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Subject-driven · Year 12

Daniel · Year 12, Manchester

Wants Computer Science at a strong UK university, predicted AAB-AAA, prefers Northern campus + bursary availability.

RegionUK-wide (Northern preference)
BudgetStandard tuition £9,250/yr UK home — OfS regulated
Year2026
Background

Daniel attends a comprehensive sixth form in Manchester. Top of class for Computer Science, won regional coding competition. Predicted A in CS, A in Maths, B in Physics. UCAS deadline approaching — needs to choose 5 universities to apply to.

Goal

Identify 5 UK universities offering Computer Science where typical tariff is ≤AAA, ranked by graduate outcomes signal.

Process

How the platform was used, step by step.

  1. 1
    1. Universities subject filter

    Universities → narrow to Computing offerings. The 24-subject matrix shows 130+ UK unis offer CS as a degree.

  2. 2
    2. Tier filtering

    Top-50 ranking band (Russell Group core): Manchester, Leeds, Bristol, Imperial, UCL, KCL, Edinburgh, Sheffield, Southampton, Warwick all teach Computing.

  3. 3
    3. Tariff-realistic shortlist

    Imperial (A*A*A — stretch), UCL (A*A*A — stretch), Manchester (AAA — realistic), Leeds (AAA — realistic), Sheffield (AAB — safety), Southampton (AAB — safety).

  4. 4
    4. Consider Northern + cost

    Manchester (commute home), Leeds (Russell Group), Sheffield (good CS dept + strong bursary), Lancaster (Top-100, AAB). Northern preference satisfied without crossing London cost-of-living.

Outcome

UCAS picks: Manchester (firm), Leeds (insurance), Sheffield + Lancaster (safety), Imperial (aspiration). Avoided overcommitting to London where bursaries are competitive. Daniel's dad downloaded the comparison PDF for the family WhatsApp.

Final shortlist
imperial-college-londonuniversity-of-manchesteruniversity-of-leeds
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Tariff requirements estimated from heuristic + Discover Uni data import (where available). · Persona is illustrative; circumstances synthesised from MVP user-research patterns.