The Student Room Group

Would You Rather Go To Uni Early, At The Normal Age, Or As A Mature Student?

Poll

What Age Would You Most Like To Go To Uni At?

If you could choose between doing any of these, which would you pick?

1: Going to university early (like some child prodigies have, so at around 16, 15, even 13 or something)

Advantages:

-Get to be years ahead of everyone
-Looks good on job applications b/c it's an unusual achievement

Disadvantages:

-Not fitting in at uni
-Not being mentally mature enough to handle uni life/the course despite being academically capable
-You may have missed out in childhood due to not having friends/being homeschooled or rushed through school etc.

2: Going to university at "the normal age" (so 18 or 19, maybe even 20, or 17 if you're Scottish)

Advantages:

-Most of your peers are at the exact same stage of life/around the same level of maturity and so you can relate to them
-Uni life is tailored towards people in that age range

Disadvantages:

-Some people feel they want to try the working world properly before going to uni, to give them a better idea of what they want to do
-When you're 17/18 and applying for uni, you often have no real clue what you want to do. Many kids nowadays go to uni "for the sake of it" and end up hating their course, changing their mind and possibly dropping out

3. Going to university "as a mature student" (so 21 or over as defined by UCAS/unis)

Advantages:

-You're more likely to be serious about your course, as you may have worked harder to get in/fit previous and current studies around work commitments etc.
-You have more life experience and so can deal with time management/stressful situations better. For example, I know people who went to university at the "normal age" and were bullied but found it really hard to deal with/get help. I doubt a confident adult who's already been in the real world would have as much of a problem handling it
-You may have more money if you've been working beforehand

Disadvantages:

-You may feel like you're "going back a step" socially as some uni students can still be quite immature and treat it like school. Especially if you live in halls!
-Some people may not want to date (and to a lesser extent be friends with) someone in their early 20s/a bit older

Scroll to see replies

Reply 1
As a mature student. I started uni at 21 and was therefore deemed a 'mature' student though tbh, personally I would deem a mature student as 30+.

I have no regrets about not going to uni when I was younger. I was at college then so I still had the typical getting drunk constantly student lifestyle and was learning alongside that so I don't feel as though I've missed on anything by starting uni later. I was also already in a relationship at college and still in the same one now while at uni so meeting new guys didn't interest me and I'm not living in halls, I live in my own flat so I don't have to worry about sharing with teenagers either lol.

Posted from TSR Mobile
(edited 9 years ago)
Reply 2
I went as a mature student, sometimes wish I went at the usual age for the social side.

Posted from TSR Mobile
Reply 3
Original post by Yasmin25
As a mature student. I started uni at 21 and was therefore deemed a 'mature' student though tbh, personally I would deem a mature student as 30+.

I have no regrets about not going to uni when I was younger. I was at college then so I still had the typical getting drunk constantly student lifestyle and was learning alongside that so I don't feel as though I've missed on anything by starting uni later.

Posted from TSR Mobile


What was it like going at 21? I have a fairly good job sorted now, but am thinking of applying to go at 22 as I have pretty decent A-levels :smile:

Yeah, I reckon you can go and party if you're an older student anyway :lol: Must have been fun getting drunk and stuff at college - we didn't really do that at mine, people were pretty serious :tongue:
Reply 4
Original post by gemmam
I went as a mature student, sometimes wish I went at the usual age for the social side.

Posted from TSR Mobile


What age did you go at if you don't mind me asking? Didn't realise age affected socialising that much, unless you're a child prodigy and go in at 15 when you can't drink or something :s-smilie:
Original post by Talipso


I've ways wanted to know what it would be like to be a child prodigy. I'd probably go early tbh

Posted from TSR Mobile
(edited 9 years ago)
Reply 6
Original post by Talipso
What was it like going at 21? I have a fairly good job sorted now, but am thinking of applying to go at 22 as I have pretty decent A-levels :smile:

Yeah, I reckon you can go and party if you're an older student anyway :lol: Must have been fun getting drunk and stuff at college - we didn't really do that at mine, people were pretty serious :tongue:


Tbh for me it didn't feel any different than starting college. I done biomedical sciences at college (now biology at uni) and my college class had a wide range of ages of students from 16 to late 50s so I was used to the age gaps so in a way I suppose that helped for uni. If you start at 22, you will be nowhere near the oldest in the class.

