How did you choose your 5 universities in your UCAS application?

What resources did you use to make your UCAS uni choices? Did you have any league tables or stats/review websites to help you?

Obviously your #1 choice will be where you want to live and how much you like the course, but how did you make the shortlist from 200 universities down to a small handful?

My parents bring in the Sunday Times and I remember seeing the Good University Guide supplement in one edition and reading all of the reviews

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Reply 1

Bulletzone

Cost should be the last of your concern unless you're going to anywhere near London.

Just look at Uni's that offer the course you're doing (for me only 9 unis do it).

Look on the Uni website and look at the student life; accommodation options; course features etc.

Look on TSR for threads made about the Uni/Course.

Attend open days.

Reply 2

Sataris

Won't lie, for me the shortlist started with the couple dozen unis at the top of the league tables (well, excluding Oxbridge). I took out any in locations where I REALLY didn't want to live (eg London) and then went through and looked at the courses. I picked out the ones I particularly liked the look of, then more closely examined what it would be like to attend and live there

Reply 3

happywhale

I think the easiest way to do the huge cut down at the start is to use entrance requirements to rule out the top load if you need to, and then a lower range using league tables / entrance requirements. Then prospectuses and open days are good :smile:

I knew I didn't want to be in a huge city or close to home, so that let me cut lots out too. Is there anything like that for you?

(edited 5 years ago)

Reply 4

A Rolling Stone

Original post by happywhale

I knew I didn't want to be in a huge city or close to home, so that let me cut lots out too. Is there anything like that for you?

the big city/small place distinction is actually the best blunt tool to start with tbh!

Reply 5

random_matt

1) Location
2) Ranking
3) Cost

Number one is super important to me, need tons of green space for my own mental wellbeing. I would try my very hardest not to put one step in London.

Reply 6

username4193780

Original post by Bulletzone

Which course is that? It's even smaller than mine!!

Reply 7

Beth_H

I really liked the courses at a lot of different universities, but this is a brief summary of how I narrowed the ones I liked down to five:
1) My first choice was Oxford, mostly because of the style of teaching (the tutorial system).
2) My second choice was Durham, because I liked the course just as much as Oxford's, but didn't like the teaching style or the distance as much, and they wanted lower grades (making it a good insurance choice).
3) My third choice was Surrey, because it was the only course I really liked which offered a year in industry.
4) My fourth choice was York, because I love the city.
5) My fifth choice was Sheffield, because I needed a fifth choice and my parents said, "what about Sheffield?".

Reply 8

A Rolling Stone

Original post by random_matt

1) Location
2) Ranking
3) Cost

Number one is super important to me, need tons of green space for my own mental wellbeing. I would try my very hardest not to put one step in London.

i get you. but my equivalent of green space was cobble stones... Warwick has lots of green space... and little else for miles lol

but when you say ranking, which did you give greatest credence to? to me it was the individual components of the rankings that mattered, eg. average UCAS Tariff entry points mattered far more to me than it should have!

Reply 9

A Rolling Stone

that's interesting! i never even visited my university before firming, risky i know.

my colleague is actually a Graphic Designer who went to Nottingham Trent, although i think she did the Film & TV course

it seems very sensible how much weight you placed on the breadth of the course

Reply 10

returnmigrant

How to Avoid 5 University Rejections : https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/university/apply/how-to-avoid-getting-five-university-rejections

Read it carefully - and take on board what it says about 'spreading' your choices across different grade requirements!!

Reply 11

A Rolling Stone

Original post by Beth_H

Durham was also my second choice (but not to Oxford) and my 5th choice was going to be either York (was obsessed with the place too) or Sheffield (good for biology) but i eventually went for a 'safety' option

Reply 12

Notoriety

1. RG. I wanted to go to one; a proper one, not one of the dallying around ones.
2. League/alumni/grad prospects. Standing of lecturers.
3. How the course was assessed. I didn't wanna have some feeble CW-heavy course.
4. Offer that seemed manageable. Meant I exceeded my offer big time in the end.
5. Wasn't bothered about applying to the top courses and being rejected; the next tier down would be in Extra, Clearing/Adjustment anyway.

Didn't look at nor consider location, the city, how far it was from home; nor what pro bono or extra stuff it did. Worked out quite well in the end, but it was a short-sighted way to do things.

(edited 5 years ago)

Reply 13

niamhdoesmaths

Durham was my first choice, I did a programme with them and I absolutely loved the place, uni and course. I was also guaranteed a 2 grade reduced offer when I applied because of the programme :smile:

I narrowed it down by ruling out Oxbridge and places I really don’t want to live (i.e. London), then had a think about distance from home and that ruled out quite a few universities in the south. I then took to the league tables, ruled out the high up top ones because (a) their offers would be higher than my Durham one anyway and (b) I wasn’t confident I’d make the offers. Otherwise I’d have probably applied to Nottingham and Manchester and the like.

My school planned an open day trip to Newcastle (a uni I was somewhat considering but not really) - and I really really liked it, so much so that it became my second choice.

From the league tables I found Lancaster, thought it looked really nice and so researched it more and eventually went to their open day - which was probably the best decision I could’ve made. I didn’t like it all too much, and that’s what swayed me away from having it as my second choice (I’d already applied by this point and was tossing up between Newcastle and Lancaster for my insurance). So Lancaster became my third.

My fourth choice was York because I like the place and it’s a decent uni - didn’t go into it any more than that!

My fifth choice was Leeds because I live here and needed a 5th choice :lol:

So in short:
1) figure out the “level” of unis you want to aspire to (i.e your top choices)
2) make sure they do your course!
3) location
4) go and visit them to get a feel for the place
5) apply for one or two with lower requirements than the rest, as a sort of safety net if nothing else

Reply 14

Notoriety

I didn't give myself the username. The Gods descended and presented me with it.

Reply 15

random_matt

Original post by CollectiveSoul

Just lucky to have Durham ranked highly overall and within the subject, still would of highly considered it without the ranking though to be honest.

Reply 16

username3638550

I looked at where did the courses I wanted, then went through all the course websites to see what they offered specifically in the course, then contacted the unis for more info and asked questions.

I looked at league tables, read reviews, and looked up stuff on this forum. I went to open days and spoke with staff directly as well. I thought about cost a bit, but as long as it's not in London it's not too bad, so I just skipped London.

It took a lot of time, but I'm comfortable with the choices I made. People in my class just picked places at random which I thought was stupid.

Reply 17

A Rolling Stone

Original post by Conconz

hahah i love how 'avoiding London' seems to be one of the most common priorities on here... what a wonderfully liveable capital city we are blessed to have!

Reply 18

username3638550

Original post by CollectiveSoul

hahah i love how 'avoiding London' seems to be one of the most common priorities on here... what a wonderfully liveable capital city we are blessed to have!

Haha I'm not slating it, I know plenty of people love it. But it's just too busy for me, I wouldn't be comfortable living there. I did find a course I liked the look of, but when I saw that their accommodation was on offer at a reduced rate that was still more than double some other places I decided against it!