I visited Warwick, Durham, Oxford (they rejected me
), Cambridge and Exeter (obv. lol). My brother visited Sussex's Physics dept. as well which apparently was really good but a little close to home.
I have to admit I can't actually remember the model of telescope, as my stepmum uses it much more than me and it is packed away atm lol
I quite liked studying all the sciences as it meant all my classes were really small as they aren't very popular classes!
Warwick is a nice department but in the second year and stuff you have to live in Leamington Spa which is a 7 mile bus journey everyday, or live in Coventry which is full of chavs according to the Warwick people on TSR and still have a long bus journey everyday.
Durham was nice, and if I hadn't been offered 3k a year by Exeter I might have ended up going there, but it was really far away for me, and it's grim up north
Also all their accommodation was catered and quite expensive.
Oxford was, well it was Oxford lol, umm it looked pretty good and had 4-year accommodation at some colleges (including the one which rejected me) but yeah it has a really stressful entry exam to get in, which I kind of panicked on and failed and obv. once I was rejected even getting 5As didn't help.
Cambridge was nice and tbh I probably should have applied there instead, they don't have an entry exam at most colleges but normally require 4As or this year they will probably want A*s. The downside is that on the nat sci course you have to take 3 experimental sciences in the first year so you can't just do physics which kind of turned me off the course as I like biology but I can't stand chemistry, and I worked out I would have to study at least one chem course :( They have a maths and physics course too which is mostly maths and a little physics, but to get on that you have to get admitted by the cambridge maths department with their STEP papers and everything.
Sussex was good apparently as it was the smallest of all the departments, even smaller than Exeter, so everyone knew one another, also they have some cool research project thing you can apply to do but then you need to pass an interview and stuff.
Finally there was Exeter, obviously I am a little biased here, but it is awesome. They offer very generous science scholarships for people who can get AAA and the city is small enough so that everything is in walking distance. The relationships between the faculty and the undergraduates seems good which was apparently the same at Sussex according to my bro, I guess it's down to size, as Warwick and Durham both have large physics intakes so you are unlikely to be known personally by your teachers etc. Exeter is quite a safe city too which I liked as I have never lived in a big city before and don't really want to get mugged :P
Now I was swayed quite a lot by the scholarships (as I don't want to *have* to work, as it stands I can get a job if I want more money but can always quit and focus on my studies and be quite comfortable, it also encourages me to work harder as I need at least a 2:1). Also I hate public transport a LOT, when I visited Oxford I had to use the buses, and I can't drive so I wouldn't have a choice at uni, and yeah I just hate standing around waiting for a bus. So obviously it depends on what matters to you most as to which uni to choose.
If you really like astronomy, I would look at St. Andrews (it's a bit isolated though lol) which is in Scotland and has awesome optical telescopes and dark skies to use them on. Durham is also pretty good for astronomy as the guy said that the skies are quite dark there. Exeter has Dartmoor and Exmoor nearby which are quite dark too, and Warwick had lots of radio telescopes so I guess it depends really.
I wouldn't rely on the league tables too much when making your decisions though, just see what is in like the top 20 or 15 or so and then choose depending on where you want to live and stuff, it's better to graduate with a first from York than to drop out of Oxford. Because the league tables change quite a lot from year to year and also I wouldn't advise choosing a uni based on a single physics option it has (I nearly did this with plasma physics and Warwick) as you don't know where your interests in physics will go over the years and they might stop running the option by the time you get to the right year in any case. Also whilst the RAE scores are kind of important, they probably won't have that much affect on undergraduate education anyway.
Sorry I just realized I rambled loads and have written the PF equivalent of War and Peace
BTW have you managed to look at the ISS with your telescope, I haven't but it seems like the most awesome thing to do. Apparently it is the second brightest object in the night sky (after the Moon presumably) but there is just something so amazing about looking through a telescope and seeing something built by man with people in it floating hundreds and hundreds of miles above you. I must use those tracker websites and try to do it one day.
I haven't exactly lucked out on my teacher either (he thinks an explanation means repeat what he said before word for word) but I'm going to do whatever it takes to keep up.
