Bath vs Durham vs Exeter Bio BSc offers

Struggling to choose between
Firm:
- Durham AAA conditional Biosciences with year abroad or work placement
- Bath AAA conditional Natural Sciences with year abroad or work placement
Insurance:
- Bath ABB conditional Biochemistry with work placement
- Exeter ABB conditional Biomedical science with year abroad or work placement
Wondering which degree is stronger and how the science facilities and teaching compares? Also who may have better study abroad or industry connections.

Struggling to choose between
Firm:
- Durham AAA conditional Biosciences with year abroad or work placement
- Bath AAA conditional Natural Sciences with year abroad or work placement
Insurance:
- Bath ABB conditional Biochemistry with work placement
- Exeter ABB conditional Biomedical science with year abroad or work placement
Wondering which degree is stronger and how the science facilities and teaching compares? Also who may have better study abroad or industry connections.

Firm: Durham
Insure: Bath Biochem

Thank you. My daughter does not have any career focus yet but enjoys chemistry and is interested in human biology and disease. Wanted to do Dentistry at one point but got 2580 on UCAT so applied for the others in the end.

Seems Biomedical Sciences better suit her interests.

Struggling to choose between
Firm:
- Durham AAA conditional Biosciences with year abroad or work placement
- Bath AAA conditional Natural Sciences with year abroad or work placement
Insurance:
- Bath ABB conditional Biochemistry with work placement
- Exeter ABB conditional Biomedical science with year abroad or work placement
Wondering which degree is stronger and how the science facilities and teaching compares? Also who may have better study abroad or industry connections.

Hi ParentVisitor,
Congratulations on your daughter's offers. I'm a current PhD student in evolutionary biology at the University of Exeter, and might be able to offer some help for how to pick the course.
As mentioned by others in this thread, these courses can be quite different. Biology is a notoriously diverse and wide-ranging subject, from the study of biochemistry and subcellular mechanisms to landscape-scale ecology. I'd encourage your daughter to reflect on which parts of biology she finds most interesting, and which she is also likely to do the best in and most enjoy a future career working in.
As all of the universities you have mentioned are research intensive universities, it means that the academics who teach on each course will also more than likely be active researchers themselves, winning grants, publishing papers and leading teams of postdocs and PhD students. I'd do some reading on the research interests of the faculty at each of these universities, for example here for Exeter, and see which best aligns with the interests of your daughter. What each university researches will directly inform what they teach, and the modules that make up each course - for example as listed here for Biomedical Sciences at Exeter. For this reason, even similarly titled biological science degrees can actually look quite different across different institutions.
I also did a year abroad in the USA as part of my own undergrad degree, and the partner destinations available at each university will be different. For example, at Exeter you can find a list for bioscience degrees here. If your daughter really wants to go to Australia for example, it's worth checking to see that it's an option at that specific institution and course combination. Do note that these lists can change year on year, for example my study abroad university (UT Austin) was only added as a partner in my second year of my degree, so wasn't advertised at the time I was making my UCAS choices.
Finally, also consider the city and student lifestyle and how that might differ between your choices. Is it important to be close to home to travel back at the weekend, would you rather live in the North-East or South-West, do you have any hobbies or interests that would lend itself more to being in one location to another, how important is university sport or other extra-curricular opportunities that might vary from institution to institution?
I hope that's helpful, but please don't hesitate to get in touch if you have further questions.
Kingsley
University of Exeter Student Ambassador

I'm in y12 and by no means an expert but I'm broadly interested in similar things and from what I've read/heard, Bath and Durham are pretty similar in terms of ranking with Exeter not far behind. Traditionally Durham seems to be viewed as the most prestigious but I don't know if employers still hold that view. I do know it has slightly higher entry requirements in general than the other 2 suggesting perhaps harder degrees on average. Even though Natsci has the same entry requirements, the individual courses for the streams of the Natsci programme at Bath have lower entry requirements than Durham single science degrees suggesting content is slightly easier at Bath, though perhaps Durham are just pickier with applicants. Bath Natsci would allow the combination of Chem and Bio, but the choice in modules and the opportunity for specialism would be limited. Ultimately look at the courses and decide which facilitate further leaning into interests as the quality of uni is broadly similar.
PS. The stereotype of Durham and Exeter is upper class kids with very few people of minority backgrounds. Not sure of the truth in these stereotypes or how you might factor them into decision making but might be worth considering.

I'm in y12 and by no means an expert but I'm broadly interested in similar things and from what I've read/heard, Bath and Durham are pretty similar in terms of ranking with Exeter not far behind. Traditionally Durham seems to be viewed as the most prestigious but I don't know if employers still hold that view. I do know it has slightly higher entry requirements in general than the other 2 suggesting perhaps harder degrees on average. Even though Natsci has the same entry requirements, the individual courses for the streams of the Natsci programme at Bath have lower entry requirements than Durham single science degrees suggesting content is slightly easier at Bath, though perhaps Durham are just pickier with applicants. Bath Natsci would allow the combination of Chem and Bio, but the choice in modules and the opportunity for specialism would be limited. Ultimately look at the courses and decide which facilitate further leaning into interests as the quality of uni is broadly similar.
PS. The stereotype of Durham and Exeter is upper class kids with very few people of minority backgrounds. Not sure of the truth in these stereotypes or how you might factor them into decision making but might be worth considering.

Hi Camer0nR,
Great to hear about your interest in studying natural sciences too, and best of luck with your exams this year and next.
I just wanted to address your final point about stereotypes at different universities. I'm from a state school educated background and study at the University of Exeter, and wouldn't class myself as part of the posh stereotype you describe. The Times University Guide provide annual data on social inclusion scores of different universities, which you can publicly access and sort through here. For example, at the University of Exeter around ~30% of students come from independent school, so a majority (including myself) don't fit the stereotype of being upper class / posh / etc.
I hope that's helpful, and I'd definitely encourage you to visit the universities you're interested in and meet the types of students they attract at any open days should you have the opportunity to attend any.
Kingsley
University of Exeter Student Ambassador

That's really useful, thanks for that. I'll bear that in mind when thinking about other unis as well as it's good to know that the loudest voices on the internet discussing unis are not likely to always be the correct ones.