Prospectuses
Accurate: ***
Comparative:
Comprehensive:
Detailed: **
Independent:
Understanding:
Problems: Universities’ prospectuses are sales documents, produced by the universities themselves and they should be taken with the best part of a Siberian salt mine.
The photos tend to be taken early on sunny Sunday mornings when there are no students cluttering up the place and they’ll try to crop out the chemical works in the background.
They provide almost no comparisons with anywhere else and, apart from spouting the same PR puff as every other prospectus, they don’t go into much detail about student life beyond the courses.
What they’re good for: The parts that aren’t busy selling tend to be the most accurate source of information about the university in question.
This means that prospectuses are the best resource for finding out exactly what courses are available, what each course will actually cover, how it will be taught and assessed and what you’ll have to do to get in.
Verdict: For course info and cold hard facts, prospectuses are a must. For all else, extreme scepticism is advised.
Last updated on: 21 May 2008