Is the whole ‘russel group’ thing just snobbery?

[MrsPBlotto]

DD is 17 and has applied to university this summer. Granted her course is very vocational so perhaps this bias only applies for academic subjects. All but one of the universities she’s applied to are post 1992 and the one uni she has applied to that’s not one is not an RG. I’m not bothered in the slightest as for the field DD wants to go into a degree is a degree and I’m far more concerned that she’s happy at the university she goes to.

However, I’ve seen a lot of posts here and comments from other parents saying that an RG is the best of the best and almost implying russel groups are the only universities worth going to. I’m not sure this is actually true as I know a lot of people who’ve gone to ex poly unis and been far more successful in life than those who’s gone to RG’s (granted that’s anecdotal). And I really don’t understand where this bias comes from that somehow a self proclaimed group of 20 or so universities are somehow the best of the best and any others (especially if post 1992) are not worth the money. Is this just snobbery and people trying to set themselves apart or is there any truth to the idea russel groups are inherently better universities?

I agree with Lightstoasteraction. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of it all, applicants need to be aware of the prejudices and understandings of the world. Many won’t have a detailed knowledge of the best unis for different courses and how that can differ over time. They will use a simple and blunt metric and currently this often means RG=top quality. Others will use RG++ and know too that the other Unis Lights mentioned are very good and perhaps know about one or two others. But they might not. But that’s the world we live in.

@Newnamenewme23 I don't want to send my kids to any specific uni! Don't know why you've got it in for me about this tbf! My daughter chose a few unis - some Russel group some not but our most local one is a Russell group with an excellent reputation so she will go there so she doesn't need to move away - not sure why you've painted me as some pushy parent with stars in my eyes but I'm damn proud she has been offered a place when many applicants won't be - wtf shouldn't I be?

@Newnamenewme23 why are you so bitter about it ?

All five unis I applied for offered me a place. I met the conditions for all of them. One was an RG. I chose not to go there because I preferred the modules offered at an ex poly.

Not one person ever asked which uni I went to. Not one asked my MSc classification. I did get a head start because my UG was first class. Obviously if I'd chosen the RG, it would have been a third 😉

I changed my mind about four weeks into my postgrad and asked to change. They uhmmed and ahhhed until they asked my degree class. Oddly ten minutes later I got an email offering me a place on the course I wanted to do.

From an EX POLY!

We’ve used the blind approach for years - by no means perfect but the graduate recruitment team seem to have a tried and tested approach and put forward candidates from a range of backgrounds (isn’t that what every employer should be aiming for as a minimum?) but academically successful when employed and taking their post grad exams.

If a magic circle law firm is only recruiting from Oxbridge their blind approach isn’t working. my friend is a partner in one of the magic circle - went to a local comprehensive school and then did her law degree at Abertay.

A lot of places have minimum A level grade requirements, then a psych test and then you fill in an application form. Only once you get through all that does it become blind (that may not be the case with Parker's place of course) once through those hurdles the interview or assessment might well be on the basis the interviewer does not know where you want to university although as just about everyone has a linkedin profile which gives vast amounts of information I suppose in the blind recruitment schemes they probably have to forbid those interviewing from looking up the candidate online.

It does feel a bit unfair that someone with low grades at school and university and a sibling with much better ones - as in our family with one of my children - that the one who didn't work very hard gets the same chance as those who did as then the message to teenagers is go out drinking every night, vet your CCC A levels and 3rd lass degree and you will be regarded as well as the 3 A star Oxbridge first at interview state. Have we really come to this?

I did a non scientific examination of linkedins for new hires at one large employer and it was interesting that almost all the diversity candidates were international - Eg nigerian, been to English boarding school or Malaysian with very top grades. There was one BAME candidate who came from Uk deprived area and got a first at a poor university. What everyone I looked up had in common was high exam grades including virtually everyone having a first.

