University of Essex Profile
History
•Granted Royal Charter in the year 1965.
•One of the UK's leading academic institutions having the international reputation for quality of its research and teaching, specifically in the social sciences.
•From outset has been an international university – both by the student and staff body and academic programs
Notable alumni
•The Rt Hon John Bercow MP – Speaker of House of the Commons.
•Dr Oscar Arias Sanchez – Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress and the ex President of Costa Rica.
Location and transport
•Colchester Campus is set in area of around 200 acres of parkland on outskirts of the Colchester.
•Good road (A12), rail (Colchester main line station, which is 40 minutes from London) and airport links, port of Harwich also near.
•Southend Campus, adjacent to the Southend Central railway station and Southend High Street, is in the new multi-million pound campus.
Entry standards
•The entry requirement are BTEC, A-Levels, etc (specific subjects do identify the individual course requirements).
•Essex does accept applicants with non-standard qualifications.
Student mix
•11,282 students across all the three campuses: approximately 8,182 undergraduates and nearly 3,100 postgraduates.
•Around 4,500 international students, with nearly 130 nationalities represented.
•The rough ratio of man and woman is 50:50.
Course flexibility
•Broad first year with chance to try the new subjects.
•Opportunity to change degree scheme at the end of first year.
•Wide choice of the options and modules.
Teaching standards
•Art History and Theory, Philosophy and Psychoanalytic Studies achieved 95 per cent or more satisfaction ratings.
•It is in the top 20 for many social science, science, and humanities subjects.
Research standards
•It is ninth in UK for the quality of our research in the year 2008 RAE.
•More than 90% of research recognized internationally for its quality of education and 22% of research rated as 'world leading'.
Academic strengths
•The UK’s leading university in the social sciences with politics, and sociology ranked first, economics third and linguistics fourth nationally.
Student facilities, including library and computing
•Over 580 workstations across library and open access laboratories at Colchester Campus, and over 70 workstations at the Southend Campus.
•Library is open 24 hours during exam term.
•It has twenty-four hour reading room.
Sport
•Over 40 clubs varying from the mountaineering to volleyball.