Degree classification - Is a 2.1 the new 2.2?

[Plutonium]

Please help settle this argument between DH and I.
All our friends kids who graduated in the last 5yrs or so have all got either a 2.1 or a first class. When I went to uni, most people got a 2.2, a fe odd got a 2.1. A first class was as rare as hens teeth. I was telling DH that there was more academics stress now for Dd because everything’s has revved up several notches and she’ll have to be aiming for 2.1 unlike our time. DH said it’s all nonsense that most people get a 2.2 and a 2.1 is very rare. DH isn’t the most up to scratch with academic expectations /pressures in schools etc and just thinks everything is the same as when we went to school/university. I told him most graduate schemes now expect a 2.1.

I’ll be delighted if he is right. But what do you think?

I think the internet has had a huge impact in the last 20 years on the resources available to undergraduates for their research. Students used to have to get off their arse and do some serious physical legwork to find the resources they needed, now it's all a mouse click away. This could be a contributing factor to why more are gaining firsts or 2.1's. There are also plenty of websites offering to write your assignments for you for a fee, which is worrying.

Amused - Thanks for the explanation.
Prh47 - Those are interesting figures, wonder if they're going to introduce another degree classification level like with the new 1-9 GCSEs maybe a "first class star" to stretch things a little.

I graduated in 1996. Of the c150 on my course, three got a First, three got a Third, and the rest of us were pretty evenly split between 2:1s and 2:2s. There was no doubt then that 2:1 was ok and 2:2 was a bit of a disappointment and a lot of solicitor training contracts were dependent on a 2:1 or higher.

I laughed for hours when I first heard about a Desmond.

(For the comedy element of the rhyming slang!)

"There are also plenty of websites offering to write your assignments for you for a fee, which is worrying."

Not a perfect system but there is software that is designed to flag assignments potentially written this way - some of them have a 'formula' in how they're written.

Desmond Tutu - 2.2

God I remember the leg work i did for my final yr project! It was like a 9-5 job. No internet browsing from the bedroom! and there were some precious documents you had to request for order at the library, and you couldn't take it out, so you spent hrs photocopying etc. Also remember microfiche? you had to sit there a write down what you needed.

I can't hardly believe how easy it is today to obtain research information, with tons of online journal, with all the latest developments and in niche areas too.

I was just going to ask what on earth a 'Desmond' was thought it was a typo.

Oh, must have loaded that page before getting my coffee

Graduate recruiter here. You need a 2:1 in a decent subject from a decent university to get onto most popular graduate schemes. A few will take 2:2, usually where a more academic degree is required. A 2:1 from a mid tier university would probably be more useful to get onto a graduate scheme than from a 2:2 from a top university. This is because there tend to be minimum requirements meaning that your application won't even be looked at if you got a 2:2. I think it's a bit of a shame that the whole application doesn't get taken into account initially but we have to sift through piles of them somehow.

I graduated in 2011 and was very proud of my 2:1 as it meant I could get into the graduate scheme I had chosen. Anything lower and I would not have been accepted.

I graduated in 96 with 2:1, most got 2:2, a couple of thirds and a single first from a group of 80.

A couple of years later I was recruiting only 2:1 unless you were a very special 2:2. I didn't recruit firsts as they were generally too academic to be of practical use.

Harsh but true (in my profession)

I’m also an Oxbridge academic and agree with colleagues upthread. Firsts are more common than they were and I think that’s a good thing. This is due to a number of factors including examiners using the full range of marks, different kinds of assessment being introduced and particular types of answers not being privileged at the expense of others. There are also fewer 2.2s than there oncewere and in my experience, they are rare.

So for some, its actually better to go to a lower tierd uni and get a high classification than struggle to get into an and RG or whatever only to get a mediocre 2.2 if thats all what they are capable of because graduate scheme criteria does not account for name of institution. This really turns things on is head when people are arguing that the name of the uni is the more important in getting a job.

I laughed for hours when I first heard about a Desmond.

I'd been in my job five years before I heard the term uttered (in an exam board - by the Vice Dean!) and I nearly collapsed a lung laughing

I graduated in 1990 and almost all of my friends were graduates (not just from college, but a variety of area & prestige). I had never met, heard of, known about or encountered in any way (even a FoaFoaF) someone who got a 1st. Even people who went on the do PhD & become professors didn't get firsts - they worked like crazy just to get a 2:1. At my college there wasn't even a lecturer who could remember having a student who got a 1st. They were vanishingly rare. My BIL has a PhD from Oxford and also doesn't know of anyone with a 1st from his cohort.

I know that personal anecdotes aren't the same as data, but the article linked earlier really does show how much things have changed.

Maybe it's a good thing and people are genuinely becoming more academically talented? More people go to college, therefore more grow up in families where college is expected, and there's the support etc.

There’s no sensible of way of generalising about marks and classifications across subjects and institutions. Students need to think hard about what they want to do with their degrees before they apply. As I say to my own DCs, decide what you want to study first and then think about the best place to go, not the other way round.

Personally, I think your chances of gaining a first-class degree depends heavily on the subject you studied. And I'm not sure how fair that is.

I just graduated with a first (studied law) at LSE and hardly any of my coursemates managed the same- the vast majority achieved 2:1's. However, almost everyone I know who did Economics or Management (and especially Mathematics & Economics) is graduating with a first. In their exams, it was common for them to score 90/100% as right and wrong answers are far more clear-cut. Whereas, I viewed 70% as being an almost perfect score.

And for what it's worth my overall percentage was 69% and I was bumped up (very surprised).

As I remember it the usual was a 2:2. Now it seems to be the same, mainly 2:2, with a few 2:1, and a couple of exceptional 1st.

So for some, its actually better to go to a lower tierd uni and get a high classification than struggle to get into an and RG or whatever only to get a mediocre 2.2 if thats all what they are capable of because graduate scheme criteria does not account for name of institution.

Well, perhaps, but it's not an easily predicted thing - no one knows that a student who got a RG 2.2 would have got a 2.1 elsewhere - and also the schemes you're thinking of tend to also be quite selective about the universities they'll consider. The blunt truth of it is that top tier 2.1s aren't in short supply so competitive schemes don't have to pick between lower tier 2.1s and RG 2.2s - they can just reject both.

Personally, I think your chances of gaining a first-class degree depends heavily on the subject you studied. And I'm not sure how fair that is.

I feel a bit put out that over 50% of people on my course get 2.2s which makes mine mediocre but not the godawful failure I perceived it to be (my graduation pictures are the most miserable looking pictures I've ever had taken - didn't want to go except my parents did, dunno why, to see my shame ;_;) but at some places its practically impossible to get a 2.2.

Oh, and I did an MA recently. I live in the US now. Many colleges protect their library databases so that you actually have to be onsite to access all journals etc, even in electronic form. They pay a phenomenal amount of money to have a huge range of journals available, and they don't want that being shared around between people who aren't paying them tuition fees.

So, I still had to get up and go to college to do my research, but at least I mainly just sat at a desk downloading documents and saving them, rather than having to carry huge piles of books back to my house.

There was definitely a LOT more journals available compared to my first degree, but it was also a more prestigious college.

My brother got a Douglas in 1990 - far too much partying. However, although most blue chip companies wanted a Desmond or above, there were reasonably good companies that just wanted you to have a degree, it didn't matter what it was. That has certainly changed.

I think whether which uni matters depends on the career. For law, medicine, high level banking basically 'old boys club' type jobs I suspect it does matter, for other careers not so much. Probably a gradual thing though.