Royal Holloway, or Queen Mary?

Hi! I need some help.
I'm a student from Norway and am planning on studying in the UK and do a degree within Psychology. I have already applied for several different colleges and at this point gotten into 3/5 (which I am super stoked about).

I've been reading lots about QMUL and RHUL for a while, and those are my top two picks out of the schools I've applied to. It seems RHUL has a better rep for psychology(?), and it also offers forensic psychology which I am very interested in. QMUL also seems like a great university but seems to be more central than RHUL.

I've read a lot about people disliking that RHUL is not very central and "cut off", and boring since it's on the outskirts and in a small town. Coming from a really small town of only 4000 people, I believe it's going to feel "crowded" either way so that doesn't matter for me.

I'd love for any of you to share your experiences on both RHUL and QMUL. Which one would you prefer? What's the pros and cons?

QMUL overall has a better reputation as it is part of RG and UOL, and is one of the best Universities in the UK for research. QMUL is in Tower Hamlets which is a inner London borough and is only a 10 min tube journey from central London, also the East End is a great place for bars and nightclubs. RHUL has a probably one of the nicest campuses, but despite its name it isn't actually in London but a town called Egham. The average train time from Egham to Waterloo (central London) is 52 minutes, so if you want the London uni experiance I wouldn't recommend RHUL. However RHUL does have a great reputation for Psychology, with one of the best psych departments in the UK.

Hi ellievn,

I'm a current psychology student at Royal Holloway. I couldn't say much about the forensic side of psychology as I focus on clinical, but I can say that I love the department. All the staff are so friendly and some of the teachers have won awards for teaching so you do get really good quality. We have BPS accreditation, which means that you have to take core modules in first and second year and then get to specialise in third year.

While it's true that Egham isn't exactly central London, it only takes 40 mins to get to Waterloo which is very central. But, as a campus university there is so much else to do on campus, I rarely leave unless I have a specific reason - and that's just because I'm so busy. We have over 150 clubs and societies and they're always holding events like pub quizzes, karaoke or games nights, etc. It depends on the society, but you can have a look at the Student's Union website to see what each society gets up to.

I love it here and if you have any other questions, please feel free to get in contact with me here.

Lucy