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?

BOF
I was at Uni in the 80's : there was no RG then. The fact that my Uni VC was at the meeting has no impact on my degree.
RG is lazy short hand for eejits (like Gove and Wilshaw)

Huh! I went to St Andrews and would have thought it would be on this list, but it's not!

cocktail
St Andrews wont be, ever.
Its an undergrad focussed Uni, not a postgrad research uni.
That is the point that the politicians and media miss

Fairy muff, Talk! Thanks.

No 'RG' but there was 'red brick' and Oxbridge, and then there were all The Rest. This is from an Irish perspective.

I went to one of the universities on that list. No employer has ever given a damn. In fact, no employer has ever given a damn about my education at all. All they've cared about has been experience, and that's been almost impossible to get, unless you want to apply for a job that is almost identical to the one you're trying to leave.

Thing is I worked at 2 non-RGs (mentioned with praise here :) ), and socialised & lived even with loads & loads of postgrads. I doubt RG has much monopoly on them, either.

lljkk
RG was an accident of circumstance : maybe some VCs got stuck in the traffic so were not there. It is the lazy meejah and ferkwit politicians that have given it the false kudos that became self perpetuating.
The Ivy League after all started out as a sports competition ....

Sports mad : Loughborough
Has solder burns on fingers : Southampton, UMIST, Cardiff

... I've been trying to get some non-existent stats. The RG group brag that they pull in 72% of all research & contract income (£3.2 billion, £133 million each). Delving into figures, Cambridge Uni had about £283 million of that, Oxford a mere group average of £133 million. I wonder how variable others are? Still, puts my employers in the shade (£30-£41 million ish). Exeter is a mere £46m/annum and they were invited in to the RG club.

So that's it, really, just have to pay one's way in, I guess.

I can't get any figures about how many PhDs in RG vs. non RG.

On a more serious note (in case anyone is in doubt, my previous posts were lighthearted/ intended as jokes, please no-one get offended), it is worth checking out the strengths and weaknesses of any uni your DCs want to apply to, regardless of their grouping. Some have excellent reputations for some subjects, and are weaker in others.

Another thing to consider is the choice of subject. Some employers prefer degrees in traditional subjects such as history or physics, rather than law or media studies.

I didn't go to one - just went to an ex poly. Still have a 2:1 and have never struggled to get teaching posts.

Dh turned a RG one down and went to read law, again at an ex poly. Now a senior partner at a law firm and earning very good money. RG friends earning less, even those in same profession.

Brother got a first from a non RG uni - still doing exceptionally well and earning good money.

Sister did go to a RG uni, but didn't ever refer to it as such at the time - we probably didn't ever realise til more recently as not something anyone ever focused on round here. Did very well, now practising law. Unlikely to become a senior partner, etc as , though presumably a good lawyer and being well thought of where she is, she is not as professionally driven as DH and has differnrt priorities.

I will just support DD is whatever she wants to do, wherever that is.

Not so relevant for undergrad, but would consider one of these for masters or Ph.D study.

In my opinion (and experience; both mine and my friends) an academic degree (especially in an Arts subject) from an RG uni is worth less in terms of employability than a degree from a 'lesser' uni with strong industry links, opportunities for professional placements etc etc.

I went to one - totally irrelevant to my career which I trained post grad for.

I went to Glasgow Uni initially (which is RG), was thoroughly miserable, dropped out, went to drama school to study drama education and community theatre , loved it but graduated into an environment where funding for community arts projects was practically non-existent. To cut a long story short I'm now having to do a Masters to get into the career I want.....

Talkinpeace, St A is not, to my mind, an undergrad focused institution; it's small, sure, but competes for its postgrads with other leading universities, and has a very high per capita res income. It is too small in res volume to be RG but that does not mean it's not research focussed.

That said, I agree with your take on the RG in general.

2:2 from non RG uni, had call centre job.. helped me get the 45k plus job I have now.

My brother.
Non RG, is an accountant, went straight from Uni into one of the big four.
From there went to one that isn't (but huge company), now back with one, in a different country.

That said, I will only encourage DD to Uni if there's a point to it, not just for the sake of going.

Surely if it were almost completely undergraduated focused St. Andrews would be a boarding school for adults?

williamina In fact, one of the best places to do English is UEA. Which remains not an RG university.

For those mentioning Big 4 Firms - one of the most successful unis other than Oxbridge for getting training contracts has long been Exeter. Which, yes, is now RG having paid something like half a million pounds to be let in. But the Big 4 situation won't be impacted by that at all (except possibly some might look a bit at the decision makers for wasting so much money on a bit of vanity tagging. Nobody ever really believed that eg Cardiff, Newcastle or Sheffield was a 'better' university than Durham, UEA, Exeter or St Andrews (although St Andrews has a bit of a reputation grounded in snobbishness rather than excellence). Most recruiters know the difference between good universities and membership of a vanity tagging scheme. The correlation between RG and 'Good' is very high - but it's not the RG tag that makes the universities good. And the RG tag can't make less good institutions good no matter what they or MN choose to believe.

The Russell Group have done a a very good PR job on themselves. Hats off to them for that .

That said, it doesn't mean that some of the RG universitiesaren't the most selective and best regarded.

It seems to me that unless my DC wanted to do somehting very specific that was better catered for elsehwere, they may as well attend one of the better regarded universities. I mean why not? Why make life even harder on graduation?