University of Bolton Reviews 14

it feels like a money-making institution, they dont seem to care about the quality of their teaching

Shocking distribution of timetables. No regard for staff or students, or their schedule.

Unprofessional Handling of Interview – University of Bolton, School of Medicine

On 14th August 2025, I attended an interview for the Administrative Assistant role at 10:15am, only for the entire process to be derailed due to HR’s misdirection and then followed by a wrongful judgement on my conduct.

I arrived early (9:05am) at the University of Bolton main reception, presented my documents, and waited to be collected. At 10:17am, I was taken to a room and met with an 2 interview panel only to discover they were interviewing for an entirely different role (IT Desk Support). When I showed my confirmation email, the panel confirmed HR had sent me to the wrong location and that I should have been at the School of Medicine.

I was given their address and phoned for parking instructions while driving. The phone line was poor, voices were unclear, and I had to raise my voice to be heard — not out of anger, but purely to be understood. The call disconnected, and upon arrival I apologised for the delay and explained the situation.

To my shock, I was told by (Iqbal Singh, Tim Pearson, and Jade McCann) the interview would not go ahead because I had allegedly been “rude” and “shouted” at reception. This was completely false and based on assumption, ignoring the fact that the situation was caused entirely by HR’s error and poor phone quality.

I am a professional with over 23 years in the UK workforce, holding both a BA and MSc, and have never faced such dismissive, prejudiced, and unprofessional treatment in a recruitment process. I apologised multiple times, pushed through stress, asthma, and a migraine to still attend — yet my effort and professionalism were ignored.

This experience has been deeply distressing and damaging to my wellbeing, and I would strongly urge the University of Bolton’s HR department to review their recruitment process and communication standards.

Discrimination, Racism & One-Sided Cover-Ups at University of Bolton

I was denied a fair interview for the Administrative Assistant role after repeated HR mistakes, yet instead of accountability, I was blamed, humiliated, and discriminated against.

At the Medical School, Mr. Sanjay showed racist, biased, one-sided behaviour, dismissing me without courtesy and refusing my interview. The University then defended Ms. Sara Pajo, backed up by Mr. Sanjay himself making the entire process one-sided, biased, and designed to make me look guilty.

What a disgraceful and disgusting way to treat a candidate. Instead of fairness, I was met with cover-ups, protection of staff, and a complete lack of accountability.

Universitie of Bolton are supposed to stand for equality, inclusion, and professionalism but here I experienced the exact opposite,racism, bias, and institutional discrimination.

I was a Biomedical Science student at this university.

In my first year, despite passing all my exams successfully, I only needed to submit one final assignment for a module. A person named Alison Gallacher, who had no relevant qualifications in my field and was a tutor for the Access to Higher Education module (a first-term subject), unfairly rejected my paper, accusing me of using AI.

The university gave me a chance to resubmit the assignment with a set deadline, but before the deadline even passed, I was expelled from the course. Guess why? They falsely claimed I had submitted the assignment three times and failed .when, in reality, I had only submitted it once.

Andy Baldwin, the Admissions Manager for Biomedical Science, was the one who sent my expulsion email. When I responded with evidence and a detailed explanation, he went completely silent and shifted all responsibility to that elderly woman, Alison — who also had nothing meaningful to say in response.

All of this happened just two weeks before the new term was about to begin, while I was still waiting to start classes.

I am truly disappointed by the incompetence of the academic staff at this university and their racist attitude. It’s honestly shameful.

Please be aware that if you want to study the psychology, psychotherapy & counselling course (PPC) at the university of Bolton. It is only BPS accredited not BACP accredited please do thorough research and understand what the implications of that means. There are other university that provide a counselling/psychotherapy degree that is BACP accredited at an undergraduate level. A lot of universities are not completely honest and they don’t make things clear in order to promote their masters degree. Ensure you do complete research so you’re not left jobless, feeling stranded and like you have wasted your time as they don’t provide much help after the course is over. Get all the information you need. It’s only fair that people know what they are getting themselves into from the start.

We are in FULL support of the name change from University of Bolton to University of Greater Manchester! We have seen how Bolton Institute, in which a group of us graduated more than 25 years ago, has transformed to it is now.

During our time and till now, there is a stigma of its low UK and QS status and the graduates employment rate is not high.

We are thankful to Bolton management staff for continuously and fearlessly guarding and elevating our students' welfare in the direction of reaching higher employment. The name change to University of Greater Manchester would certainly help in truly representing the university's current status with its students' ratio spreading across Greater Manchester.

Its a great recognition of its achievement and we know the name changed will bring about greater opportunities for stakeholders in students' employment, education quality, research values and higher output in many resources.

We sincerely look forward to the name changed to University of Greater Manchester and its eventually progress to higher UK and QS ranking to the top 50 university in the world!

Firstly wasn’t the degree I signed up for a business start up, 2 weeks before starting not enough people on the course to carry on so I was out onto business management with the agreement to do business planning to open a business. Nope, not had anything. Then doing the business management course I thought I’d give it ago but it was worse than I expected, hated it, no help or support and grading when the tutors know of my dyslexia I got graded a fail with bad comments but this was because there was no help or support to go through assignments and it’s more 90% self teaching. Dropped out now and wish I never went into this!

