what are the top 5 hardest courses at university to get onto?

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Reply 60

TheWorldEndsWithMe

Medicine
Dentistry
Vetinary
Law

And I'm not sure about the last one. Maybe economics or something.

Reply 61

Lilmissshortee

I'd say Veterinary, medicine, dentistry are pretty hard to get into, I don't know though. :biggrin:

Reply 62

KingMessi

Original post by .snowflake.

if you think thats bad, Chemistry at York 1900 applicant for 180 places.

Bristol has a ratio of one place per eighteen applicants for English. :lolwut:

Reply 63

.snowflake.

Original post by KingMessi

Bristol has a ratio of one place per eighteen applicants for English. :lolwut:

Jeebus. I thought York for Chemistry and Edinburgh for philosophy with 11:1 was bad. but that's redic.

Reply 64

KingMessi

Original post by .snowflake.

Jeebus. I thought York for Chemistry and Edinburgh for philosophy with 11:1 was bad. but that's redic.

I know. Last year it was one in twenty-two, so clearly there's been a decrease, quite possibly due to applicants looking at those figures and thinking, 'I don't stand a chance'. It deterred me this year, in any case.

Reply 65

Saz00

Oh great, Ive applied to do Law ://.

Reply 66

nexttime

Original post by KingMessi

Keele medicine was 23.1 per place, and bear in mind that medicine only allows 4 choices (so in theory that adjusts to almost 30 per place). Graduate entry med at some places tops 60 per place.

EDIT: also, PPE isn't offered by many unis at all. It isn't very mainstream, hence the low applications per place data.

Original post by Rock_and_roll

Most English degrees have about a 5:1 ratio of applications, so surely that's up there?

When I asked at Leicester I was told that the straight English course had over a thousand applications for just under 200 places.

That is below the average for all subjects.... remember that everyone gets 5 choices, so if the competition ratios are only 5 to 1, that means that everyone is getting a place! Any lower than that and unis will not have enough students to fill their courses.

It will clearly be very competitive at some unis though.

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 67

hockeyjoe

try architecture at the Bartlett, easily one of if not the most competitive course in the country, something like 28 applicants per place..that has to beat LSE economics.

Reply 68

Carnationlilyrose

Original post by KingMessi

Bristol has a ratio of one place per eighteen applicants for English. :lolwut:

I know this is scarcely relevant, as it's so long ago and I don't have the up to date figures, but in 2004, when my son applied, it was 30 to 1 for English at Manchester. Gulp.

Reply 69

username826246

Original post by KingMessi

Oh, really? I have no reason to doubt your school, but I guess my surprise is due to the accepted stereotype that Medicine is always ridiculously oversubscribed - but there's no good reason why Nursing couldn't be as well. I suppose a lot of uni's do PPE, and the application process may well be less rigorous than for Medicine or Nursing, and the expectation for work experience is substantially lower? :dontknow:

yeah that makes sense, I was also suprised that economics wasn't even in the top ten..

Reply 70

Ronda

Original post by Still_Learning

Oh right, well you learn something new everyday! But thats interesting though that entry requirements are lower, because I've always thought of engineering as application of physics, maths (and sometimes chemistry) and those are all particularly difficult subjects, so I thought engineering would be a very intellectually demanding subject and would therefore have entry requirements to reflect that. But i suppose if it is undersubscribed, then they have to lower entry requirements to match.

Then again, i have no personal experience of engineering, so i may well be completely wrong about this too...

I think it's probably to do with some people not knowing what it actually is. A lot of people when they think of an engineer think of someone coming to fix something, which is not what engineering is about at all. Also probably to do with it being thought of as a guys subject, not very many girls will apply for it at all. Also, engineers generally don't get 'respect' like doctors, lawyers, dentists, etc. get from people so maybe that's another reason :dontknow:

Reply 71

kookyuke

1) medicine
2) vet science
3) dentistry
4) law
5) maths

Reply 72

qwerty1

statistics do not always tell the truth

i will put engineering at the top and then medicine

Reply 73

olddad

[QUOTE="Hedgeman49;35453701"]Purely guessing but I would imagine medicine, dentistry, veterinary science... then probably law... then I have no idea what would come next. Maybe maths.[/QUOTE
Economics?

Reply 74

AbuAK

Medicine
Dentistry
Veterinary Medicine
Law
Engineering

Reply 75

Mike93L

Applicants per place does not equate to how difficult it is to get in somewhere though. Places like Bristol and Manchester etc may get 10+ applicants per place but don't forget they are also giving out 2-4 offers per place as well in many cases whereas some courses only give for how many places they have (e.g Oxbridge). Also the quality of applicants for some courses are much higher than others so they are actually harder to get into.

I'd probably say courses such as E&M at Oxford, Economics at LSE, Medicine at Oxbridge/Imperial are the hardest to get into. More generally, I'd say Medicine and Vet Med but I don't know about the rest of the 'top 5'

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 76

Monkeysuit.

The most over subscribed courses are:
1. Economics
2. History
3. Law
4. Medicine
5. English Lit

Reply 77

Lovefoxxx_93

Medicine, Dentistry, Vet Med, Law and Maths/English/History?

Reply 78

nexttime

Original post by lucas13

which degrees have the highest applications per place?

To actually answer the second question which remarkably hasn't happened so far, the highest application to place ratios are (subjects >5000 applications):

1- Dentistry (adjusted) 12.7
2- medicine - (adjusted) 12.6
3- vetinary medicine (adjusted) - 10.8
4- anatomy, physiology and pathology - 8.4
5- trainging teachers - 7.5

Other subjects of interest:
social work - 7.3
nursing - 7.2
architecture - 6.9
economics - 6.7
maths - 5.6

Clearly, this says nothing about competition for the most competitive universities offering these courses, and does not necessarily mean they are the hardest to get into. Answers your question though, 4 pages on.