www.ulst.ac.uk

What's happening at the University of Ulster? Well, the site says UU has recently hosted the UK premier of What's Cooking, "the eagerly awaited new film from director Gurinder Chadha". On a somewhat more pragmatic note, moving on from the newsy homepage, the college website has information on admissions and clearing for 2001. Featuring all the usual sections on courses, faculties, research, administration, and contact details, the UU website certainly qualifies as easy to use.

Www.qub.ac.uk

On this Queen's University Belfast site, a very blue sky frames the red-brick building on the homepage. There's upfront information on clearing, easily accessible from the homepage, but there are no vacancies in the faculties of law, or management and economics. Courses in medicine and dentistry are also filled. Good site, easy to navigate, but - and it's a minor quibble which may already have been rectified - the page on the Research Assessment Exercise 2001 (a very useful guideline) was not available when we visited.

Www.glam.ac.uk

This website is trying very hard, maybe too hard, to attract prospective students to the University of Glamorgan in Wales. A pop-up box offers to e-mail reminders and clearing tips to prospective students, while a list of 10 good reasons to choose Glamorgan includes: "Just 20 minutes from Cardiff, Europe's youngest and fastest growing capital". It goes on to cite "excellent teaching ratings; a safe single campus, first-class en-suite accommodation" and much, much more. This is a useful site, rhetoric apart.

Www.mdx.ac.uk

Middlesex University, London, is what you could safely call a large university. In fact, it's the sixth largest in Britain and Northern Ireland. When I tried the custom tour, I decided to "visit" the enticingly-named Cat Hill campus, which caters for art and design, cinematics and electronic arts. The campus is described as featuring stylish, low-level buildings; there was a map to pinpoint its position, but no stylish, low-level photographs. Overall, a good site, easy to find your way about. More pics please.

Www.tvu.ac.uk

Thames Valley University College includes the London School of Music and Media. The website boasts that London's Natural History Museum, Sky Television, the BBC, London Transport and (oops) the Millenium Dome have all commissioned project work from their current student body. As might be expected of such a media mecca, the website is bright and well designed. The clearing process for prospective students is clearly indicated on the site and there are hotlines in place until mid-October.