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Manchester vs Leeds vs Birmingham (for International Relations)

(edited 9 years ago)

Hi - i've just started year 13 and I'm finalising all my choices - which are Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Bristol for International Relations.

I wanted a comparison between the former 3 in terms of their departments and advantages. I've visited all except Bristol - which is one i'm not intending to go to - I just needed a fifth choice (Despite it being AAA).

Edinburgh looks good but its an extra £9k - and a heavier debt burden.

So for me, its really between Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds - i've visited all of them and I like them pretty much equally - the grades vary from AAB (MAN, LDS) to ABB (BMH).

For AS I got AAADE (L-R subjects: History, Geography, Economics, Spanish, French) - and my predictions are A*A*A - A*A*A*. Most of you will probably say go for somewhere 'better' but I'm looking for big UK city unis without the cost of living in London. Plus all these courses look great to me.
Just wanting some thoughts on it all - any advice or whatever.
Thank you very much.

I never looked into Manchester but I applied to both Leeds and Birmingham back in 2009/10 and 2010/11 and found the major difference between the two was that Birmingham wanted to cover all bases in first year- you had introductions to Political Economy, Politics and IR and few optional choices in first year where as Leeds course gave you more scope to choose what you wanted to do.