Many courses offer a sandwich year.Added value: Facilities include sports hall, squash courts, playing fields. Writtle is the rugby champions of the South East universities league. And it plays soccer, cricket, hockey, netball and Gaelic football as well.Easy to get into? You need 10 to 14 points at A-level for a degree (equivalent to CD to BC).Glittering alumni: Lord Carter, the chief whip in the House of Lords; the late Geoff Hamilton, the gardening teleevangelist; Peter Seabrook, another famous gardener; MP Jim Pace; Lord Ramsey; Lord Petre.Transport links: Students can hop on a minibus for pounds 1.50 to get to Chelmsford Train from there to central London takes 35 minutes Or hitch a lift to Stansted Airport (40 minutes away). Lots of overseas students - 200 from more than 40 countries - from as far away as Iran, Brunei, South Africa, Japan, Bangladesh. No longer called an agricultural college because it has branched out.

Today it offers further and higher education qualifications in subjects such as engineering, conservation, equine studies, landscape design, leisure and business management as well as the traditional subjects of agriculture and horticulture.All degrees are validated by the University of Essex The male to female ratio is 50:50. The estate includes three farms and gardens, used by agriculture and horticulture students. Plus an arboretum with more than 1,000 trees, as well as grounds with 70,000 bulbs. Main teaching block is next door to halls, so you need get out of bed only five minutes before lectures.

Campus tends to be empty at weekends.Vital statistics: A smallish college of higher education with 2,500 students. At that stage it consisted of just two lecturers teaching short courses. In 1912 it became the East Anglian Institute of Agriculture. Address: Writtle College, Lordship Lane, Chelmsford, Essex CM1 3RR. (01245-424200) postmaster writtle.ac.ukAmbience: Rural campus on a 220-hectare estate in a village two miles from Chelmsford Original 1939 building is purpose-built redbrick. Huge amount of building during the Nineties, including new science block, horticulture building and halls of residence. There's also a new management centre built in 1998 and a postgraduate centre. Age: 106 History: Founded in 1893 by Essex County Council to provide technical instruction for agriculture and other industry in the county.

But with our continuing poor show in teenage pregnancy figures as well as underachievement and truancy, perhaps a better question is: why shouldn't it be replicated? TOP offers some pretty compelling evidence that bolstering self-esteem through valuable community activity may have as important a role to play in sex education as learning about ovaries and condoms.And if that means fewer 13-year-old fathers, then the sooner we do it the better.The Teen Outreach Programme is featured in the writer's `Defying Disaffection: how schools are winning the hearts and minds of reluctant students', published by Trentham Books (pounds 20.95). Set against a comparable control group, young people in TOP are 33 per cent less likely to get pregnant, 11 per cent less likely to fail courses and 60 per cent less likely to drop out of school.Could it work here? It certainly requires flexibility on the part of participating schools, to allow pupils to take part during school time. She may have messed around enough in the past to get herself into the TOP programme, but she's now focused and serious She has also altered her behaviour and attitude. "You can talk about things like relationships, drugs and stuff that you can't talk about anywhere else," she says. "Since being in TOP my grades have improved and I've decided to be a sports trainer when I graduate."Independent evaluations of the TOP programme reflect the experiences of Howard and Danita. I try to keep the same mental approach that I have when I'm in TOP."Danita, 16, was swinging a girl and boy just across the playground from Howard.