ABSTRACT
Aberdeen University is Scotland’s third oldest institution of Higher Education. It is one of Scotland’s four ‘Ancient Universities’ having been established in 1495. My research indicated that a very substantial portion of its students were Scottish and in particular from the north of Scotland, including the Highlands (Aberdeen University statistics 2002). For a large minority of students to whom I spoke Aberdeen University appeared to be a kind of second choice. Scottish students who were studying medicine there had often been rejected by Glasgow University or Edinburgh University, northern Irish students had frequently been rejected by Queen’s University, Belfast and the minority of English students had, in many cases, been rejected by universities such as Durham or, especially for less popular subjects, got in through ‘Clearing’ having done unexpectedly badly in their school leaving exams.1 However, I met many students from the north of Scotland who had, in most cases, put down Aberdeen University as their first choice which reflects something in Scottish University culture which will be examined in more depth below. Aberdeen itself has a population of over 200,000 and is the third largest city in Scotland though it is geographically isolated from other large cities.
