Teachers
Accurate: *
Comparative:
Comprehensive:
Detailed: *
Independent: **
Understanding: **
Problems: Contrary to popular belief, teachers are human. This means they are fallible.
Therefore, although their advice will be well-intentioned and quite possibly well-informed on their own subject, they are unlikely to know more than two or three universities personally.
Quite unintentionally, they are bound to have their own preferences and prejudices which will be based on where and when they were at university. If that was more than ten years ago, you can forget the star for accuracy.
What they’re good for: Teachers, however, do know you — although maybe not all that well and they may have the wrong idea — and they also want to see you do alright. Therefore they’ll try to help. In particular, they’re good at pointing you in the right direction to make decisions. They know what resources your school or college has and they’ve been through the application process so many times with other students that they’ll have picked up some useful stuff about how and when to do things.
Verdict: Good on the process and where to find stuff out, pretty poor on most other things.
Last updated on: 21 May 2008