Are first-class degrees viewed equally across different universities and courses?

[DasEnglischesWetter]

Are 1st Class Degrees from all universities, especially those considered Russel Group, regarded as equal or not?

For instance, is a 1st Class History degree from Warwick the same as a 1st Class History degree from Oxford; or a 1st Politics degree from Leeds the same as a 1st Class HSPS degree from Cambridge?

Definitely not

By who? I’d expect a 1st at Leeds to have the same rigour as a 1st from Warwick. I’d expect a 1st from Ox, Cam or Imperial to be a bit more rigourous. But realistically noone is going to be selecting someone for a job purely because they got a 1st from Oxford when the competition includes those with 1sts from Manchester, KCL etc. The vast majority of employers won’t even distinguish a 1st and 2:1.

But please explain why you’d expect Oxbridge and Imperial to be more rigorous when isn’t it exactly the same curriculum they do?

Supposedly employers are increasingly recruiting blind, with no university revealed. But I asked a guy who recruits for his industry (finance). He says you can tell pretty quickly the standard of education they received. If a first from Oxbridge or Durham was the same as a first from Oxford Brookes why would anyone bother to aim to get into the top tier universities? If you need A*s to get in a course then surely the subsequent degree teaching and marking scheme will be of a higher standard than other courses requiring lower entry grades?
If the university name is concealed then the process of interviewing/tests/assessments should show any differences in knowledge and skill set. The underlying academic ability that led to a top tier university should, depending on the job, come through.
Not all firsts are equal in that there is no national exam to earn it. The first are awarded within each university, not across universities.

I think if you are look in at the same courses across different universities look at the contact time. Our DCs read vocational qualifications but the uni courses offering the same course with vastly different contact hours. If you are spending money on a degree make sure the tuition is good and the contract hours suitable. We found a 10-15 hour per week difference between some unis.

universities do not have the same curriculum for courses with similar titles. the university will have complete academic freedom to design their own program. This means the actual modules, reading lists, assessment methods, and areas of specialization can vary significantly from one institution to another.
Some universities have more money (endowment funds) so more modern equipment and some focus more on research (which might mean you're class is being taught by a doctorate student vs the professor).

Are you the young woman I had this exact conversation with exhaustively (and omg it was exhausting with the refusal to understand the answer from a friend and I, and the task we were doing at the time) about 10 years ago? Oxbridge first is better than a Russell Group first and a RG first is better than an Expolyshire first. Use your loaf. HTH.

I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. Ten years ago?

DC1 has a 1sr from Imperial. it definitely opened
doors. They applied for 4 jobs and got 1 of them. The thing with Imperial is that the caliber of the students
is incredible. DC1 got 4 x Astsr at A-Level and had imposter syndrome because so many of the other students were from international schools or from Eton, Cheltenham Ladies College etc Apparently the kids from abroad knew way more maths than A-Level; which made DC1 feel like they were on the back foot the whole time.

Dc2 is probably going to get a 1st in another STEM subject from an RG uni. They work hard but not as hard.

A friend’s husband was involved in recruiting for a while - his firm had a policy of being school and university blind. The only thing is that, if someone went to Oxford and had any sense, they would write about things they could only have done there. So it wasn’t as university blind as you might have thought.

DD's previous boss would only recruit those with 1st class from top tier universities. DD was the exception as she'd set up a group at university studying a subject that was a niche thing particular to his business. She was from a top tier uni with a 2nd, but did have an A* in most relevant subject to her job though.

It’s not like GCSE’s or A Levels, there isn’t a national curriculum. Each university sets its own curriculum and exams, and all spread the grading - it’s not like all Oxbridge grads get firsts and all Wrexham grads get thirds. So obviously a first from Oxford/Cambridge etc is going to be harder to achieve than a first from Derby/Liverpool JM, which in itself is harder to achieve than a first from London Metropolitan/Leeds Trinity etc. That’s (partially) why University league tables exist.

edited to say: with some caveats for externally assessed courses eg nursing.

