Confused American-Bath or Durham???

Hi,
I'm an American trying to decide between University of Bath or Durham University for Graduate school. I was accepted to the European Studies/Euromasters MA program at Bath and the International Relations (European) MA at Durham. I've been told both have great reputations and I'm leaning a little towards Durham because the degree is broader. Anyway, any advice would be greatly appreciated! I'm mostly concerned with which has a better academic reputation in the UK and abroad.

Reply 1

gilbo

2

I would say Durham has a better rep academically Bath I think is kean on Sport and good for Business areas.

Bath is a beautiful city though with great architecture whereas Durham is in the middle of nowhere.

Reply 2

snail_87

2

I don't know what they are like for your specific course, but i think Durham has a much better reputation to be perfectly honest. Bath is pretty good but it's not in the top 10 like i would say Durham is.

Reply 3

Kyalimers

21

Durham is sometimes compared with the likes of Oxfors for its Academic side in SOME subjects. Both Durham and Bath are extremely good for sport too. Durham though is in the middle of nowhere.

Reply 4

undercover agent

12

the weather would be colder in Durham

sorry thats all I have to contribute!

Reply 5

username36063

11

mark renton

the weather would be colder in Durham

sorry thats all I have to contribute!

why do we get things like this. The uk is small

OP: bath to durham is 300 miles, as an american you surely laugh at the idea that 300 miles have such a varied climate.at best you are talkinga couple of degrees difference.

I would have to say durham, Bath is a lovely city and good uni, but on the edge of the town, not part of the town.

Reply 6

The Solitary Reaper

9

Sorry to be a downer but I just thought I should chip in that people on here tend to ham Durham up a lot; in the real world, I don't know anyone that considers it such an amazing institution. The league tables (I know) don't tend to place it in the top 10 much anymore either.

I don't think there is much of a reputation gap at all; most of Durham's seems to be based on the past and on a sense of self-importance. If Durham is especially good for those subjects it may be, but if it's not, I can't imagine it being at all significantly better than Bath.

Reply 7

Chemical_Scum

14

both great but i prefer Durham and if you prefer that course then your mind should be made up

Reply 8

sugar_and_spice

7

I love going to Durham, I love the cathedral!
Never been to Bath though so I can't give an opinion on that!

Reply 9

Kitty Pimms

17

One of my friends is doing the Euromasters' next year. I'm told it's an extremely prestigious programme, should that sway you any. That said if you believe the league tables, Durham is slightly ahead. Having a look at the staff lists for both however, they're impressive at both universities, and from a European politics perspective, more so at Bath.

I suspect in terms of academic reputation it would depend somewhat on what you intend to do afterwards - the Bath department seems to be very focussed whereas the course and staff at Durham are more interdisciplinary - so if you're looking to go straight into the workplace afterwards, Durham might be more useful, but if you're looking to stay in academia the Bath department might offer you more resources.

Six of one and half a dozen of the other, really!

Reply 10

The Boosh

17

The Solitary Reaper

Sorry to be a downer but I just thought I should chip in that people on here tend to ham Durham up a lot; in the real world, I don't know anyone that considers it such an amazing institution. The league tables (I know) don't tend to place it in the top 10 much anymore either.

I don't think there is much of a reputation gap at all; most of Durham's seems to be based on the past and on a sense of self-importance. If Durham is especially good for those subjects it may be, but if it's not, I can't imagine it being at all significantly better than Bath.

absolutely. i agree 100% with that.

to the op - people on tsr that fail to get into oxbridge sometimes feel the need to declare that durham is "like oxbridge" when, to be fair, it really isn't. it's a great uni in it's own right and doesn't need the "like oxbridge" tag to be a great uni. but fundamentally, it's a different university in terms of size, amount of academics and research output and research funding won etc and it's more like bath, york and st andrews than oxbridge. yes, it had old buildings and yes it has a tutorial system, but beyond that there isn't an awful lot to warrant claims read on tsr.

look closely at the league tables that have been mentioned over and over again - york, bath and durham have typically floated around the 10th spot. the sunday times placed durham 8th in 2006, and 9th in 2005. york has been 8th in both years. bath has been 10th in 2005 and 11th in 2006. in the times gug this year, durham is 9th, bath is 11th, and york is 16th, whereas in the (non-times) gug this year, bath is 9th, durham is 10th and york is 14th. the difference really is marginal and the universities switch positions each year. all 3 universities have been inside and outside of the so-called "top-10" in recent years.

sorry to nag, but it's one of those things which come up over and over again on on tsr.

Reply 11

Kitty Pimms

17

The Boosh

look closely at the league tables that have been mentioned over and over again - york, bath and durham have typically floated around the 10th spot. the sunday times placed durham 8th in 2006, and 9th in 2005. york has been 8th in both years. bath has been 10th in 2005 and 11th in 2006. in the times gug this year, durham is 9th, bath is 11th, and york is 16th, whereas in the (non-times) gug this year, bath is 9th, durham is 10th and york is 14th. the difference really is marginal and the universities switch positions each year. all 3 universities have been inside and outside of the so-called "top-10" in recent years.

sorry to nag, but it's one of those things which come up over and over again on on tsr.