Incompetent staff. Cant be bothered to do the bare minimum. Its utterly shocking how little they care about helping people to achieve their potential. Its so off-putting, people want to improve their lives but there is no chance of this when the people who are teaching you simply don't care. The bottom line is this - they want you through the door so that they can get their funding. They aren't concerned with doing their jobs. THIS IS NOT EDUCATION. WE DESERVE BETTER.

I wanted to apply to Bolton and found 2 courses. The same course with slightly different options.
I wrote online to Bolton to enquire as the website encouraged me to. I received a "thank you" for contacting Bolton University. Thay was over 2 weeks ago, I never received another correspondence or had my enquiry answered.

Terrible Masters course, far below par , week and uninteresting lecturers, mis sold at the start, waste of time and money.the qual isn't worth the paper its written on

Happy with my choice of Uni. I am looking forward to experiencing all that the Uni has to offer. Enrolment was straightforward.

I did a PGCE course this year. Although I was not provided enough placement (which is a requirement to complete the course and do the assignments), they did not give me an extension to complete my course. They do not do their legal reponsibility.

Extremely disappointed.

I've been going to see the physiotherapists at the Sports and Spinal Injury Clinic (SSIC) in Bolton One for many years now. The clinic is a teaching clinic where students from the Bolton University Sports Rehabilitation degree can learn and get hands on experience with patients. Over the 10 years or so I've been going I've seen many of the physiotherapists and university lecturers who have treated my various and many injuries from slip disks, separated ribs, rotary cuff impingement and god knows what else and I have always felt happy with both the treatments and the professionalism of the staff. However I'm sorry to say this relationship and my opinion has now changed.

In late Jan 2019 I returned to the clinic for an assessment and recommendation to treat lower back pain, tightness and soreness in my right "lat" muscle and pain and aching in my right shoulder. I attended 8 treatments (one each week) and overall the treatments were going well. My SI Joint was starting to function better causing me less pain in my lower back and my right latissimus dorsi had eased off to such a state that it it was no longer in a permanent state of tension and tightness. The only remaining issue was my sore and aching shoulder. On the 5th session Finn (Fionnuala Geoghegan) was stepping me through a few exercises one being a head raise leading into a arms extended shoulder float "crunch". Finn was directing me to bring my chin up, to tuck in first before floating my shoulders off the ground. On the 3/4th attempt I felt a sharp pain (strain) move through my neck. Thinking nothing more of it we ended the session. The week later, still with a sore neck I returned for a massage and treatment session where I asked the 2nd year student to concentrate his treatment on my neck and shoulder which worked well and bought me some temporary relieve. The week later I returned to see Finn and told her of the continuing pain in my neck and soreness/numbness in my arm and shoulder. She seemed a little surprised when I explained I had felt the initial pain in her last session two week previous. She explained it was most likely a strained muscle issue rather than anything skeletal or joint related and would most likely remedy itself in 2 to 4 weeks. She then concentrated her treatments for that session on this area and recommended that I add some "chin tuck" exercises to my routine. Again I left feeling some pain relieve and booked another session for the week after. One week later and the symptoms were very much the same if not worse with pins and needles now in my hand and numbness still in my arm. Again a treatment was issued and further exercises (ear to shoulder, head turns, chin to chest and lying arm slides) were added to my routine which we also double checked to make sure there was nothing in the current routine that could be adding or aggravating my neck/shoulder pain.

At the end of the session I mentioned to Finn about taking the problem to the NHS and maybe it was a good idea to see a doctor. Knowing how long it can take to get treatments with the NHS I thought I may be able to pre-empt the NHS a little as I was fearful that this neck/shoulder pain was related to previous rotator cuff impingements and problems with my scapular and that a scan etc might be needed sometime in the future.

So with that in mind I asked Finn if she was able to supply a "referral" type document just outlining the conditions and treatments I had been receiving over the last 7/8 weeks, something I could pass to the doctor so I could then be booked directly for a MSK assessment rather than just being sent away with pain killers and told to come back in 4 weeks. She agreed and said it would take a couple of days. Unfortunately however no document arrived. My next appointment with Finn a week later I had to cancel as I was called away to London late the night before. With no treatment that week the pain was worsening and I attended a drop in doctors appointment where I was prescribed naproxen and an appointment to see a MSK physiotherapist was made for a week later. I wrote by email to the SSIC, FAO Finn asking once more for a "referral/diagnosis/treatment report. Again unfortunately my request went unanswered and email ignored.

I feel extremely disappointed that the SSIC, in particular Finn has failed to do what she said she would do with regards to supplying me with a referral/diagnosis espeiclay to such a long term patient.
Now three weeks later and six weeks after the initial "neck pain" I have been assessed yesterday by a NHS ESP Physiotherapist who has informed me that I have a pinched nerve in my neck with a expected recovery period of 12 weeks. As expected due to NHS workload the next soonest appointment is two weeks. I have been advised of more exercises and continued pain management. I had hoped to continue treatments with Finn and the SSIC alongside those of the NHS, hopefully speeding up my recovery and allowing me to concentrate on the several courses that I offer for which my good health and vitality are a fundamental requirement. In the past I have recommended the SSIC to many of my students and friends who have suffered injuries whilst training. I do not understand why the SSIC/Finn have chosen to retract my initial request and not to supply me with a document simply stating I've been undergoing treatment for this that and the other and to ignore my follow up email. As a training clinic for Bolton University I wonder how this attitude reflects on the students who are currently progressing though their sports rehabilitation courses and if they take this attitude of 'saying one thing and doing another' back to their own future practises and clinics