I started looking at universities just before the summer, looking first at Brunel, because it sounded like it had an interesting music course. It wasn't too bad, apart from the slightly menacing grey concrete buildings, and I left feeling positive.

Cue Birmingham. I went up there at the end of June, and fell head over heels in love with it. The location, the atmosphere, the course, the fact that they'll provide me with free lessons in two instruments PLUS a third as long as it's an 'early' instrument (lute, here I come! }8D)....everything. The music teacher giving the subject talk was almost bouncing in his enthusiasm for the subject, which was awesome in itself. However....Birmingham is a top-level university, asking for ABB for admission. Not impossible, but tricky, so I have to find myself a decent university asking for maybe BBC or BCC.

Given the sheer number of universities in this country, it shouldn't be too hard...right?

Well, Canterbury Christ Church University, one that my teachers have praised for having a good music course, was such a disappointment I seriously considered complaining. The location was gorgeous, it's very near my grandparents so there would've been a good chance I would've been fed a decent meal at least once a week. The talk on the course, though? The guy giving it made me want to stab him through the eye with his silly little baton. When trying to attract students to your University, please don't show us exactly where the site is where you're going to be building your OMGSOAWESOME8D concert hall, and the specific graves in the churchyard your're going to dig up to do it. I may not be christian, but that's just wrong. Also - please do not be slagging off the second year students on different courses to yours, saying that they get bad results because they're all lazy. It really makes me wonder what the other lecturers are saying about your students.

I went to Southampton this weekend, making my dad drive the three hours (taking a small detail at the Wembley Ikea, of course :3 ) down to the south coast, only to find....a tent in the middle of the lawn. And not much else. All the university staff were rude and dismissive, when we asked where the music lecture was as they hadn't provided a map. Plus the Music Admissions Tutor freely admitting that anyone who had taken grade 8 theory and NOT taken A Level music would be accepted OVER those who had taken the A Level, and got an A grade. Not all that fair, chaps, so sorry, I won't be applying to your 'institution'.

Still. I have three more universities to look at before I have to make my five choices at the end of november. Liverpool, Anglia Ruskin, and Bath Spa. Liverpool and Bath I have high hopes for, but....we shall see.