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University of Reading

NATIONAL
RANK

72.5%

FIRSTS
2:1s

91.4%

COMPLETION
RATE

Key Stats

n/a

TEACHING
QUALITY

30th

STUDENT
EXPERIENCE

27th=

RESEARCH
QUALITY

42nd

GRADUATE
PROSPECTS

Contact details

ADDRESS

Whiteknights,
PO Box 217, Reading, RG6 6AH View on map >

Telephone

0118 378 8618/9

student.recruitment@reading.ac.uk

Website

www.reading.ac.uk

Open days

September 27; October 25

University Profile

Reading is looking east as it continues to expand apace. It has invested more than £400m on its main Thames Valley campus in recent years, and in 2015 it will add another site in Malaysia. Undergraduates have already begun courses in business and English in temporary premises close to the new campus that the university will open at the Iksandar Education City, on the southern tip of Malaysia.

Degrees in law, the built environment, psychology and pharmacy will be added when the University of Reading Malaysia is fully operational. The project will add to the growing complement of international students taking Reading degrees: new international enrolments were up by more than a quarter in 2013.

The university’s courses and research in agriculture and development have long attracted students from around the world. More than a third of the 17,000 students now come from outside the UK, taking the full range of subjects.

Originally Oxford University’s extension college, Reading was one of only two universities established between the two world wars. The attractive main campus, set in 320 acres of parkland, now has a modern feel

and has won the Green Flag environmental award for four years in a row.

Recent building projects include a new student services centre and business school, £100m on new and redeveloped halls of residence, a refurbished sports centre, and new catering facilities.The £17m Hopkins Building added laboratories and teaching space for pharmacy and cardiovascular research, and there is a new world-class Chemical Analysis Facility.

The £11m Minghella Building for film, theatre and TV opened in the spring of 2011, while a separate Enterprise Centre brings together academic expertise with local and international technology-based businesses.

Student City

Natalie Harper, students’ union president

Reading did well in the last Research Assessment Exercise, despite entering a much higher proportion of its academics than many of its peers. There are international centres of research excellence in areas such as food security, agriculture, biological and physical sciences, meteorology, and European histories and cultures. Another research centre opened in last January, in the School of Psychology, focussing on dementia.

As well as its sites in Reading, the university also owns 2,000 acres of farmland at nearby Sonning and Shinfield, where the renowned Centre for Dairy Research (CEDAR) is located.

To these has been added the former Henley Management College, which became the university’s business school in 2008. The college’s attractive site, on the banks of the river at Henley-on-Thames, houses postgraduate and executive programmes, while undergraduates are taught on the main Whiteknights campus.

All undergraduates take career management skills modules that contribute five credits towards their degree classification. The online system, which has 200 web pages of advice, exercises and information, has been bought by 30 other universities and colleges. Sessions are delivered jointly by academics and careers advisors, with input from alumni and leading employers.

Recent graduate employment figures have been good and the university is hoping to improve them further by providing placement opportunities for all students.

Reading is one of the medium-sized campus universities that have demonstrated their appeal through the National Student Survey (NSS): results improved again this year, with Reading’s score for student satisfaction under our analysis of the NSS rising to 83.7% from 82.3% last year.

Sports facilities have been extended. Water sports are a strong focus, with off-campus boathouses on the Thames and a sailing and canoeing club nearby. Representative teams have a good record in inter-university competitions and the campus was chosen as a pre-Olympics training camp for basketball and fencing.

About one undergraduate in six is from an independent school and just under a quarter come from working-class homes – both below average for the university’s subjects and entry qualifications. The university is devoting more than a quarter of the extra income from £9,000 fees to attempt to broaden the intake, and it expects to provide cash bursaries for about 2,500 students in 2015-16.

The town may not be the most fashionable, but Reading has plenty of nightlife and an award-winning shopping centre. It also offers temporary and part-time employment opportunities for students. London is easily accessible by train, but the cost of living is on a par with the capital.

The halls of residence are either on or within easy walking distance of campus. The latest will provide an extra 650 rooms in time for the start of the new academic year.

The large students’ union has been voted among the best in Britain, and has won numerous awards, including Best Bar None status for encouraging safe drinking. Students who live off campus can make use of the free night bus service to take them back into the town centre.

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