Yeah we had to get drunk to deal with the stress of that course haha. If you do plan to go to uni as a mature student, seriously you have got nothing to worry about :smile:

Posted from TSR Mobile
Reply 7
Original post by Mubariz
I've ways wanted to know what it would be like to be a child prodigy. I'd probably go early tbh

Posted from TSR Mobile


My friend's cousin went at 16 (she was homeschooled). Apparently she got really depressed and is taking a year out because she couldn't go out and drink or even socialise in the Union bar or anything. I think it would be fun academically but I don't really envy them otherwise, they must miss out on quite a bit sadly :frown:.
Reply 8
Original post by Talipso
What age did you go at if you don't mind me asking? Didn't realise age affected socialising that much, unless you're a child prodigy and go in at 15 when you can't drink or something :s-smilie:


26. My degree was mostly mature students so there wasn't that much of a social side as a lot of them had other commitments such as children.

Posted from TSR Mobile
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by Talipso
My friend's cousin went at 16 (she was homeschooled). Apparently she got really depressed and is taking a year out because she couldn't go out and drink or even socialise in the Union bar or anything. I think it would be fun academically but I don't really envy them otherwise, they must miss out on quite a bit sadly :frown:.


I wouldn't drink anyway, I guess the socialising would be a bummer but there are worse things in life I guess. You can make friends other prodigies

Posted from TSR Mobile
Reply 10
Original post by Yasmin25
Tbh for me it didn't feel any different than starting college. I done biomedical sciences at college (now biology at uni) and my college class had a wide range of ages of students from 16 to late 50s so I was used to the age gaps so in a way I suppose that helped for uni. If you start at 22, you will be nowhere near the oldest in the class.

Yeah we had to get drunk to deal with the stress of that course haha. If you do plan to go to uni as a mature student, seriously you have got nothing to worry about :smile:

Posted from TSR Mobile


Oh, awesome! :smile: I'm actually not sure if I should do more A-levels at college or not or just take them on my own - I've been looking for colleges in the area that take a lot of students outside the "usual" age range, but it's quite hard to find one.
Reply 11
Original post by gemmam
26. My degree was mostly mature students so there wasn't that much of a social side as a lot of them had other commitments such as children.

Posted from TSR Mobile


Oh, right. How come your degree was full of mature students? Was it part-time? :smile:
Reply 12
Original post by Mubariz
I wouldn't drink anyway, I guess the socialising would be a bummer but there are worse things in life I guess. You can make friends other prodigies

Posted from TSR Mobile


Ah fair dos. I think people going to uni at 16 or under (so "prodigy" age) is really rare, though, I don't know anyone who's done it apart from my friend's cousin. I would rather go at normal age at the earliest and be able to mix more easily with the majority of students.
Original post by Talipso
Ah fair dos. I think people going to uni at 16 or under (so "prodigy" age) is really rare, though, I don't know anyone who's done it apart from my friend's cousin. I would rather go at normal age at the earliest and be able to mix more easily with the majority of students.


Yeah it must be very rare, I would much rather be a prodigy and go to university the normal age.

Posted from TSR Mobile
Normal, obviously.
Original post by Maid Marian
Normal, obviously.


You say obviously as if everybody has the same opinion

Posted from TSR Mobile
Reply 16
Original post by Talipso
Oh, right. How come your degree was full of mature students? Was it part-time? :smile:


No it was full time, however there was a part time option. I think it was because it was done at a community college rather than the actual university itself, there were a few younger students though.

Posted from TSR Mobile
(edited 9 years ago)
I wouldn't want to go early, I don't think its a good move. It puts a lot of pressure on a young person who will not be able to fully fit in socially. It would be embarrassing to not be able to go out with everybody else because you can't get in bars and clubs.

I think if you are mature you are more likely to be able to hit the ground running when you get to uni. In first year people are at different stages of development, both on the practical side (cooking, washing, dealing with 'situations' like landlord issues without relying on parents to sort it out) and on the emotional side (being able to cope with homesickness, being robust enough to deal with relationship setbacks). A problem some uni students have is they can end up academically underachieving because other problems take over their lives.

Probably the biggest risk is relationship fallout. For some young people university is a time of having their first real proper relationship (or maybe they got in that relationship before uni and it ends at uni) and so its the first time they have to deal with serious heartbreak. Also some students get to university and struggle with rejection: they see their peers getting coupled up and they hoped they would have these experiences but nothing happens and they get no interest from people they like: this can hit their self esteem. At the opposite end of the spectrum, some students get to university and find they are popular and that becomes a distraction, as in the whole battle of self-discipline between studying and partying, its a lot harder to avoid partying if you have a credible expectation you are going to get lots of attention and end up with someone at the end of the night.

Being a bit older doesn't remove all the above problems but it means you are more likely to be able to deal with it.

If you go as a mature student you can still fit in with others socially but you have to remember that people will have different expectations of you, even the younger ones. There was a 25 year old at our uni who was notorious for a) not turning up to half his lectures and b) continuously going on about how he was 'shattered' by a relationship break up with an 18 year old he'd met there. Whilst this would have been accepted as normal from an 18 year old, people did wonder on the first one, why he had bothered giving up a job to go to uni if he didn't care about the work and also being the lovelorn romantic with a broken heart might have sounded cute for an 18 year old guy but people did think a 25 year old should have been able to handle it better.

