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Exeter or Southampton for Law

Greetings,

As the title suggest I am currently deciding between Exeter and Southampton to study Law. I already hold unconditional offers from both universities.

To my understanding, Exeter is better ranked for Law and highly regarded, however my main issue with Exeter is the distance (I live in London) and the class divide (I'm a poc from a rather poor background). I have not seen too much about Southamptons diversity or student life, but the main benefits is the facts that it's closer, and I assume the area is quite diverse compared to Exeter. I have visited the campus and city of Exeter, and I also immediately felt out of place and I didn't quite enjoy the city. I plan to visit Southampton soon.

Any advice would be appreciated, and insight from anyone attending either universities would be amazing. Thanks!
Original post by Sumraketti
Greetings,
As the title suggest I am currently deciding between Exeter and Southampton to study Law. I already hold unconditional offers from both universities.
To my understanding, Exeter is better ranked for Law and highly regarded, however my main issue with Exeter is the distance (I live in London) and the class divide (I'm a poc from a rather poor background). I have not seen too much about Southamptons diversity or student life, but the main benefits is the facts that it's closer, and I assume the area is quite diverse compared to Exeter. I have visited the campus and city of Exeter, and I also immediately felt out of place and I didn't quite enjoy the city. I plan to visit Southampton soon.
Any advice would be appreciated, and insight from anyone attending either universities would be amazing. Thanks!

According to the Complete University Guide league tables for law, Exeter is ranked 20th and Southampton is ranked 21st. This is not a huge difference, so as a law student, I wouldn’t worry too much about future prospects. I’ll be honest, all the POC creators I’ve ever watched who have gone to Exeter always say to avoid it. I too can understand feeling out of place, and it is highly likely that that feeling will continue if you choose to study there. Exeter is still quite well known for its lack of diversity, so this is something to consider. There is nowhere that is as diverse as London, but it tends to be bigger cities such as Manchester and Birmingham that offer more diversity. I don’t know too much about Southampton, but I do distantly know someone who went there for graduate entry medicine. He is a POC and seemed to enjoy it, but again, it’s not the most diverse place in the world. I would say that diversity there might be slightly better than Exeter. I do know that the nightlife in Southampton is slower and a lot of places close down early, so if nightlife is also a big factor in your decision, this may be something to consider. If you didn’t enjoy Exeter, that’s probably a sign not to go there. You won’t perform well studying somewhere that makes you unhappy. The only other advice I can give you is to visit Southampton, which you are already planning to do.

Good luck to you!

Reply 2

Original post by bibachu
According to the Complete University Guide league tables for law, Exeter is ranked 20th and Southampton is ranked 21st. This is not a huge difference, so as a law student, I wouldn’t worry too much about future prospects. I’ll be honest, all the POC creators I’ve ever watched who have gone to Exeter always say to avoid it. I too can understand feeling out of place, and it is highly likely that that feeling will continue if you choose to study there. Exeter is still quite well known for its lack of diversity, so this is something to consider. There is nowhere that is as diverse as London, but it tends to be bigger cities such as Manchester and Birmingham that offer more diversity. I don’t know too much about Southampton, but I do distantly know someone who went there for graduate entry medicine. He is a POC and seemed to enjoy it, but again, it’s not the most diverse place in the world. I would say that diversity there might be slightly better than Exeter. I do know that the nightlife in Southampton is slower and a lot of places close down early, so if nightlife is also a big factor in your decision, this may be something to consider. If you didn’t enjoy Exeter, that’s probably a sign not to go there. You won’t perform well studying somewhere that makes you unhappy. The only other advice I can give you is to visit Southampton, which you are already planning to do.
Good luck to you!

Thank you so much.

However I do have another concern that I forgot to mention, and that is the lack of flexibility with Southamptons Law course. One of the main benefits of Exeter is that it offers both a year abroad or a year in industy, and this is an experience I value having, on the contrary Southampton does not offer anything of the sort (as far as I can see). Do you (or anyone else seeing this thread) think it's worth reapply to universities such as Birmingham, or do you reckon its not that important and I could manage with being at Exeter.

Thanks again!
Original post by Sumraketti
Thank you so much.
However I do have another concern that I forgot to mention, and that is the lack of flexibility with Southamptons Law course. One of the main benefits of Exeter is that it offers both a year abroad or a year in industy, and this is an experience I value having, on the contrary Southampton does not offer anything of the sort (as far as I can see). Do you (or anyone else seeing this thread) think it's worth reapply to universities such as Birmingham, or do you reckon its not that important and I could manage with being at Exeter.
Thanks again!

I would say that if flexibility is another big concern, it may be worth reapplying to universities that offer both more diversity and flexibility. Southampton does offer a year abroad in law, however this is a separate course. You may be able to transfer to this course, so I would suggest that you contact the law department directly to find out if and when you would be allowed entry to this course. I’ve linked the course below so you can have a read through the modules and see whether this is something that would suit you.

https://www.southampton.ac.uk/courses/international-legal-studies-degree-llb

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