It’s not the same curriculum

Good grief. Unis which select applicants with a string of A and A* students don’t, and shouldn’t be doing the same course as one which recruits less able students. One size doesn’t fit all. A student who hasn’t done very well in maths, probably further maths and physics simply wouldn’t be able to cope with the engineering courses at Cambridge or imperial. But would be fine and learn very useful skills at a lower ranked one. These courses should all have some level of accreditation from the various engineering institutes which enforces some requirements but that doesn’t, and shouldn’t, stop the places which can go deeper/broader from doing so.
And because there’s no real external validation, the proportion of Firsts awarded by these unis doesn’t reflect the difficulty of the courses. Unless they’ve changed their policy recently, Cambridge engineering (not other subjects afaik) doggedly resisted grade inflation by capping the proportion of Firsts at 30% - which is lower than many/most other unis!

Is expect their curriculum to be more challenging. Though not hugely more.

Edit: There is no such thing as a common curriculum btw - even where modules sound like they should be the same. There’ll obviously be a lot of similarity between curricula for professionally accredited, but not identical.

But it’s not the same curriculum for most degrees. It’s not like an A level where there’s an exam board and schools follow it and then the students take the same exam. They might not even cover the same areas in certain subjects - for example I’d expect maths degrees to cover broadly similar areas but history could be totally different.

Some degrees have fairly similar curriculums where they’re required to eg psychology degrees have certain things they must cover to be accredited by the BPS.

I studied at one uni and taught briefly at another a long time ago and yes the courses were different and my belief was the standard of students was quite different too.

People will always claim that a first from the Ex Poly University of Nowhere is as good as Oxbridge because they don't like the idea that their kid might be getting 70 grand in debt for something that isn't top value, but they are mostly talking rubbish.

People compete from within the UK and all over the world to get into the elite UK universities like Oxbridge and Imperial and there is a reason for that.

Saying that university courses/departments do change over time. So over the course of many years a poor RG university course might fall below the standard of a good non RG one, and there is plenty of time since the RG was founded for this to happen.

Some courses from the "lower class" universities are also well known in industry and have a good reputation for recruitment into certain jobs, especially certain specialist courses/jobs.

Universities are always going to trade on the name though.

Absolutely not.

the curriculum isn’t even close to the same

Because the universities set the curriculum.
People go to Oxbridge because they want to be challenged and do something more rigorous, not because they think it will help them to get a better mark in a nationwide exam.

A first class degree from any university has lost its meaning nowadays.

A first-class degree was a rare and exceptional achievement in the past. On many specific courses or at certain universities, entire cohorts might’ve seen zero or just one first awarded.

Respectfully, @DasEnglischesWetter -- you seem deeply confused about universities. I was on another recent thread of yours asking about how well your university 'teachers' get to know you and wanting to 'replicate that Sixth Form relationship' and asking whether lecturers mark 'with a deadpan expression' because they 'don't know you'?

Were you actually under the impression that all university departments in the same discipline throughout the country taught exactly the same 'curriculum' -- I mean, why do you imagine different people choose different institutions when deciding on university places if the content of the degree is identical across the board?

No, I got a 1st from a middle of the road university. When I went to another uni to do my PhD there was a bit of a “well you got a 1st so it’s ok” attitude, so my 1st was about the same level as a 2:1 from a better regarded uni, and anyone from Oxbridge were top tier.

I don’t think employers are bothered in general though, we definitely aren’t in my company

I used to be on my firm's graduate recruitment panel. The answer to your question is a definite "NO!"

Some universities (not all ex-polys by any means) we would not call the person for an interview.

IMO where you get your degree from is probably more important than your grade these days.

[Edited to add] Outside academia, whether a university is "Russell Group" one or not, doesn't seem to really matter.

Firsts have lost their value imo. In my day only the genuine best graduates had firsts. I know only 2 people that did both are exceptional.

Now every child of friends and their friends and boyfriends and girlfriends ALL have firsts 🙈. Some of them I know are not particularly academic. So it used to be really impressive but now isn’t.

I got a First in 1996, one of only two of my cohort. Certainly not a top tier university though, was under no illusion there. Went into nursing with it when all you needed was five GCSE’s.