Imperial VS Oxford

Ah ok, so it sounds like our degrees have very different methodologies behind them; I'd probably prefer the way your course is set up, to be honest!

How many hours of labs do you do? They're the least enjoyable part I find!

Indeed, the biologists are our "philosophy students" – sit around, read, seem to have nothing to do, etc.

For what it's worth, in physics at least, we're doing a third year Oxford course in our second year; it's a pain in the arse, but that's another story altogether.

Most departments are very well organised (apart from physics, ironically), though I've never studied at Oxford so couldn't really compare the two institutions.

Imperial starting salaries are inflated somewhat because of the large quantity of people that go to work for investment banks (£45k starting salary + sign-on bonus). Having said that, about half of people stay in academia.

Comments like these make my day,

The metric being measured is starting salaries, NOT starting salaries excluding investment banks.

Oxbridge has the fewest intake from students from the lowest socio-economic group (and the highest proportion of public school educated).

So should I say London Met (or someplace similar) would actually be the top uni if their students came from a wealthier background?

15 days in 1st year, 12 in 2nd, 10 in 3rd and pretty much the whole of 4th year. Each lab day is 8 hours, and you?

We have 6 hours per week for 12 weeks or so in the first two years (basically 3 hours twice a week, for a term and a half). Third year I won't have any labs as I'm on the "theory" course, but for those that do I believe it's the same again.