Agreed. The methodology on the blimmin' league tables is such that universities are always going to move around, sometimes by quite a lot, based on the fluctuation of some fairly arbitrary factors. Making a decision about where to spend a year of your life based on a small difference in the amount of money a university spends on computers in a given year is totally daft.

Annoyingly though I think 2008 is a really pants year to be moving to postgrad - what with both the RAE and the quota awards being redone this year, it's really hard to find relevant and current data to help make decisions. Next year's candidates will have way more to go on!

Reply 12

The Boosh

17

never really thought about it like that. it's better if you are focused and know who the better academics/departments are in the field (through publications etc) but that's not an easy thing to achieve for an undergrad i guess. what's happening with the quotas?

Reply 13

Tomber

13

The Boosh

it's better if you are focused and know who the better academics/departments are in the field (through publications etc) what's happening with the quotas?

That's the only proper way to do it.

The quotas essentially mean that there are now internal limits on how many candidates an institution can put forward for research body funding. I've decided to self fund my MA now.

Reply 14

Kitty Pimms

17

The Boosh

never really thought about it like that. it's better if you are focused and know who the better academics/departments are in the field (through publications etc) but that's not an easy thing to achieve for an undergrad i guess. what's happening with the quotas?

Very true, but the RAE's a good way of finding out what the department's general research reputation is like - I don't know how you find it, but by the final year of udergrad I'm already really pretty insular about my subfield of politics, so I don't really have any idea who the big names are in other subfields, if that makes sense? I know my own subject area and the big hitters well, but as for the other topic areas I'm pretty clueless.

As for the quotas the ESRC re-did their 3-year allocations this year, so when applications were going in in January you had no idea how many quota spots each department was getting. As it turns out most places had their quota halved - there are only 27 places in politics now which is dramatically down on last year's allocation (damn you government!!).

Reply 15

The Boosh

17

hasn't this limit been in place for a few years?? :confused:

for the open competition a dept that was esrc approved could only put forward one candidate, whereas for the quotas (which are given out by the uni) there is no cap because the uni (not the esrc) deals with the filtering process. so apart from the esrc cutting its quotas i'm not sure what has changed :s-smilie:

i've not applied for... about 4 (!) years so things may be different now. i thought you were about to say that research council funding would be contingent on rae2008 scores (which wouldn't surprise me).

Reply 16

Kitty Pimms

17

The Boosh

hasn't this limit been in place for a few years?? :confused:

for the open competition a dept that was esrc approved could only put forward one candidate, whereas for the quotas (which are given out by the uni) there is no cap because the uni (not the esrc) deals with the filtering process. so apart from the esrc cutting its quotas i'm not sure what has changed :s-smilie:

i've not applied for... about 4 (!) years so things may be different now. i thought you were about to say that research council funding would be contingent on rae2008 scores (which wouldn't surprise me).

Aye, the open competition limit was set once they switched to the quota system for the majority of awards AFAIK.

I know they're determining the number of quota places according to an algorithm, which is party determined by past record of successful PhDs but is in the majority influenced by the quantity (ie. not adjusted for smaller departments, hence why Oxford and Essex always get the most in my subject) of graded research output, and as you say, I really wouldn't be surprised if they didn't take the preliminary results of the current RAE into account when determining that.

It's all really baffling and seems to annoy everyone in academia enormously...

Reply 17

apotoftea

19

Tomber

That's the only proper way to do it.

The quotas essentially mean that there are now internal limits on how many candidates an institution can put forward for research body funding. I've decided to self fund my MA now.

What I've found is that for RHUL, they've mentioned the limits about who can apply for what course under the ESRC funding but there's nothing for the AHRC :confused:

I've emailed them as well. Nothing on the History department website either :rolleyes:

I've emailed the postgrad funding office though just to make sure

In response to the OP - do what Boosh suggests and go by the department and who's in it.

ETS: found it online by the wonder that is google. Can still send it, but they then choose their top 40 odd applications to forward on ~eeek~

Reply 18

Kitty Pimms

17

Stickyvix

What I've found is that for RHUL, they've mentioned the limits about who can apply for what course under the ESRC funding but there's nothing for the AHRC :confused:

I've emailed them as well. Nothing on the History department website either :rolleyes:

I've emailed the postgrad funding office though just to make sure.

I think the ESRC run their nominations very differently from the AHRC. Basically for the ESRC you apply for nominations at several departments at once, and you can be offered more than one (or none at all given that there are very few recognised departments, who usually have only one or two quota places to allocate). My guess is therefore that the deadlines are earlier and the limits are a lot more strict. Am I right in thinking that the AHRC don't approve particular courses, that you can apply for what you like?

Sounds like a good idea to have emailed them - maybe they'll be a bit more helpful! I'd be interested to see what they say anyway, the AHRC makes my head hurt.

Reply 19

apotoftea

19

AHRC has a list of subjects that come under their guidance as such; it's long and has loads of sub-sections.

I've actually just found by google what I needed to know re: the number they're allowed to submit. Basically you application may not even make it past the instuition you've got an offer for, let alone getting to the AHRC itself

Confused American-Bath or Durham???

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