University of Sussex — Attraction in Great Britain

I applied for the course of biomedical science with foundation year on clearing several years ago. They rejected me because I had not studied biology and chemistry during the final school year. This university, like all British universities, is a private institution. For this reason, students are charged £9,250 per year. Private universities accept all students to make money regardless the subjects they study and/or their grades. I cannot believe the decided to lose £37,000. Nobody refuses money in this world. If I had gone to a private university in Europe, they would have accepted me. If this university had been public, it would have lost nothing by rejecting me. Public universities do not care if they lose students as they are owned and funded by Governments, not by students. The government is very generous because it pays for students’ university fees.

I have now biology and chemistry A-Levels. I can apply to study biomedical science at this university. Although I studied hard and did excellent exams twice, I was awarded Us in Biology and Chemistry. I was awarded Us because I did not pay bribe to exam boards. Exam boards use the word “review” to hide the fact that they request bribe to award students their grades. The more money they receive, the better students' grades will be. Exam boards sell grades because they are private commercial companies (Limited). My internet provider is a Limited company. I give them money and, in return, they provide me with access to the internet. Colleges are also private companies. Education in the UK is just a business. Grades are, therefore, based on money; not on students’ mental skills and knowledge. In Europe, sixth form colleges are government owned institutions and award grades. For this reason, there are no exam boars and no expensive exam fees to pay. Meritocracy is in public institutions only.

People consider Eastern European countries i.e. Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Russia etc. bad and underdeveloped places. In these nations, sixth form colleges and universities are government owned institutions. As a result, they are public institutions. They are free of charge for indigenous students only. They request money from foreign students only because their national currencies (Polish Zloty, Romanian Leu, Bulgarian Lev, Russian Ruble etc.) are weak compared to the British Pound, Euro and US Dollar. Polish, Bulgarian and Romanian medical schools accept British students although they obtain Us at A Level. They do so to make money.

Meanwhile, British universities refuse students obtaining Us. I cannot believe that in the UK, a developed nation, FE is monopolized by private institutions. Exam boards are a legalized form of corruption. I can easily study biomedical science and succeed at undergraduate level despite exam boards’ false judgement about me. I am also capable of studying and succeeding at medical school. Unfortunately, universities consider exam boards’ judgement about students a dogma and they do not take into account students’ skills and knowledge when making them offers. The most important things to succeed at university are mental skills and knowledge, not letters printed on a piece of paper by private commercial companies.

Bad students, having money, buy grades but they do not have the skills required to succeed at university. Meanwhile, good students, having no money, are rejected. This is extremely unfair. Universities should accept everyone in order to make money and fill places in science courses. They have empty places every year. Universities complain about empty places but they reject good students. This is a paradox. Maybe I am not suitable to study in the UK because I am a studious person. Meanwhile, British Education is just a business. This is the first time in my life that I am requested money to be...

Soon after I started at the university COVID hit. We were left in the dark about our accommodation and if we would be returning to our halls - we weren't. The second year was okay - some fieldtrips were cancelled due to COVID which wasn't the university's fault, but their making up for this was poor. The third year was relatively normal but we still had some online and/or recorded lectures which showed minimum effort from various teaching staff. When finishing in May 2023, a marking boycott was underway at many UK universities. This was due to teaching staff striking for better pay and conditions. I understand their reasons, but the university has not done a single thing to support us students. Our last assessment went unmarked for a month or two and we were told that we may graduate without Honours. The work was later marked, probably by people who have never critically marked university-level work before, so many people received anomalously low grades and were of course unhappy. Despite actually having a grade, we are still of the belief that we won't be graduating with Honours. The university has been most unhelpful in answering our concerns or informing us of their plans to sort out this mess. Plus, we will be 'graduating' with a temporary certificate which makes the entire graduation ceremony pointless. Luckily for the university, they can profit further off us regardless of our disappointment - since many people (including myself) want to have a graduation and feel like we've had a good university experience, it is still going ahead, but of course guest tickets and gown hire are expensive. This was initially understandable as the university would have to pay for the facility to host the ceremony, but the amount of students and their families being in Brighton around the ceremonies will undoubtedly bring lots of sponsors for the university. The least they could do is provide free guest tickets.

Overall, the university campus is nice, as any campus would be, as are the majority of staff. Many teaching staff have been great and I appreciate them, contrary to many others often providing harsh marking and/or negligible useful feedback on assessments, while providing minimum effort and support.

The people who run this university are money-hungry, lazy and unsympathetic. Please don't go...

The English department at this university takes in MA applicants with zero background in cultural theory, philosophy, politics. I had no idea what the material we were assigned to read meant as it was all gibberish to me having never studied theory, postmodernism and such. In the application form for the MA course I was not asked to send in any papers unlike King's college where for the same course you have to submit a written paper to illustrate your knowledge; I was just accepted for the Sussex course the next day without them requiring any information of my previous knowledge in the area of cultural theory or philosophy. During the course the books and essays we were given to read and discuss in the class were obscure and unfathomable to me as they were to others who had not studied this before. Heavy on pure theory and no breaking it down or explaining it in a clear way. It is like admitting someone to medical school when they don't know the first thing about medicine. Nothing was broken down and explained as the tutor just quoted bits from the text and expected everyone to have that level of knowledge already and when some of us asked basic questions his answers were quotes from the text as if we were all PhD students. Clearly this is a waste of time to admit those without previous education and knowledge of this subject matter but it seems Sussex University is only operating like a money making company and doesn't care about...