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Drofder2004
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Post by Drofder2004 » September 17th, 2006, 6:12 am

Wow, do your schools not give you a "suggestion"?

Think about your choices, and choose 3 to visit.

Visiting them all imo is a fucking stupid idea :P (no offence)

Why travel to places such as Bristol to look at a single university?

Think of it another way, an "open" day is a 'rehearsed' event. Everything is planned and I would imagine most of these open days you were provided with a "schedule".
A school that has shown you what THEY want you to see is not going to help, you will see false and biased information about the schools.

You will also probably be accompanied by current students. Did you know these students are PAID to do what they do? (Yes, this WAS one of my questions when I did an open day visit)

You should also think more about the actual school.
Think of it like this...
Oxford/Cambridge/Imperial, some of the "top" uni's, but WHY are they the top uni's? Are they better teachers, or is it simply because they choose the 'best' students and the 'worst' students go to other unis...
You will more than likely find that if you were to get a teacher from a high level uni and a teacher from a lower level uni, their teaching skills will not be to different, you have the same chance of passing in Oxford as you do in say Brunel.

My advice is go for "convenience".
Take a look at "Canterbury, Kent", it is a student town, it has exactly 365 bars (1 for every night of the year), it has a nightclub run by students for students (and its on campus), now think of THAT for convenience :lol:
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Pedsdude
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Post by Pedsdude » September 17th, 2006, 4:11 pm

Drofder2004 wrote:Wow, do your schools not give you a "suggestion"?

Think about your choices, and choose 3 to visit.

Visiting them all imo is a fucking stupid idea :P (no offence)
I've got to apply to 6 universities, why would I only see 3?
Drofder2004 wrote:Why travel to places such as Bristol to look at a single university?
Bath is a few minutes drive away from Bristol. I needed to go to the London Open Day, so I decided while I was down there I may as well see the other universities I'm interested in too, saving having to make seperate journeys.
Drofder2004 wrote:Think of it another way, an "open" day is a 'rehearsed' event. Everything is planned and I would imagine most of these open days you were provided with a "schedule".
A school that has shown you what THEY want you to see is not going to help, you will see false and biased information about the schools.

You will also probably be accompanied by current students. Did you know these students are PAID to do what they do? (Yes, this WAS one of my questions when I did an open day visit)
The only 'open days' I went to were London, Bath and Oxford (Oxford was college open days, not department open days). Bristol, Nottingham, York and Warwick were all just me visiting, getting an idea of what it would be like to study and live there, seeing what the facilities are like, seeing how the nearby area is etc. etc. As a result I don't believe I will have had as much of a 'biased' view of the universities as you probably think. I particularly enjoyed Bath, but that was because the campus was very compact and self-contained, rather than Warwick where it was spread over a very large area.
Drofder2004 wrote:You should also think more about the actual school.
Think of it like this...
Oxford/Cambridge/Imperial, some of the "top" uni's, but WHY are they the top uni's? Are they better teachers, or is it simply because they choose the 'best' students and the 'worst' students go to other unis...
You will more than likely find that if you were to get a teacher from a high level uni and a teacher from a lower level uni, their teaching skills will not be to different, you have the same chance of passing in Oxford as you do in say Brunel.

My advice is go for "convenience".
Take a look at "Canterbury, Kent", it is a student town, it has exactly 365 bars (1 for every night of the year), it has a nightclub run by students for students (and its on campus), now think of THAT for convenience :lol:
Oxford choose the best students because they get a huge amount of applications, and obviously they will want to pick the best from the worst. As a result of their good grades and facilities, they attract the best students and the best tutors. I am aware that they will not have all the best teachers, and I am certain that the quality of teachers will be of a high standard in pretty much all the universities in the country, but a graduate from Oxford has much better employment prospects than say a graduate from Scunthorpe university (if it exists :roll:).
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Post by Drofder2004 » September 18th, 2006, 1:02 pm

Pedsdude wrote:Oxford choose the best students because they get a huge amount of applications, and obviously they will want to pick the best from the worst. As a result of their good grades and facilities, they attract the best students and the best tutors. I am aware that they will not have all the best teachers, and I am certain that the quality of teachers will be of a high standard in pretty much all the universities in the country, but a graduate from Oxford has much better employment prospects than say a graduate from Scunthorpe university (if it exists :roll:).
My point exactly.

Now this is what I don't like about university compared with employment.
No matter what your grades are at the end of university, your more likely to get a job because of where you went.

For example, a student with a "B level" pass from Oxford, is more likely to get a job than a "A level" 'scunthorpe' student...

------

Also, 6 universities is pointless for you tbh, most people will choose 3, and 9/10 they will get their 1st/2nd choice and with your results, if you do not get into your number 1 choice, I will eat my imaginary hat.
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Post by Pedsdude » September 18th, 2006, 5:38 pm

Well, seeing as I'm applying to high-level universities, I'm more likely not to get an offer (who knows, I might not get ANY offers, but that's not likely). Plus I'm forced to put down 6 universities on my UCAS form.
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