to ask if DC shouldn't bother with university if they can't get into a Russell Group one?

[TuTuTilly]

I'd never heard of the ruddy things before I joined MN. Didn't even realise I'd been to one. I do recall when I had a tedious summer job in Human Resources which included "sifting" job applications for an international firm of accountants, being told to dump any that weren't from a handful of universities.

So my question is; if your child can't get into an RG university - should they accept that they will be unemployable oiks upon graduation and resign themselves to a life working in call centres?

(Heavy on the sarcasm)

I went to a non-RG university before they existed in a shit town and got myself a shiny First. I've never been unemployed (except now as a sahm).

Would a First from Luton be like a failed-not-quite Third from Edinburgh?

And please can we stop dissing people who work in call-centres? How can you tell they haven't got a 2:1 from Manchester but had a nervous breakdown and just need a job to pay the bills? (For extreme example!)

I did my BA, my MPhil and am now doing my DPhil at a RG Uni thanks to Uni for having such fucking obvious classifications. As someone has said before me: the RG title and the power some seem to think it brings is utter bullshit usually only believed by self righteous mothers: "well my son got into Leeds so good fucking luck at Canterbury".

Far, far more important is the mark you leave with (and this is relative, you might want to further advance in academia, you might not) and, more essentially, the aptitude of the individual student.

For example, some people who attended non-RG & non-redbricks for very difficult subjects such as Law complain that they struggle to find employment after they graduate.
Lots of those people complain that it is because of the establishment they attended: that if they went to a RG they would have snapped up employment instantly upon taking up their mortar board. No. The likelihood is that they just found a better candidate than you. Perhaps the easiest way to accept this is to say "I knew I should have gone to LSE" and curse at how much more stupid their ex-classmates were than them.

I have made an error in my own education that many others at Oxbridge also commit: I have stuck to one institution for my entire educational career. When I graduate, I will have spent the best part of 10 years learning in the same institution, using the same methods, studying with the same resources. This shouldn't affect me greatly, because I hope to stick with academia. But, for employers, this is Very Bad.

Modern employers want to see flexibility, adaptability, the ability to cope with change; different institutions; different tutors; new places; different learning styles. Provide your child with a varied education, make sure they aren't boring let them have and build extra curricular interests and become independent, successful adults.

Shit that went on a bit. Sorry

What's wrong with the 1994 uni's?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Group

Mbeki has received worldwide criticism for his AIDS stance. He questions the link between viruses and AIDS and believes that the correlation between poverty and the AIDS rate in Africa was a challenge to the viral theory of AIDS. His fate was not helped by Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and the overhaul of the pharmaceutical industry in South Africa. The delay in distributing antiretroviral drugs is attributed to the ban he placed on their use in public state hospitals, and is also linked to the estimated deaths of some hundreds of thousands. Thabo Mbeki has also been criticised for responding to negative comments made about his government by accusing critics of racism [from Wikipedia]

Frpm The Guardian 2008 - headline "Mbeki Aids denial 'caused 300,000 deaths'"
Following Mbeki's ousting from the leadership of the African National Congress in September, South Africa is now urgently pursuing new policies to get treatment to as many people as possible under a new health minister, Barbara Hogan.

If I were the University of Sussex I wouldn't exactly be proud of Thabo Mbeki.

TLDR surely my kids are smarter than that though!

Russell group is a self selecting lobby group. It's not of itself any indicator of quality. It is, I think, made up of institutions with a high research income by volume - if you looked at the per capita income the list would be different.

Who's proud of Mbeki? and double ? I'm going to treat myself to another for you even reading that into my post.

Really sad this thread. I'm old enough to have benefitted from a full grant so I did a subject I loved. Didn't give a toss about getting a job afterwards.

RG didn't exist when I went to uni

As it happened I did go to one but the outcry in my family because I had gone to a red brick (York) and not a proper university (Oxbridge, St Andrews, Durham etc) was a nightmare.

DD did her Maths degree at Derby (non RG) and is just finishing her PGCE at Nottingham (RG). She much preferred Derby. She starts teaching in a very good local High school in September, beating applicants from , amongst other places , Oxford.

I went to one got a 2:2 and fucked up my future career plans as a result. I regret working harder and not taking the opportunities that were there for me.

Actually I had offers from 5 of the universities on that list and could ahve gone to any of them. However I think the way my life has gone I could have gone to any old poly and never noticed the difference a few years down the line

YABU

If people think that going to a particular university is going to guarantee success in life they are in for a shock!

I can safely say my degree, degree result and choice of uni have made zip difference to my career

I did have a bloody good time at all 3 I went to though :) But careerwise it hasn't made a jot of difference

I had offers from 4 RG unis and went to a non-RG university in the end. It was the only one that could offer me the specific course I wanted. Although the courses at the other unis would have been a path into my career choice they would not have given me the professional qualification I actually needed.