As a mature student you have to try and avoid the impression that you are like the kid that stayed down a couple of years at school for being slow: if you are mid 20s and showing the life experience development of an 18 year old then it looks a bit weak. If you are mid 20s and able to take charge of and manage situations then you can get on well with the younger ones because they will look to you as a responsible figure that can sort things out and that works in the social dynamic.

The final thing to be wary of if you are a mature student is the relationship side. At unis there are loads of relationships of different ages and you will find things like a late 20s/early 30s PhD student seeing an undergraduate aged 21/22 etc. However if you are a mature student male and you are continually hitting on fresher females it is going to look odd and get people talking, if you are hot and generally successful with these younger girls it will be seen as sleazy, if you are not successful and just trying it on with younger girls and getting rejected then you will become a laughing stock, sorry.
Reply 18
I would love to say normal age - but looking back I was a real muppet back then and would have just wasted it even more than I did later on.
Reply 19
Original post by MagicNMedicine
I wouldn't want to go early, I don't think its a good move. It puts a lot of pressure on a young person who will not be able to fully fit in socially. It would be embarrassing to not be able to go out with everybody else because you can't get in bars and clubs.

I think if you are mature you are more likely to be able to hit the ground running when you get to uni. In first year people are at different stages of development, both on the practical side (cooking, washing, dealing with 'situations' like landlord issues without relying on parents to sort it out) and on the emotional side (being able to cope with homesickness, being robust enough to deal with relationship setbacks). A problem some uni students have is they can end up academically underachieving because other problems take over their lives.

Probably the biggest risk is relationship fallout. For some young people university is a time of having their first real proper relationship (or maybe they got in that relationship before uni and it ends at uni) and so its the first time they have to deal with serious heartbreak. Also some students get to university and struggle with rejection: they see their peers getting coupled up and they hoped they would have these experiences but nothing happens and they get no interest from people they like: this can hit their self esteem. At the opposite end of the spectrum, some students get to university and find they are popular and that becomes a distraction, as in the whole battle of self-discipline between studying and partying, its a lot harder to avoid partying if you have a credible expectation you are going to get lots of attention and end up with someone at the end of the night.

Being a bit older doesn't remove all the above problems but it means you are more likely to be able to deal with it.


Awesome post, thanks, will + rep when I recharge :smile: Yes, that's very true, a lot of my friends who went to uni are dealing with various problems that stem from "living independently/moving away" now and sadly even for some of the brightest students I know their grades have fallen.

If you go as a mature student you can still fit in with others socially but you have to remember that people will have different expectations of you, even the younger ones. There was a 25 year old at our uni who was notorious for a) not turning up to half his lectures and b) continuously going on about how he was 'shattered' by a relationship break up with an 18 year old he'd met there. Whilst this would have been accepted as normal from an 18 year old, people did wonder on the first one, why he had bothered giving up a job to go to uni if he didn't care about the work and also being the lovelorn romantic with a broken heart might have sounded cute for an 18 year old guy but people did think a 25 year old should have been able to handle it better.

As a mature student you have to try and avoid the impression that you are like the kid that stayed down a couple of years at school for being slow: if you are mid 20s and showing the life experience development of an 18 year old then it looks a bit weak. If you are mid 20s and able to take charge of and manage situations then you can get on well with the younger ones because they will look to you as a responsible figure that can sort things out and that works in the social dynamic.


I got good grades at school and wasn't behind, I just wanted to work rather than do what everyone else was doing (go to uni) for the sake of it :dontknow: Took a gap year to try it out at first, and then I landed a pretty decent starting position in a company through contacts and worked my way up from there.

The final thing to be wary of if you are a mature student is the relationship side. At unis there are loads of relationships of different ages and you will find things like a late 20s/early 30s PhD student seeing an undergraduate aged 21/22 etc. However if you are a mature student male and you are continually hitting on fresher females it is going to look odd and get people talking, if you are hot and generally successful with these younger girls it will be seen as sleazy, if you are not successful and just trying it on with younger girls and getting rejected then you will become a laughing stock, sorry.


What about if you're a 22-year-old girl when starting out? (Not one who hits on guys all the time, I don't go chasing people around, just in general re: finding a boyfriend) :tongue: I look younger than my age so don't know if that makes any difference though (people think I'm about 15 and keep calling me "cute" even though I'm 20 right now sometimes, it's probably because I'm East Asian lol. Sometimes when I'm out and about in town or reading at the library 16-year-old schoolboys in uniform will still hit on me :rofl:)
(edited 9 years ago)

Quick Reply