Year 12s: what will be the first way you research your future options? >>

Physics - Imperial, UCL, Warwick or Durham ?

I have 4 conditional offers from 4 unis to study Physics. I live in London.
I guess, the 2 London unis have an advantage that I would not need to travel to a new town. Other than that, any advise on selecting from the four? from existing or prospective students/graduates.

Reply 1

DQ1995i

All good universities with similar reputations with Imperial's being (slightly) better but if you get a first, job prospects won't be different. To decide I advise visiting each university to get a feel for the Campus, Staff etc. Congrats on getting offers from those Universities.

Reply 2

Jamiepvfc

At the end of the day it depends what you like! Some people prefer to live in a big city, some people prefer to be in somewhere much quieter. Just be wary that if you went to Durham or Warwick they would be smaller and much more boring compared to London. However if you want a change from a big city, and want more charm and a close knit community then Durham and Warwick would be better! I knew that I wanted to go to a different city than my home town so that sort of helped me.

Reply 3

returnmigrant

As DQ has said, they are all 'good' Unis.

So you need to look carefully at the different courses and see if there is anyone above/below the others - course content. optional units, work placements, Year Abroad, optional units from other subjects etc.

Also check out each Uni's pages on Wikipedia - yes, I know all the issues with wikipedia, but these pages are always written by the Uni itself and give you a much clearer idea of how they see themselves than their own webpages. How orientated around research are they - ie. do get U/grads get the benefit of being taught by all these grand people or are they stuck in offices/labs and leaving all the teaching to PhD students? How strung out are the buildings - is the Dept and Library for the London colleges miles apart? Would you be at the Durham campus - or at the branch office at Sunderland? Warwick - nice campus Uni but not anywhere near Warwick. London Uni is great in theory - but if you are living at home, what will your social life be like? Etc, etc.

You Tube videos of each campus are useful - again, what is each Uni 'pushing' as its appeal for applicants? What are they trying to keep quiet about?

Useful info on the whole question of Firm/Insurance at : http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/firm_and_insurance_choices
In particular, remember the deadline for your decision is months away - don't rush into this decision, its important to get it right.