The important factor is how good a uni is for a particular course. An RG uni is all well and good, but only if it caters well for your chosen subject.

I work for a nonRG uni and we get regular emails from High-Admin about how our institution beats RG in XYZ ways (quite valid points, but then they don't blow trumpet about things they don't beat RG at, do they?). Kind of funny. Insecure or what. MN obsession with RG is just further buying into the nonsense.

As it happened I did go to one but the outcry in my family because I had gone to a red brick (York)

York is a Plate Glass University not a redbrick. The distinction is between when they were established.

These silly social distinctions don't really matter, but Red Bricks are the Universities formed during the end of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century (Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol, Sheffield and Leeds).

The plate glass universities were formed in the 1960s in the second great wave of higher education expansion. The plate glasses include York, Sussex and Warwick.

Interestingly very few universities were founded between 1900 and 1960s. I can't think of any that were founded in the post war period.

Really does depend on what your Dcs want to study nor instance Loughborough has the best sports programs in the country and Leicester the best in Museum Studies but neither are RG.

On the other hand if your DCs just want to study a traditional subject like Englisg best to go for an RG univ.

I used to head the marketing dept at a Russell group univ so have seen the stats on student outcomes and employment. Rg students do fare better long term but that can be down to a lot of things not just univ choice. Most distressing is that Oxbridge grads will make twice the salary of other grads over their lifetime,

Lots of defensive people on here saying how well they did despite attending ex polys or getting a third or whatever. Keep in mind the playing field is much much different and much much more competitive than it was in the 80/90s/00s. 'twas easier to get employment and sell oneself as a univ grad.

I wish I'd known that at 18 compos - I could have told them whilst I was telling them to chill out :)

I bloody loved York. It was excellent.

I think it's a pretty recent addition to the RG group.

I also went to Sheffield Hallam (ex-poly) and UEA. I am not sure if there is a classification called "Eastern Bloc Prison Unis" but that campus deserves the title :)

There are plenty of very good (and in some cases excellent) universities which are not Russell Group. Sussex and UEA, for example. I would say there are some third rate 'universities' that are barely worthwhile bothering with, and if they are all you can get into then you should be asking yourself whether a degree is the right thing for you, and whether it's worth taking on the debt for, given that you probably won't be any more employable for it than if you hadn't bothered, but I don't think that only RG universities should be taken seriously - no.

"Keep in mind the playing field is much much different and much much more competitive than it was in the 80/90s/00s. 'twas easier to get employment and sell oneself as a univ grad."

But that's what folk said in the 80s/90s about how much the world had changed since 50s/60s so why Uni degree so essential in the new world of the 80s-90s.

Graduates unlikely to ever exceed about 35% of the population. The idea that 65% of us are written off (or 90% if you include nonRG grads). Don't be silly. I know a lot of electricians doing very nicely, thanks.

lljkk I'm not disagreeing with you on that. Far far too many people go to University these days. As I think I mentioned early on I used to be HeadofMarketing at an RG University so had exposure to a lot of students, saw drop out rates, success rates etc.

What's particularly worrying is the people who don't know what they want to do and just sort of float through 3 years of Uni hoping a career will magically appear. Apprenticeships and trade work is often more lucrative but also means you likely get to be your own employer/boss instead of working at a desk for someone for the rest of your life.

But what I'm saying is that things are much much more competitive. Good companies only recruit at a few universities now whereas they was much wider recruitment. Internships are now only offered to students from certain universities and programs. Employers do whittle down based on both University and grade (I know because I've liaised with recruiters on this). There is now not much of a 'cachet' associated with having a university degree so potential employers find much more ways to filter.

I am inclined to agree, with regret, that going to any university you get into might not be sensible, and aiming for quality (or for what employers perceive as quality) is sensible. There will always be exceptional individuals with drive or luck who do well no matter how they did and no matter where they went, but looking realistically at what you want to do after university and asking hard questions about employability upon graduation isn't snobbery despite use of the word cachet. It's being practical.

If employers sift by RG vs non-RG and if your chosen field is one that requires a degree then I would put my ears back and go for broke in the direction of RG. If that wasn't going to be a possibility, I would have a plan B that featured universities abroad and would have the added value of having to learn another language even if the language of instruction was English. Or Trinity College Dublin, UCD or DCU.

You go to the best place in your field of study. Believe it or not that's not always an RG uni.

Simples.

And why the snobs on call centres? Bit uncalled for. I've met some very thick lawyers.

For my subject, the non-RG universities are head and shoulders above the RG ones in the league tables. That said, one should take league tables with a massive pinch of salt.