Bristol is the most popular multi-faculty university in Britain, judged in terms of applications per place – 14 hopefuls vie for every degree slot.

It has long been a natural alternative to Oxbridge, favoured particularly by independent schools, whose pupils take more than a third of the places.

In order to broaden the intake, departments are encouraged to make slightly lower offers to the most promising applicants from schools and colleges with poor records at A level.

Applications were down at the start of 2009, when most universities registered healthy increases, but competition remained intense.

Multimedia

• The Times University Guide table

Related Links

• University of Bristol

• A student's guide to...University of Bristol

• The University of Bath

Access and academia

The university’s academic credentials are not in doubt – it broke into the top 40 in The Times Higher Education/QS world rankings for 2008. But it has found it difficult to attract working-class teenagers, who fear that they would be out of place socially, if not academically. In 2006–07 only about one in seven came from a working-class home – the lowest proportion outside Oxbridge. Tiny numbers are recruited from the schools in the bottom half of the A-level league tables and few come from Scotland or the north of England, but £1 million a year is being spent on efforts to recruit more widely.

Overall entry standards remain among the highest at any university. A modular course system is now well established, although the majority of students still take single or dual honours degrees. Bristol has no intention of aping the growth plans of some of its rivals, but there has been modest expansion to 12,000 full-time undergraduates and the university has continued to live up to expectations in assessments of teaching and research. Almost two-thirds of the work submitted for the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise was rated in the top two categories, with epidemiology and public health, health services research, chemistry, mathematics, drama, mechanical engineering and economics producing the best results.

There are 31 Fellows of the Royal Society and similar numbers in other learned societies.

Development

Bristol was given the best rating among the small group of universities seeking to demonstrate their creditworthiness to the money markets. The university celebrated its centenary in 2009 and launched a new fundraising campaign a target of £100 million by 2014. The previous campaign helped the university to create new chairs and embark on a number of building projects. The highly rated chemistry department, for example, moved into a well-appointed new centre in 2000, allowing new medical science laboratories to be constructed in the department’s former premises. Both chemistry and medical sciences now have national teaching and learning centres, and the university has also been chosen to host four centres to train doctoral scientists and engineers.

An impressive sports centre at the heart of the university precinct opened in 2004 and there are plans for a new boathouse and a health and fitness centre. Neurology and dynamics engineering opened new buildings in 2004 and a new students’ union is among the projects included in investment plans totalling £300 million over the next six years. Life sciences, nanoscience, physics and mathematics are all scheduled to benefit from well-equipped new buildings between 2007 and 2010. The £11-million Centre for Nanoscience and Quantum Information, which opened in 2008, contains some of the “quietest” labs in the world, with extremely low levels of vibrational and acoustic noise and tight controls on temperature and air movement. The first stage of a programme of refurbishment for the university’s library facilities was completed in 2009.

Location

The city is one of the most attractive in Britain, as well as possessing a vibrant youth culture. An academic think tank named it European city of the year in 2009. It is also relatively prosperous, offering job opportunities to students and graduates alike. The university merges into the centre, its famous Gothic tower dominating the skyline from the junction of two of the main shopping streets. Departments dot the hillside close to the picturesque harbour area.

The current students’ union is less of a social centre than in some universities, partly because of the intense competition from nightclubs. Most students enjoy life in Bristol – a New Musical Express poll rated the social life the best at any university in 2004 – although some find the high cost of living a serious drawback, while parts of the city suffer from the same security concerns as any big urban conurbation. The dropout rate is among the lowest in Britain.

Times recommends

• Students face big rise in university fees
• Students to rate lecturers online
• Lord heads team to look at raising tuition fees