Picking universities; Nottingham? Edinburgh?

I am applying for English and so far have picked: Durham, Bristol, Oxford, UCL, York. I can't choose between Nottingham, Edinburgh, and possibly Manchester as the 6th choice. I would rather get an offer of AAB or less as a safety choice, so that might rule Manchester out. Which would you recommend I pick, based on the reputation of the university and the cities themselves? :confused:

Reply 1

worldwide

whoa, 5 universities all with AAA offers!
I wouldn't recommend doing that, and certainly not having a sixth with the same offer. Nottingham and Edinburgh both have great courses, but Edinburgh is equally competitive as the other five, which means that you'd run a risk of not getting any offers at all. I guess that considering the calibre of unis that you're applying to that your grades are excellent, but still, it's a big risk.
I'd recommend three or four AAA offer unis, then one or two AAB offers, then one lower offer (Edinburgh being an exception considering how competitive it is). This is coming from someone who made that mistake last year, applying to Cambridge, Bristol, York, Durham, Exeter and Sheffield (five AAA offers). :smile:

On the original question, all three unis are excellent, as are their English courses :biggrin:

Reply 2

mousey

If you want to know anything specific about the Nottingham course/city/campus feel free to ask. xx

Reply 3

QBee

Well, York is supposed to give offers of AAA/AAB, and Nottingham AAB. Edinburgh seems to have a low offer of BBB but, as you said, it is very competitive. Cardiff makes offers of AAB as well. I can't find a decent one with offers of less than AAB, except Edinburgh. In English and History I need to get low Cs next year to get an overall A so that is pretty much two As guaranteed I suppose? Do you still think I should go for something lower than AAB (or Edinburgh)? If so, where? :confused:

Reply 4

QBee

mousey

If you want to know anything specific about the Nottingham course/city/campus feel free to ask. xx

I have millions of potential questions :biggrin:

. First of all, is the uni near the city centre, and is university accomodation near the uni? Also, how expensive is the city, and how good is the transport system? In the prospectus it mentions drama as one of the core units... is this drama as in let's all act or drama as in studying plays? Is shopping good? Is there fun stuff to do? Thanks! :p:

Oh, also, are people friendly towards foreigners?

Reply 5

Sooze

royal holloway offers ABB. i'm also finding it difficult choosing 'safety' unis.

I'm thinking oxford, UCL, KCL, royal holloway, edinburgh, and ??

Reply 6

Sooze

royal holloway offers ABB. i'm also finding it difficult choosing 'safety' unis.

I'm thinking oxford, UCL, KCL, royal holloway, edinburgh, and ??

Reply 7

QBee

I was just looking through the Nottingham prospectus and it mentions 'oral representations' as a form of assessment. Is this true? Do you give speeches and so on? :eek:

Reply 8

worldwide

york is AAA, whatever the website says :/ last year both Bristol and York claimed that the standard offer would be AAB, but everyone that received an offer got AAA

Reply 9

mousey

QBee

I have millions of potential questions :biggrin:

Oh, also, are people friendly towards foreigners?

lol. ok. The uni is about 10 mins away from the city centre by car/bus but isn't really walkable. The catered halls are on the campus itself, with self catered halls around the edge of the campus. One self catered hall is fairly far away from the main campus, but is closer to the business one, jubilee. The transport system is very good, theres loads of buses and you can get a train to pretty much anywhere from Nottingham Train Station. There's trams in the centre too. I find it quite cheap coming from surrey, although there are expensive areas of town with more upmarket bars/restaurants/hotels if you want that kind of thing.

Drama in the first year is assessed in two ways, one through a timed analysis of conventions used in a scene of a play previously studied, the other assesses your ability to direct a scene. You have to act when others direct, but you're not assessed on your acting and if you're really reluctant the directors won't cast you. A lot of people love this bit about the course, in the module feedback it says a lot of the time that they were expecting to hate it, but that it made them much mroe confident.

There is fun stuff to do, same as any other big city really. Try weekone.co.uk for details of fresher's week and societies etc. There are a lot of foreign students here and it seems to work well. People certainly aren't nasty although sometimes the foreign students tend to make friends with only people from their culture/country and not integrate that well. If you want to mix there's nothing stopping you though.

Phew! xx