[ITGIRL]

Every time i hear people mention the top 10 university nearly everyone mentions "Bath". I was doing research of what universities I should apply for but Bath always shocked me as being in the top 20 - 30 university?

Places like Manchester, Nottingham, Bristol, KCL, Durham, UCL are all consider higher ranked than Bath? Right?

[Nooshkabob]

It depends what subject really... I presume you mean University of Bath, not Bath Spa.
I believe that the University of Bath is in the top ten for maths. It is also the base for TeamBath, where many olympic athletes train including Amy Williams, the GB Rhythmic Gymnastics team, and Jason Gardner, so is good for sport stuff!
Bath is a well respected uni, but may have different rankings for different subjects. It specialises in sciences, engineering style courses, but i don't think it offers any arts subjects. However, Bath Spa offers all the arts instead
When applying although league tables are useful, i think if you find a course/uni that you really like, it doesn't matter so much what its ranking is...

[Meat is Murder]

Bath is a very good university and I know someone who rejected an offer from imperial to study Bio-chem at Bath - make of that what you will.

Whether it is a top 10 uni however is debatable, as is whether Bristol, Nottingham or Durham are top ten. As far as I am concerned, there is a top 5 cluster of uni's, and the next 20 are very similar but variances allow them to stand out in different ways. Bath has always stood out in science based subjects, but doesn't offer English, which is a reflection of uni's excelling in certain subject areas; Leeds has a very strong English department for example.

Unless you're aiming for the top '5', do what's best for you and go where you feel most comfortable.

[bobst101]

It seems there is problem with Bath Uni - everyone thinks it's overrated, but no one explains why.

[Above.The.Empyrean]

They're actually informing you that you smell.

[ForensicShoe]

(Original post by bobst101)
It seems there is problem with Bath Uni - everyone thinks it's overrated, but no one explains why.

Correction

Everyone on here thinks it's overrated which would explain a lot.

[ChelseyElla]

If you're seeing Bath as being in the top 20-30 then it must differ depending on the course. Bath is 4th for Psychology and has been for a while now.

[Marsha2112]

It used to be, but for a simple answer to your question, go on the Complete University Guide/Sunday Times. 5th last year, top 10 this year and for several subjects like Maths, Psychology, Business we're top 5. I turned down the so called "top unis" Bristol and UCL to go here because their maths course had visibly less content (and buildings, students, etc) but people still seem shocked at my decision, even though Bath was the highest ranked!
There's a thing as "prestige", which is just the ideas people have in their head over which unis must be eternally good because they're old and well known, and then there's reality as to which ones actually offer the best education and employment. Look at the lague table and go see for yourself.