[the old merlin]

As an ex-Sunderland student, who is still in occasional touch with staff there (although not from my time), I'd say there isn't a problem. One of the UK's leading industrial pharmacists was there when I was. And the current President studied there, too. As did a recent Editor of the PJ.

What more do you want?

And that's the ones I'm sure about. Pretty sure loads of other high flyers were there.
In my time it was a good place to be and it looks a lot better now!

As someone else said work hard, play hard, get your degree and some useful bits for the CV and you'll be fine. Good luck!