University of Kent

Supervisors are horrible.
They have no interest in their students educational background, never answer any questions (literally!), are deadly offended if you critizise that.
There is noone who will ever be supportive if any issues arise.

Not particularly useful for my interests, but they do run some nice events.

It's ok.

Kent is relatively expensive, not quite as bad as London.

Good facilities.
It is difficult to find a place to work where you are really alone - i.e. you could have a loud telephone conversation without disturbing anyone.
All spaces are shared.

As it is a research degree there are not too many courses.
The courses for Phd Students (LTCC London) are overally rated poorly by many PhD students, as lecturers just drop a bucketload of literature onto you, there is no time left for questions on the subject by the lecturers.
If you hand in any assignment, you won't get any feedback at all, just a grade. Lecturers radically minimise their effort for the course to the point that some courses are a time - wasting dead end.
If you have problems with any of the exercises / assignements, there is no support and you need to guess in which direction to investigate the literature to find out the points not mentioned in the lecture.

In Stats/Maths, we have GTA (teaching skills) courses, where the assignement demands to do a lecture (to be reviewed by someone) and write an assignment about teaching. We are not even allowed by the department to give a lecture ourselves.
They are so protective of their status, that they do not even allow things that would help one's progress, even if it is essentially required by another course, that we also have to do!
The university is hugely buerocratic, but with buerocrats who don't talk to each other and who are unfair in many ways.

I am not interested so much in university social life. Some things are nice.

Kent itself is an amazing place to live, with the sea nearby.

Not for me, as I was already in very good employment before the PhD.
Many things that would help me to develop are not allowed to be done by a PhD student, so there is little for me that helps my employment opportunities.
The degree is intended for young, posh, well off people, I think.

The university advertises these services that they offer, but in reality it is not very useful.
This is more something that is held up especially by people who themselves do nothing to support students, they just refer you to counselling if you argue with them.