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Applying for highly competitive courses
Whether you are brand new to the university application process, or have been working in the education sector for as long as I have, you’ll undoubtedly have heard teachers, advisers and university staff talking about “highly competitive courses”.
It’s a term bandied about with little thought. On one hand teachers use it to make sure students take their applications seriously, and don’t make assumptions about their chances of getting into university. On the other, it is used by universities to make their courses seem more attractive; the more unattainable a course is, the more people want to get into it!
So, as students, applying through UCAS for the first time, how do you know which courses are genuinely “highly competitive”, and if they are, do you really need to do anything different with your application?
We need to talk about The Russell Group
Have you heard of the Russell Group? If you’re just at the start of your decision-making journey, you might not have. But rest assured, as you start to investigate your university options, it’s going to crop up!
The Russell Group, you see, is a group of 24 universities regarded by many as being the top universities; the most prestigious universities; the universities that the best students should be applying to.
They formed in 1994 as a group of 17 research intensive universities after a handful of informal meetings at the Russell Hotel in Russell Square*. They now have a membership of 24, including Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, Manchester, Southampton and Liverpool, amongst others.
When is a top university not a top university?
Back in the spring, I used to keep seeing an advert on Facebook suggesting I should study for a British Masters degree at the “9th Best University in the UK”. The university in question was Liverpool John Moores University.
Now, I mean no disrespect to Liverpool John Moores, but it is not a university that has troubled the top 10 in any of the major league tables, so I was naturally curious about this claim to be ninth best? By what measure were they making this claim?
Well, the small print on the advert gave the source…