My daughter is currently in her final year of a levels and has to submit details of the universities she is considering. One of these is Queen Mary’s in London. My brother was at university in central London 20 years ago but things change in that time. She would stay on the campus but is interested to know about the area. I only visit London with work a couple of times a year and don’t really know the area (i live up north) so anybody able to fill in some blanks for a confused young girl (and clueless dad)?

google produced this null

I think London is tough for students as its much more expensive. My you gest is in Greenwhich and her accomodation is newrly triple what the others paid in Leeds. Ok if you fund it as parents of course. Also I dont think zlondon has a student feel like other Uni towns, delend ls co thats important or not

If she’s not done already, point her at Studentroom, it’s a great resource for this sort of thing (generally ignore the paid spam if they have a nominated representative, and just listen to the students)

I don’t know anything about the uni, they’re not a rival… Bruce Dickinson studied there, pretty high recommendation that. UG has them scoring well in student satisfaction but underachieving a bit on career prospects. Though that could just be their course mix, there’s a fair amount of humanities etc.

I went to LSE……whilst it was a superb experience, i agree that London doesn’t necessarily have that Uni vibe that some may be looking for. I always liked Exeter Uni and Manchester Uni (home town!).

Not sure whether that helps or not?!?

She has some real issues with affordability, she isnt really entitled to very much in the way of grants about £2k a year judging by her current figures. I’ve told her to forget about the student loan for course as its really not worth worrying about.
She is looking to take geography,a BA ( this all means nothing to me as I left school with an o’level in history) my brother was at SEESS in Russell Square so it didnt really have the uni vibe more the middle of London vibe.

I want her to go away to study and not feel she has to stay at home to reduce her costs or debt, she has a PT job now and enjoys the independence that gives her, don’t think she wants to give that up for a life of debt as thats all she hears everytime somebody on tv talks about student life.
She spends a lot of time looking at the students reviews of places and social networking now gives a lot of immediate access to people at certain uni’s for feedback.
As usual I just search on here for the answers and tell her I’ve got the best brains working on a solution! Cheers all.

London wouldn’t be my first choice of a city to go to uni in. Unless I was very, very rich.
Money goes a lot further in other towns.

I’m 2nd year university now and have had pretty mixed feelings about it all, I’m not in London though however as other have said it doesn’t have a very university feel to it. If she has any questions she wants answers to or things to consider feel free to send me an email (address in profile) and I’ll help where I can. I’d also tell her not to worry too much about the little money she’ll save living at home, it’s small in the grand scheme of things and living on campus can make or break uni. As I said feel free to send an email if needed.

What uselesshippy said. I’d advise strongly against it tbh.

I studied there myself when London was more affordable 20-odd years ago, but even though I got to go to amazing nightclubs three times a week, it wasn’t really the same uni experience friends had in the provinces.

It’s just hideously expensive there now, even if you have a job!

And the north has plenty of good universities in lively cities that will be closer to home (but not too close obvs).

It’s great for students to get their independence at that age, but it can be a bit of a shock to the system and it can be comforting to pop home if you need to.

I’d recommend doing undergrad somewhere else smaller and cheaper then if she wants to live in London afterwards get a job there and have a little money. Londen can rob you of money as you end up with a twisted view of what is a reasonable price on everything. You can also end up living a long way from uni.

We are at the stage where she has to give herself a fallback uni if she doesnt get the marks she is hoping for and the best of the bunch in this position is QMU in London, hopefully all will go well and she will get her first choice at Glasgow or Sheffield, she seems impressed with QMU but the cost has really got her thinking. Lancaster and Nottingham are the other choices on her list. I think she wants to get all of this submitted next week and so far the limit off my help has been to tell her what the pubs are like in various towns and cities and what the local cycling is like, oh and the state of the holiday inn or premier inn that i’ve stopped at whilst working there. All of this is completley irrelevant to her at this momnet in time but its what I know! 😳

QMUL is a decent university. It’s also popular meaning it may not be a great choice for a fallback uni. I didn’t study geography, but is London the best place to go to in order to study a subject like that?