Anyway it is all interesting stuff. In the Cultural revolution china sent the children of the elite to the countryside to be rubbihs collectors to try to iron out the fact the children of the intelligensia tend to be like their parents. I don't think it worked too well.

How many companies (outside of law) look at A level grades when employing graduates these days?

Absolutely none, in my experience @RampantIvy . My DCs have friends in a number of professions ranging from medics to architects, IT consultants to writers, engineers to scientists. Some of the eldest's friends are now onto their second or third job, and not one who has at least a first degree has ever been asked about their A level results.

It must be something unique to the law profession.

Are people suggesting that A Level results, university attended and degree are all irrelevant to employers and those with poor passes at A Level, who attend Cromer HE College (made up example on earlier post from someone) are as equally regarded as those with top grades?

I honestly can’t believe it. And if it were true, what would be the purposive of A Levels and degrees and everything before work, if at the pin t where people apply for jobs, everyone is absolutely equal and cannot be distinguished from each other?

I understand that once in work, experience trumps education. But until people have that experience, education is a key and probably the key indicator.

I think A level grades are irrelevant once people have a degree, but as an employer, I do notice where the degree is from and some degrees are clearly more impressive than others.

And yes, after a few years of experience, the degree becomes pretty irrelevant as well.

I didn't even know I went to a Russell group uni until a few months ago when someone on here was talking about it and I had to look it up.
People should just choose the course they want. That's what shapes your career not the uni you went to.

I went to an RG and whilst I loved the experience, I struggled a LOT because the pastoral care was atrocious and I was surrounded by people whose parents were bankrolling them. I grew up in traumatic circumstances and without good coping skills, so the shock of it was really hard to take.

I did well there academically but sometimes I wish I’d gone to a “softer” place where they’d have been focussed on looking after young adults living away from home for the first time as much as the academic stuff.

I don’t know if it’s still like that but I got the impression that because the university didn’t need to try that hard to get applicants, it focussed only on maintaining its teaching and research reputation and remaining in the Times’ top 10 list. Not on the student experience.

Anyway, I guess my point is that RG ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. It certainly didn’t springboard me into a fab job - I had to take a circuitous route to do that.

I am sure if someone has a choice between a better university which is harder to get into and one that is offering an unconditional offer before A levels and will take you even with 3 Cs the teenager would be better off at the harder to get into university even if some employers do not look at the A level grades or institution attended, otherwise people would go to the easiest to get into, get poor A level grades and not do much work.

The interesting point comes if a first from one place is not as hard to get as a first from Oxford or Durham. Even then I would advise the student to go to the better university even if they will get at 2/1 not a first.

I wouldn't as it really varies by subject.

You need to find the best course or courses for your subject.

I know from my time at university and what of one of my friends' now does, that some industries have a strong influence on what is studied on certain courses at one or more universities.

In fact my sibling who has done best - mind you he's one of the younger ones so took on board all the stuff we told him - went to a plate glass university. However it is one that does lots of sandwich degrees. He works for a top accountancy firm. He also got a first in his degree. He has faced some deprivation due to his personal circumstances but on paper he looks like he came from an affluent area of London. He didn't but he lived next to one so ensured he traveled to be educated there at A level.

The blind recruitment is an attempt to rectify a flawed University admissions process.
I did my A level equivalent exams in another European country.
The system there means that the Universities select the candidates blindly.
We have no personal statements, no interviews ( apart from Medicine), no predicted grades.
The University has no identifying information about you at all.
Each candidate has a number and is given a place on a degree course based on grades alone.
This acts as a mechanism to incentivise schools to perform well.

I don’t know about Russell Group vs non RG, but my friend went to Portsmouth ‘university’ and was set one essay a term. I had two essays a week. I learned a lot more at university than my friend, who concluded that uni is a bit pointless unless you’re a big drinker.

So ask around and know what you’re walking into.

