yup, from what i've seen from various unis the joint degrees or more specialised degrees have lower requirements than the classic v100.
and york does quite well on the league tables for both history and sociology. don't really like the modern look of the campus though...personally i'd like something which looks more urm..'hallowed'...but that's a superficial concern haha.
their international office seemed abit indifferent to me though. there was no link on their website for international students to request for a prospectus and when i emailed the international office to request for one all i got in response was a generic looking reply telling me to go to the respective weblinks for undergrad queries, for downloading the online prospectus and for international student queries. bleah.