25 March, 2009

BVC provider query

I have just been asked the following by a friend, and would be interested in your opinions:

He has applied for the BVC and has offers from MMU, UWE and City.

He did his undergraduate at MMU.

He cannot decide between MMU and City. The course fees for MMU are c£9,500 and the course fees for City are £14,500. He has applied for an Inns scholarship but does not know if he will get it. He has to make his choice on BVC provider before he will know this information.

I told him that knowing what I do now, I would probably still choose MMU as it looks after its students more (for all its flaws). OTOH, City has a higher pass rate (though having seen a sample exam and heard about the teaching, I think it may be due to different exames) and he wants to avoid being 'just' MMU all the time.

Your views? City or MMU?

7 comments:

Android said...

MMU! Smaller teaching groups, lower course fees, cheaper accomodaton... It's perfect :D

Pupilpedia said...

City are supposed to be rubbish anyway. He really should have applied to the College of Knowledge. But having spent some time in both a small and a large instituition, I would adivse the smaller. Although MMU does NOT (sorry MMM) have a good reputation! Nobody got an Outstanding there a couple of years ago I think, how many last year? So perhaps UWE, which is still small but is of better quality. Seems the most sensible choice to me.

--- said...

I agree with your comments about pass rate (but would probably support all the providers having to examine in the same way and to the same standard) - I believe that last year 2 people got outstandings and 45% failed at least one module on the first sitting. The vast majority of those fails were in drafting (which was a hellish exam, to be fair). That said, it was nice to have 2 hours of advocacy each week in classes of 6 people and then to have further advocacy classes in the evening as well.

I get the impression that whilst the teaching is crap at City (because they've been able to use the ICSL label for so long), they will still be able to exploit the old connection for a while so they have an (undeservedly) better reputation.

TBH,if BPP Manchester had offered the BVC, I would have very happily stayed there as I was very happy with them for the GDL. CoL I haven't been taught by but I didn't click with them on the open day to the same degree as BPP - horses for courses, though.

Aspiring Rainmaker said...

I think most providers are much of a much. Saying that, some do it slightly better than others. All providers will have their faults and the occasional weak tutor!

I would go for MMU. Cheaper than living in London. I only applied for the BVC in clearing and UWE accepted me within a few hours. This made me wonder who else they had accepted on the course if it was that easy! On the flip side, they may have a really good admin team! :-)

The 50-Year-Old Pupil said...

MMU got me a pupillage at a leading London common law set. The quality of the programme left me in a good position to hit the gound running in pupillage where I do know that some people from other providers have needed a lot of rework.

Yes, the assessments are tougher at MMU than places where they hand out Outstandings like sweeties but it is inexpensive and you get a further discount if you were an MMU undergrad/ GDL student. Living in M/cr is inexpensive. It's a great city and you can be in London in under 2 hours on the spectacularly smooth pendolino. A treat in itself. I travelled from London to Hull recently and had forgotten how bunpy high-speed trains used to be.

No-brainer in my view.

--- said...

I used to live very close to Piccadilly station and for dining, used to be able to rely on being able to get from the front door of my house to the door of Middle Temple in under 2h45m.... Good system!

barboy said...

At the beginning of the BVC, Inner did an advocacy session for the newbies. It was around 2 weeks into the season and the students from the different providers were mixed up in groups.

If the students are representaive of their respective institutions, then MMU and Nottingham are streets ahead of the other providers.