I went to Nottingham and it is a brilliant university for the following reasons.
1) the city is cheap in terms of general living costs
2) the campus is beautiful; loads of green space and even a massive lake to walk around
3) the sports facilities are amazing; swimming pool, giant climbing wall, martial arts dojo, sports halls, massive gym, spa, physio, snooker tables, squash courts ect are all contained within one building and the membership is pretty cheap too!
3) tonnes of society and sports clubs to get involved in.
4) loads of great study spaces; there’s three libraries and then there’s a new massive giant study space that only opened in 2018 that is just full of nice open spaces to study and individual study rooms to book. Having somewhere nice to study is really important especially in 2nd/3rd year!
5) general campus facilities are also like nothing I’ve seen at another uni; tonnes of places to get food, coffee ect, boots, spa shop all on campus.
6) the nightlife is really decent, and value for money. The main student nights are Monday’s, Wednesdays and Fridays with different clubs offering something every night pretty much. There’s also loads of pubs, and cool bars to go to if clubbing isn’t your thing. Most people don’t know these exist in the city centre so it’s worth exploring yourself, as some places I had never visited until I had graduated and was still living in the city
7) availability of work; Nottingham is a big place and there’s a lot of jobs available both on campus and outside of campus. Personally I was able to get work in the campus working as a barista and I also did catering work. There’s also other roles available like working at open days, working at local schools ect.
Overall I think if you go to Nottingham you get everything you want whether you want a good sports uni, great facilities for studying, or a solid nightlife. All those boxes are ticked.