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Why do lots of cities have lesser universities?

Manchester - Man Met
Sheffield - Sheffield Hallam
Liverpool - Liverpool JM
York - York St John
Oxford - Oxford Brookes
Birmingham - Birmingham City
Nottingham - Nottingham Trent
Leeds - Leeds Met
Edinburgh - Edinburgh Napier
Cardiff - Met
Bristol - UWE

I mean the right hand side are like poo and you're comparing it with gold for some of them. Are they deliberately misleading the uninformed applicants into thinking they are the same uni or something?

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Reply 1

Norton1

Or it might be that - for example - Oxford and Edinburgh have around a 500 year head start?

Reply 2

kittyb99

The government converted a lot of polytechnics into universities in an attempt to seemingly increase university places, meaning that there are technically more universities than there were, and obviously a university will have had a significant head start on a polytechnic.

Reply 3

Alt__x

Because stupid people want to go to universities too nowadays :smile:

(this is very obviously a joke btw before I start getting flamed.)

This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

Reply 4

TheSownRose

Original post by fosterwho

I don't think any of them have actually tried to trick applicants... :erm:

In a lot of cases, it's because they were a former polytechnic (and perfectly reasonable, to have a university and polytechnic servicing the same area) that became a university in 1992.

Reply 5

evantej

Original post by fosterwho

Lots of the above universities were polytechnics. These larger polytechnics in particular tended to be amalgamation of historical institutions within the metropolitan areas, for example technical colleges, schools of art and design, and dedicated teacher-training colleges.

Of course, you probably have no experience of any of the institutions listed, and your question is merely an opportunity to express your prejudice. You asked a similar question about whether or not Sheffield Hallam students felt inferior to those who studied at the University of Sheffield. And also posted derogative remarks about Swansea too.

Grow up.

Reply 6

fosterwho

Original post by evantej

stalker......

Reply 7

Mr Dangermouse

Also, there's the curious case of Glasgow.

Strathclyde is an expoly type that ranks very well, actually not far behind Glasgow. There is Caledonian though which is lower ranked and often the butt of jokes, memes, gifs and trolls.

Reply 8

Smack

Volunteer Team

Original post by Mr Dangermouse

Strathclyde is an expoly type that ranks very well, actually not far behind Glasgow.

Strathclyde was never a polytechnic (in fact there were no polytechnics in Scotland) and is in-fact older by Royal Charter than many other plate-glass universities.

Reply 9

NR09

Original post by Mr Dangermouse

Strathclyde is considered superior to Glasgow in some areas too. It is excellent for Engineering and Chemistry ( it may be for other subjects, but these are the ones I know about)

Reply 10

Venomilys

they are just there for the filler of society. For example, london met psychology is probably there for single mums who worked in tesco's for 3 years and want to turn thier lives around etc. Sorry for the bad generalization, but you can see what I mean when I say 'filler'.

Of course, I am theorizing here.

Reply 11

Norton1

Original post by Mr Dangermouse

Original post by Smack

Strathclyde was never a polytechnic (in fact there were no polytechnics in Scotland) and is in-fact older by Royal Charter than many other plate-glass universities.

Strathclyde was a University in the 1800's. Then it had to change its name for legal reasons.

Reply 12

Mr Dangermouse

Original post by Smack

Strathclyde was never a polytechnic (in fact there were no polytechnics in Scotland) and is in-fact older by Royal Charter than many other plate-glass universities.

Ah my bad. I'm going to Heriot-Watt, the 8th oldest uni in the UK, and I thought that was a poly until about a week ago :colondollar:

Reply 13

Shelly_x

Please don't make generalisations. Some unis have a head start on others in being named universities and so have more prestige/are higher in the league tables. As it stands, some of the 'newer' unis you mentioned are in fact older than the 'original' unis, they just weren't named 'universities' at the time. For example, my uni is improving in leaps and bounds. Applications are up by 11% at a time when applications everywhere else are dropping. We have also been around a heck of a lot longer than York University.
I don't feel 'inferior' to York uni, as my uni is well respected in its own right. Though I'm aware that the specific case I mention may be different, as we tend to have different specialisms to York uni.

Reply 14

xx-Samantha-xx

Hmmm well i don't believe that i was mislead by man met and i personally made an informed choice as i chose Man Met over Uni Of Man, even made Man Met my firm after getting conditional offers from both, after going to both open days, researching about the unis etc

Some unis are better at the more vocational courses, people make their own decisions based on what they prefer, it shouldn't matter that some are ex-poly and some are red brick, all that should matter is that the people are where they want to be and studying what they want in the enviroment that they want to be in.

oo a neg point.....thought that was going to happen for some reason.... :rollseyes:

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 15

River85

Original post by fosterwho

As mentioned, they were often polytechnics before achieving university status in the Major government 20 years ago. As with all universities they have their strengths and are not "poo".

Take Northumbria for example.It is a good law school and offers training for those wishing to become a solicitor or barrister. Good luck trying to study the LPC or BVC at Newcastle University (or even another university elsehwere in the region - Durham for example).

Generally speaking some, such as Northumbria and Oxford Brookes, have graduate employment rates comparable to some Russell and 1994 Group universities (and, in certain individual subjects, far superior).

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 16

MancStudent098

Original post by River85

Take Northumbria for example.It is a good law school and offers training for those wishing to become a solicitor or barrister. Good luck trying to study the LPC or BVC at Newcastle University (or even a university elsehwere in the region - Durham for example).

I always find this point quite funny when people get all snobby about universities, few realise that most of the UK's barristers (and quite a lot of its solicitors as well) will have passed through one of the ex-polys at some point in their training.

Reply 17

evening sunrise

The only type of student who might be mislead is the type of student who is
incapable of researching for themselves the answer to the simple question posed by the thread.

So what is the real score ? Joined 13/05 age 20.

Part-time job to get certain marketing messages landed by provoking responses to a question posed in the style of and with the level of articulation of a 15 yo? Scratch that.....my 13 yo could do better.

Were you seeking to provoke advocates for the "lesser" institutions or attempting to sow the seeds of brand awareness for the "prestigious" universities? The latter would not surprise me given many of the "lesser" universities are charging less and in some cases such as LJM bucked the trend in application volumes by a quite extraordinary margin, one assumes at the expense of other institutions in that region ?

If the latter then I guess you were successful, at least in part, as several posters landed the "lesser" universities are ex-polys message for you.

If at the age of 20 you simply could not find out the answer to the question for yourself and that was the best formulation you could arrive at then ROLFLMFAO.

Reply 18

SpicyStrawberry

Original post by fosterwho

If you are unaware that these universities are all different, you shouldn't be going to university. As for all the universities on the right hand side being "like poo"... how old are you and have you even had a look round? Something tells me you haven't.

No university deliberately misleads people into thinking the University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent are the same, if you cannot do a quick Google search to find this out then you shouldn't bother applying anywhere. Simple as that really.

The University of Manchester is a good university, and with achieving AAB at the end of college I could have gone there, but since they did not do combined honours in the subjects I wanted and I didn't particularly like the campus, I decided to go to MMU instead. It's not all about league tables and intelligence; don't make the mistake of thinking everyone who goes to an ex-poly is stupid because you'll look like a fool.