[walshemj]

I remember my cousin who went to UMIST Top 3 Uk uni) how adjusting to being around lot of students who where far wealthier was quite hard.

I suspect going to Oxford and Bumping into students who are members of the bullingdon club is the same but far more so

[gaius]

UMIST is top 3 in what rankings? It's not even Russell Group!

[laurencerowe]

UMIST was subsumed by the University of Manchester in 2004 which together brought them to a distant 5th in the UK rankings by research income. (Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial and UCL are the only UK institutions that can really claim to be world class, though all those lists tend to be rather anglo-centric.)

Engineering tends to attract a slightly more economically diverse intake than the arts, but UMIST's was still very skewed towards the offspring of the professional middle classes. I'm not surprised to hear that someone who did not share that background might have felt a little socially alienated.

[walshemj]

Actually he was from the well off side of the family - he was talking about wealth beyond upper middle class.

[walshemj]

Top 3 or 4 for Computing back in the 70's when my cousin went well supposedly back then there where only 5 or so Computing Degrees that where considered any good.

Its also based in Manchester and was where Baby was built you know one of the first computers :-)