty a place.

As Scary said, I'd go for a couple of high ones. You never know.

Former Member · October 2006

I wouldn't go to Chester tbh. As well as living about 20 minutes away from the campus back home, I also know a number of students that go there. From what I have gathered, the uni is pretty shit. The friends I have that go there never stop complaining about the place, its so so unorganised. Also, isn't Chester like reallllllyyyy low in the uni rankings? In my opinion, you can do alot better than there which will be the case if you go Newcastle

Also, I've walked around campus several times and its quite weird tbh. The accomodation isn't particularly nice either. Sure, theres a few halls but the student housing really isn't very nice. There isn't any proper student accomodation. I wouldn't really wanna stay there. Also, although this might not be something you would take into account when applying for a uni, it would me so I'm gonna say it...Chester doesn't really have a very good nightlife. This is where I'm forced to go out back home if I want to go to anything more than a Wetherspoons (I live in a village 20 mins away) and its nothing special. I can only think of 2 nightclubs in my head and a few decent bars. Its a lovely lovely town though, don't get me wrong. Its just a VERY BORING place to live. Its not really very studenty at all. I think its a shit place to live for students.

It seems as though you have already made up your mind tbh so like, posting this is probably a waste of time

I seriously would cut Chester out of the list though.

Former Member · October 2006

Franki wrote:

Manchester Met, 28 IB points, 280 UCAS points.

You probably already know I'm not a student at MMU - not yet. Frankly, it's the university I should have applied to in the first place. Ah well, there's next year. Anyway, I can't speak about all of the university's campuses, but when I visited MMU earlier this year, I was very impressed. The location (Oxford Road for the main All Saints campus) was far better than I'd ever expected, and I generally got the impression that Manchester's a pretty friendly city. Far more friendly than the miserable gits that inhabited Bristol, anyway...

Former Member · October 2006

Thunderstruck wrote:

Though Winchester is a completely awesome city, the Uni is really, really bollocks. It only became a Uni two years ago and during term time, Winchester is not that studenty a place.

As Scary said, I'd go for a couple of high ones. You never know.

My friend is doing Archaeology there and she says it's good. I was, however, kinda put off by the fact that they only want the basic pass rate. Kinda made me wonder why their requirements were so low, although I think a lot of it is because a lot of them don't really understand the IB still. *shrug*. Plus, they only wanted a 4 at HL English, which is PISH tbh, most places want a 6 at HL in the subject you're going to be studying, if it's something like that.

I would go for high ones, but I don't want to feel like I'm tied down to a university I'm not really fussed about going to, just because I managed to meet their entry requirements (not that I will).

I'm trying to remember what my predicted grades are, and I know it won't get me more than 35 points MAX.

6+6+5/6+4/5+5+5+2 = 33-35. Yeh. I think that's how it is. I don't even know about the 2 points at the end, either. That's optimistic, as are some of those predicted grades if I'm honest. Meh.

If anyone wants to reccomend me a high one that does the course, go ahead, 'cause I'm thinking I now have 4, rather than 7, as I imagine I'm gonna cut Chester, Chichester and Winchester off. Maybe.

Former Member · October 2006

My sister went to plymouth but to the exeter campus - I think it was greatly improved by being in exeter but still isn't necessarily a "good" university. Your not any less intelligent than I am and I really think you should at least put down a few better choices than the ones you have got there.

Birmingham, UEA, Kent (you can even have a year abroad in the states with this one), Royal Holloway and Warwick are all good universities which do that course.

Failing that there is also Greenwich which is down the road from me & wycombe which means you get to hang out with dr p! Also if the worst comes to the worst then you can probably get a place at any of the universities you've listed through clearing.

Also consider doing English as a stand alone subject and then a short course in creative writing which would definatley broaden your choice of places.

ETA - I checked a few of the better universities and you can easily get into them with those predicted grades so i really don't see why your not trying for them

Former Member · October 2006

Former Member · October 2006

Birmingham looks good...but they want 34 points/ABB for an English Joint Honours, or AAB for the English with CW...doesn't say about IB on that one, so I'm guessing somewhere around 36ish, maybe. I dunno. I'll maybe it. Warwick want AAB as well. Hmmm. Maybe. I'll talk to my tutor about them, and see what she says. She'll know better than I do I think.

I don't want to go to UEA or anywhere in Kent/London/etc because imo that's a bit close to home, and I want to be far far away from here, tbh. That's one of my main things about Uni, that I don't want to be so close to home that it's piss easy to come back if something bad happens, so that I can deal with it by myself.

Former Member · October 2006

Franki wrote:

I don't want to go to UEA or anywhere in Kent/London/etc because imo that's a bit close to home, and I want to be far far away from here, tbh. That's one of my main things about Uni, that I don't want to be so close to home that it's piss easy to come back if something bad happens, so that I can deal with it by myself.

Whilst those unis around you are geographically close(ish), there's nothing to make you pop home every weekend, and in terms of experience you'll be miles away. Don't dismiss places just because of where they are.

I came from Midsomer Norton and went to Bristol Uni, which is about 50 minutes drive away (or an hour and 15 on the crappy busses). I didn't constantly make visits home, but it was nice to be a bus-ride away, rather than an expensive train-ride away, so I could get home at short notice if I needed to. Living fairly close also made moving SOO much easier, as Mum could do multiple trips in one day, rather than having the headache of how to cram everything in the car in one go.

Former Member · October 2006

I wouldn't apply to Brum as they make flat offers regardless of what subjects you do. I was offered AAb for doing English Maths and History, yet I know if I'd been doing media studies it'd have been the same offer. At Durham my offer was adjusted to take into account the fact I was doing hard A'Levels.

I wouldn't rush to write off Northumbria as a "good" uni, either- their politics department rates higher than Durham's, for instance. And its the same with MMU. I would have a punt and shove an application in to Durham- its a great uni, and the IB is respected there.

You know which one I think you should apply to though

Former Member · October 2006

I think you should apply to The University of York, because it's the best.

:yes:

Proof by obviousness.

Former Member · October 2006

RHUL (Royal Holloway) is pretty much campus based but it's a great campus and is a complete shit to get to from East Anglia, even if you don't think it's that far away. I'm at uni in EA and live near RHUL I know!

Durham's great, I lived there as a student for a week, that one gets my thumbs up. Look at the course details though, find out how much English and hows much CW there is. With a course like that you also want to really check out how much teaching you'll be getting, you may feel like many do that getting 4 hours contact time a week is a waste of your money.

Former Member · October 2006

The problem with both Durham AND York is that neither of them do Creative Writing, trust me, I've looked

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Birmingham is just one for consideration tbh, you know exactly where I want to go Kermit

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Former Member · October 2006

Have you checked the modules avaliable on the regular English courses?

I found out when I was choosing courses that often there was the opportunity to do as much if not more of what I wanted in the regular course through module/unit options as there was on the X with Y courses.

Former Member · October 2006

You don't wanna go York uni anyways Franki, you might bump into you know who!!!!!!!!!! HAHA.

Nah, only kidding. Its a lovely uni. Quite hard to get into though.

Weird you say they don't do creative writing though, I'm sure one of the girls in my ex's halls did :chin:

Former Member · October 2006

*Snow White Queen* wrote:

You don't wanna go York uni anyways Franki, you might bump into you know who!!!!!!!!!! HAHA.

Surely he'd be finished by then ;p?

But no...I didn't want to go there. I considered it, because KHSS told me to, but they didn't do my course and stuff so *shrug*.

Universities...

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