Russell Group…

I went to a Russell Group university in the 1980s so under the old system. I went from a sink comprehensive. My father had a blue collar job. Russell Group are not self-proclaimed; they are the universities with best research bases, something which is independently verified.

For most universities in the UK it is grades alone (other than contextual candidates)- the personal statement is not given too much credence and higher grades mean you get your place by and large. I don't think any of my 5 children who have all graduated had an interview for their degrees. I had one for law back in the 80s but the other offers were without interview.

I suppose if what is said on the thread is true that there is not much point working very hard to get into a hard to get into university then contextual schemes like those Oxbridge and Bristol run are completely pointless as the candidate could go to their local Sunderland U or London Met instead and that the contextual system is a con to make them think the best 5 unviersity are best when they aren't?

Obviously I don't agree with that at all and think you should always try to get into the best one.

In the 80s my siblings and I did career specific degrees (as did my parents and my uncle much earlier). Law, Medicine etc and all these years on all of us still work in the profession which went with that degree.

No one is suggesting that. They are suggesting that a 2:1 in economics from a red brick and a 2:1 in economics from a RG are viewed as broadly equivalent for employers when taking candidates for graduate trainee programmes through to interview. And yes I would also agree that even your degree means bugger all once you're further into your career. And no one gives a toss where you went to school or what you got in your A levels.

I do a lot of work with a massive global consultancy firm and they are actively recruiting and training people from developing countries, some of whom have had very little recognisable formal qualifications. Clever people who are going to find creative solutions to solving the world's problems come from everywhere, not just selective schools in Surrey and RG universities.

they are the universities with best research bases, something which is independently verified.

But that doesn't always translate into excellent UG teaching or support for students.

Russell Group are not self-proclaimed; they are the universities with best research bases, something which is independently verified

not always. There are non RG uni’s with top research departments, often better than RG.

it is kind of self proclaimed. The uni’s within RG are some of the better ones, but not all. to write off biochem at Dundee for example, because it isn’t RG when it’s research is world class.

RG is a good starting point, but to automatically assume they are better than non-RG is misguided.

But that doesn't always translate into excellent UG teaching or support for students.

No it doesn't. I think we can all agree that Russell Group + (by + I mean plus Bath, Lancaster, Loughborough and St Andrews) have a higher entry grade requirement, so I can understand why they are viewed as better universities because the cohort will have a generally higher attainment than "Cromer University"

Doesn't all this make the university league tables rather pointless then? The measures on the CUG are by and large rather meaningless. Most students don't complete student satisfaction surveys and most students couldn't care less about research quality. I would have thought that measures like TEF are more relevant to students.

I don’t think it will ever be pointless to work hard at school and get good grades. They do open doors of opportunity. For people wanting to go into careers that require academic ability, those grades will always make them stand out in the phase before experience trumps education.

Okay, so perhaps firms won’t look at what school or university someone attended. However, I don’t think anyone is suggesting exam results aren’t looked at. The person with 3 A stars and a First, is more likely to be sifted through to the next stage of the process, than the person with DDD and a First in the same subject. Whether you look at which Uni they went to or not, it’s likely the first person actually did attend one of the more competitive unis and the second person didn’t.

Of course, both people could have gone to any type of school….although we know some schools will be over or under-represented in both the A Level results and universities attended.

Are people suggesting that universities shouldn’t look at predicted A Level grades or actual A Level grades or A Level grades for those applying post-A Level?

And for all the people saying that by the time you’re onto your 2nd or 3rd job, degree class and A Levels don’t count for much….well yes, of course they diminish in importance and experience trumps it. But I think people forget that when graduates first apply for jobs, they often don’t have much more than their grades and university experiences. And when popular grad schemes are heavily heavily over subscribed, a first point of sift will be those grads achieved at degree and A Level.

Again, is anyone seriously suggesting that if you’re looking at non-vocational and non-technical degrees, the First from Cromer HE College is equal to the First from Durham?