Uni choice for physics/astronomy

I've received offers from university of edinburgh, university of manchester, and university college london for their undergrad masters physics programs. only problem is i have no idea which to make my firm choice. I visited edinburgh for their open day and while the city was great, the presentation at the uni was really ineffective and im not sure i liked the facilities at all. Im currently leaning towards manchester or london, but comparing the 3 on comparison sites feels basically useless and theyre practically all close together or seem to arbritarily drop 10 places based on how one ranking feels. technically manchester ranks consistently highest (by like half a placement), but UCL takes the highest position most often. ive tried to base it off the facilities and courses offered, but all seem basically identical. research output? basically identical. manchester is a bit cheaper, london is more attractive as a city, but none of the factors ive looked into are convincing enough to me. it all adds up to basically no advantage. does anyone have advice on how to decide, or experience at any of these unis and would be able to share it? i feel like my best option atm is bashing my head against a brick wall and hoping for a clue

Reply 1

yra.70

manchester technically has slightly better research quality than the other two (there's a research quality index that ranks unis based on this but i've forgotten what it's called). in terms of reputation, i think internationally UCL has more brand value on account of being a london uni, but there's not much between them.

Reply 2

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

UCL isn't especially well known for physics outside of planetary science areas, compared to Manchester.

That said fundamentally most of the content you cover in an undergrad physics course is going to be broadly the same in terms of syllabus anyway.