Meet the Russell Group

On Wednesday, Lower Sixth were given the opportunity to attend the ‘Meet the Russell Group’, a virtual event which consisted of various webinars, virtual tours, and chances to speak to university ambassadors. All the resources were recorded and are still available for anyone who missed out.

The virtual tours enabled us to view all the facilities and accommodation at each university with great ease. I found this resource the most useful as we aren’t physically able to visit the universities.

The webinars and ‘Q&A’ sessions were very informative, addressing almost everything you need to know about applying and attending a Russell Group University. Possibly the most reassuring aspect of the day was that it mirrored the advice we had already been provided with in our Pathways and Tutorial sessions at school. It was a nice feeling, particularly in the current uncertainty, that we were ahead of the game with university research and application preparation.

Personally, one of my favourite aspects of the day was the layout of the web page in a virtual conference hall. It made the experience feel as close to real life as possible, even having some virtual people on the screen in the main hall and doors leading to the different rooms. Maybe I was more excited about that than most as a Computer Science student so that’s enough about the website’s design!

I think it was extremely efficient that all the universities had their own stands with all the information anyone would need. This saves having to attend individual university events or scrolling through different menus on many sites as there are 24 Russell group universities. Not only this, but there were live chats and Q&As where student ambassadors were able to answer any queries you may have about that university. I found looking at the answers to not just mine, but other people’s questions helpful as they answered questions that I didn’t even know I had!

There were short 30-minute seminars each on different topics. I attended the ‘writing a competitive application’, ‘applying to Oxbridge’, and ‘applying to a Russell group university for year 12’ seminars. These were really helpful, short, to the point and packed with extremely useful information. What I found most interesting was that the seminars were delivered by experts who were actually part of the admissions process themselves. This allowed for top ‘inside’ tips. I asked other students who attended what their favourite part of the event was and many said that they learnt a lot about personal statements. However, a lot of the tips were not new to me as I had already heard them at school. Particularly their emphasis on super-curricular which I have already been preparing as per my teachers’ advice.

Overall, I feel we benefited from this insight day and would recommend to younger years to attend in the future.

Alisha A and Bushra C

Lower Sixth