THE UNSPOKEN TRUTH @Loughborough

I mean, you are bashing Loughborough. Let's be honest here. I'd say for 75%+ of students research doesn't matter a ton. Student satisfaction, on the other hand, does a lot. It refers to teaching quality and when you're learning that can make a big difference. When picking a uni you want to look at the entry standards roughly then student satisfaction. There's clearly more factors but you definitely shouldn't disregard student satisfaction as a nonsense metric

It should always be a seperate entity. Rankings should primarily be based on research of the uni and its image.

Student satisfaction should not be a measure when ranking univeristies, It should always be a seperate entity. Rankings should primarily be based on research of the uni and its image.

Separate is the correct spelling. No, rankings need to be based on something quantifiable. 'Image' is not something to use for ranking! Where does research of a Uni fit in to Undergrad? That should be part of Uni ranking, but only a small part. Student satisfaction is an obvious measurable that is worth counting too.

"is an obvious measure" is the correct way, not measurable.

just becuase it is being advertised that uni A has more satisfaction doesnt mean that uni B which doesnt give much importance to such data, isnt just as good or even better for your experience.

This post is designed for everyone to doubt their choice of university before coming to Loughborough.

Pros:
+Amazing sports facilities but the con is that there are too many people using them, like gym. No matter which one you pick = always crowded.

+Wide accomodation choice (there are plenty of halls you can apply and although they differ in quality, location and catered/self-catered, all of them are decent).

+Many sports clubs and societies (the downside however is that many societies are not managed properly or fall apart, so its really hard to know what you are getting yourself into unless its simple stuff like computer games, which is actually organised quite well).

+Lecture capture and e-attendance, allows you to skip or review lectures as well ass registed electronically, if you do it through PC, you can do it on campus without being at the lecture hall. Downside is that not every lecturer agrees to record, so to some you have to attend all lectures.

+Students Union is indeed one of the best in the country, organises many different party events, international meetings, sometimes meetings with dogs and other destress stuff. They even organised a few fight nights, where students doing martial arts would fight in a proper ring and it is very decent.

+Decent library and many PC's available to use around campus. However, library is not designed for exam seasons, at that time it will be literally full.

Cons:
-Very basic healthcare facilities on campus for a Sports University. Say if you do sports and you get a more serious injuiry than you can cure yourself, you need to go back home to your doctor because the ones at University can't even diagnose you properly in many cases. (Also waiting queues are quite long, I asked for an x-ray and they said to wait 2 weeks, which is pointless if you think you might have broken or fractured a bone).

-Night life is dead, the point everyone sells to you is that you can go to: Derby, Nottingham or Leicester for a night out. That is true, you can but everyone ends up there probably once or twice a year max. Students Union is great but it gets boring quickly and the town only has 2-3 clubs and a few bars.

-Teaching methods are surface and boring, (at least in business school) are not worth the money. In a nutshell, every module is a squashed version of some academic book, which in some cases is identical to the slides. Then the lecturer tells you the short version of the book on slides (depends on the lecturer, in about half the cases I felt they were not interested in teaching at all). Last step is either the coursework or exam. At some point you will definitely feel that it is just a memory test rather than learning something worthwhile. As well as that, the teaching is very surface level and far from being practical or anything you can't find and learn on your own with some books.

-Placement, while for some it is a great choice to kick start a career, the university is very pushy with the placement rules. So you need to think of whether you do a placement before finishing the 1st year, as they might not allow you to go into the 3rd year straight (check the course, on their website if it has a 3 and 4 year option). Otherwise you can get stuck in the situation where you will be FORCED to do a the sandwich year, while you are being charged (1-2k for UK and above 3K for Internationals for the year + writing some crap dissertation for an obsolete diploma, which is used to squeeze the money of students). The placement around all courses also means that you might not finish university with your friends if they are from the same year but do not take a placement or if they are from the year below/above.

-Surroundings, for many it will get boring very soon. Simple terms - you either drink, do sports or study to keep yourself busy. Choice of eating out or shopping is very narrow too.

-Students, English culture is very dominant in the university, so if you are an international student, feeling like you belong there might be a matter of a chance and the people you meet.

-Gender split, the university has an overall gender ratio about 63% male and 37% female, depending on the course it will vary but it is noticable. If you are female, you might struggle to find a good group of girl friends but finding a decent looking & built guy will probably be not a problem. If you are male, finding mates will probably not be hard, there are plentry around but if you want to get a girlfriend, that will be very hard to do unless you lower your standards, as there are so many guys better than you in every aspect. And even if you are a 8/10 and above dude, it still might be of an issue as many get taken very quickly.

-Sports initiations & other dares, some of those are truly sickening, while others look completely absurd. I personally witnessed 2 rugby players wrestling naked while the crowd was cheering them up and other really cringy things.

-Dangerous town, although the University won't admit but stabbings and other incidents are quite frequent. In June 2019, there has been at least 1 stabbing, another person got slashed on the back of the head and a student overdosed on some low quality drugs.

No. In your example, how can Uni B be giving an even better experience if the student satisfaction is lower? If a student doesn't like being where they are, how can the experience for them be classed as better?! How can a student perform better if their satisfaction is lower? 3+ years of hating somewhere is not going to be a better experience regardless of every criteria you prefer to use for rankings.

You just need to visit open days and not go for the uni that on paper that seems to be of high satisfaction cos that may not be the case for you.

Oh, I can agree with this. Definitely. I'm an advocate for going to see places before considering to apply to go and study there. Clearly the person typing about Loughborough didn't visit there and now appears to think it's someone else's fault it's not what they expected.