What is your concern? The area she will be living in? If it’s close to Whitechapel then it’s not great. The missus used to live there and I used to work in Greenwich. Round that way is a bit of a dump. You can build as many identikit £500,000 shoeboxes round Canary Wharf as you want but it will still feel like a soulless prison.

However, things may have changed now.

Personally, I feel like London is a slick operation designed to extract the maximum amount of money from you. I’d look somewhere else.

Also, the missus loved her time in London. But a pretty young girl can get in a lot of trouble in a big city anywhere in the world 🙂

London is awesome! But it isn’t really a student city. It’s too big to really feel like a city with a major student population. My friends said that it was all too easy to miss the student only nightclubs and pubs and end up spending your months money on the door entrance to a big club. The rent is horrific.

If money is a factor then I suggest she does consider fees. Geography students probably won’t be earning mega bucks when they graduate. Therefore a huge student loan is likely to be a headache later, especially as they now consider it when you apply for a mortgage.
If it’s the student experience she is after there are better places to go IMO. I would suggest consider the quality of the degree, but also consider how good the student union venue is and what are the local student nightclubs like. Sounds a bit silly maybe, but a fair chunk of money is likely to go on socialising and discovering who she is.

Why not go to university in a different country? Seems like the perfect time to do it with uni fees being massive in the UK.

i would be also be careful of London and the costs, things do get expensive quickly here. But i’ve had friends who raved about going to uni here and my wife did her masters here, although she did live with here parents and had worked the year before to pay for it.
<bais view>Sheffield is a good choice, it’s where wife did here geography undergrad, it had very good reviews in 2000 and although i was at hallam i will say it’s a great city to live in.</bias view>

UCL here, although it was living in London and going to college vibe, which ultimately didn’t suit me.

send her up to Manchester!!
so long as she meets the entry requirements then she stands a good chance of getting into one of the top UK universities. the cost of living here is much cheaper and the student community is really good.
we also have various scholarships and bursaries available for students which can help reduce their study costs

I remember visiting mates in Nottingham and thinking they had it pretty good.

London is the place for things to do but at a price. I went to Uni there many moons ago in the days of no fees, full grants, rent paid in holidays, cheap council flats/squats etc. Those days are gone sadly. One of my kids is there now having a great time on a good course but the rent is astronomical, that with fees is a huge burden despite him working part-time and us subbing him. I feel sorry for young people today being in this situation. I agree with the points about London colleges being spread out and not a studenty vibe, other places are much better from this perspective and cheaper to live. Had great memories of visiting mates at Brighton, Bristol, Manchester, Newcastle etc

Leeds is a great city to be a student in, I did my UG (a long time ago and more recently my PG) – if your daughter wants a city rather than campus based experience. Although Leeds Uni is a good mix of both tbh. I friends who went to Sheff, Newcastle, Manchester, Liverpool had similar good experiences

London – I can see the attraction best of gigs, clubs, culture etc – but v expensive and how much more would a student get out of it than Manchester?

We are in the same position as the OP. Despite spending seven years at University in London, I am not recommending it to Teen1. Provincial cities offer a MUCH higher standard of living. If the right course is in London, then it would not be a barrier – that’s why I studied there, but if there are multiple good course options elsewhere, then knowing what I know now, I’d also choose to go elsewhere. Five of my school friends went to Leicester. Teen1 is applying to Liverpool and Portsmouth. Both are great cities.

If she’s considering Glasgow (which one?) has she checked out scholarships etc? All the scottish unis are keen to sign up rest of uk applicants, so they’re happy to throw cash carrots around beforehand in order to get the tuition fees. It’s kind of an accepted sad truth in the industry that about 50% of people who could be eligible for a bursary or scholarship won’t apply for anything because they just assume they won’t be.

University of Glasgow info http://www.gla.ac.uk/scholarships/ruksupport/

(the downside is if it’s a 4 year course- the tuition fees will be set to not cost more, but the living expenses will be higher)