Entry requirements
A level
The University will not necessarily make conditional offers to all Access candidates but will continue to assess them on an individual basis. If we make you an offer, you will need to obtain/pass the overall Access to Higher Education Diploma and may also be required to obtain a proportion of the total level 3 credits and/or credits in particular subjects at merit grade or above.
International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme
Applicants should have either an overall grade of 34 or 15 points at higher level.
Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (first teaching from September 2016)
in Health and Social Care or Public Services. Applicants should also have five GCSEs at grade C/4 or above
Scottish Higher qualifications are considered on an individual basis.
UCAS Tariff
We've calculated how many Ucas points you'll need for this course.
About this course
Should we all have an equal say in how the society we live in operates? As a sociology student, you gain an understanding of how societies work, develop and transform. You examine the social institutions that govern us, discover what you think should change and search for a way to achieve it.
In your first year, you study the fundamentals of sociological thinking. As your understanding develops, you examine the workings of the social institutions that govern people's lives, assessing their impact on individuals and society as a whole. You can also choose optional modules on criminology, modern culture or social policy. In your second and final years, you extend your knowledge of sociological theory and social research methods. The varied expertise in the School means we are able to offer optional modules that include explorations of childhood, environmentalism, gender, political change, crime, race, violence and work, among others. This means that you can choose to study areas of particular interest to you or that relate directly to your career choice. Throughout your degree, our academics challenge you to develop your own opinions and ideas, and encourage you to become an independent thinker. We offer high levels of support and our staff are friendly and accessible.
You can choose to spend a year or a term abroad at one of our partner institutions. You don’t have to make a decision before you enrol at Kent but certain conditions have to be met during your studies before you can change to the year abroad.
The School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research is one of the best in the country for teaching and research. Our academics are internationally recognised for their expertise in sociological theory and our wide ranging research gives you the opportunity to study diverse areas ranging from street culture to terrorism.
Sociology is also available as a major-minor degree - Sociology with Quantitative Research (UCAS code L3G3 at institution K24) which enables you to gain a combination of analytical skills and social sciences knowledge.
The Uni
University of Kent
School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research
What students say
We've crunched the numbers to see if overall student satisfaction here is high, medium or low compared to students studying this subject(s) at other universities.
How do students rate their degree experience?
The stats below relate to the general subject area/s at this university, not this specific course. We show this where there isn’t enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
Sociology
Teaching and learning
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
After graduation
The stats in this section relate to the general subject area/s at this university – not this specific course. We show this where there isn't enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
Sociology
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
We have quite a lot of sociology graduates, although numbers fell last year. But graduates still do pretty well. Most sociology graduates go straight into work when they complete their degrees, and a lot of graduates go into jobs in social professions such as recruitment, education, community and youth work, and housing. An important option for a sociology graduate is social work - and we're short of people willing to take this challenging but rewarding career. Sociology is a flexible degree and you can find graduates from the subject in pretty much every reasonable job — obviously, you don't find many doctors or engineers, but you do find them in finance, the media, healthcare, marketing and even IT. Sociology graduates taking further study often branch out into other qualifications, like teaching, law, psychology, HR and even maths, so don’t think a sociology degree restricts you to just one set of options.
What about your long term prospects?
Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.
Sociology, social policy and anthropology
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£18k
£23k
£25k
Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.
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This is what the university has told Ucas about the criteria they expect applicants to satisfy; some may be compulsory, others may be preferable.
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This is the percentage of applicants to this course who received an offer last year, through Ucas.
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This is what the university has told Ucas about the course. Use it to get a quick idea about what makes it unique compared to similar courses, elsewhere.
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Course location and department:
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Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF):
We've received this information from the Department for Education, via Ucas. This is how the university as a whole has been rated for its quality of teaching: gold silver or bronze. Note, not all universities have taken part in the TEF.
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This information comes from the National Student Survey, an annual student survey of final-year students. You can use this to see how satisfied students studying this subject area at this university, are (not the individual course).
This is the percentage of final-year students at this university who were "definitely" or "mostly" satisfied with their course. We've analysed this figure against other universities so you can see whether this is high, medium or low.
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This information is from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA).
You can use this to get an idea of who you might share a lecture with and how they progressed in this subject, here. It's also worth comparing typical A-level subjects and grades students achieved with the current course entry requirements; similarities or differences here could indicate how flexible (or not) a university might be.
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Post-six month graduation stats:
This is from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education Survey, based on responses from graduates who studied the same subject area here.
It offers a snapshot of what grads went on to do six months later, what they were earning on average, and whether they felt their degree helped them obtain a 'graduate role'. We calculate a mean rating to indicate if this is high, medium or low compared to other universities.
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Graduate field commentary:
The Higher Education Careers Services Unit have provided some further context for all graduates in this subject area, including details that numbers alone might not show
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The Longitudinal Educational Outcomes dataset combines HRMC earnings data with student records from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.
While there are lots of factors at play when it comes to your future earnings, use this as a rough timeline of what graduates in this subject area were earning on average one, three and five years later. Can you see a steady increase in salary, or did grads need some experience under their belt before seeing a nice bump up in their pay packet?
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