Bristol has long been a natural alternative to Oxbridge, favoured particularly by independent schools, whose pupils take at least three in ten places.

Departments are encouraged to make slightly lower offers to promising applicants from schools with poor records at A level, and some top schools have blamed the policy for the rejection of highly qualified applicants.

As the most popular university in Britain in terms of applications per place, however, Bristol has always had to turn away excellent candidates.

This strong demand saw a 16 per cent increase in applications by the official deadline for courses beginning in 2007 and a much smaller decline than the national average twelve months later, with the switch from six choices per applicant to five.

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Teaching

The university’s academic credentials are not in doubt – it broke into the top 50 in The Times Higher Education/QS world rankings for 2007. 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 2005–06 only about one in six 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.

A third of the staff assessed for research are in departments considered internationally excellent and three quarters saw their departments reach one of the top two grades. There are 31 Fellows of the Royal Society and similar numbers in other learned societies. Research is Bristol’s traditional strength. The 2001 assessments saw the university’s tally of 5* subjects shoot up from one to 15, with another 21 subjects on the next of the seven grades. Only Cambridge, Oxford and University College London had more maximum scores.

The 33 excellent teaching ratings also represent one of the largest totals in the university system, with veterinary medicine, anatomy, molecular biosciences, electronic engineering and, most recently, education all achieving perfect scores. Bristol was given the best rating among the small group of universities seeking to demonstrate their creditworthiness to the money markets.

Development

A funding appeal which has raised more than £100 million has 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.

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 wellequipped 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.

Student scene

The city is one of the most attractive in Britain, as well as possessing a vibrant youth culture. It is also 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.

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