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?

It was 8 years ago but I now mentor law students/hopeful law students and trainees and there's really no difference. It's a question that's often raised in interviews regardless of blind recruiting. Or is frankly obvious from A level scores. Shouldn't be, but it is.

I have been mentoring disadvantaged students for years now and have obviously seen the recruitment processes in the companies I work for (I'm now in-house). I do this because I'm from a disadvantaged background myself and wanted to help people from similar backgrounds. I've seen one person I've been supporting get into a good firm from Sheffield Hallam. That's it. Everyone else has been from a top 20 or so university.

Where you work may be truly blind to university but many places are really really not.

Always on threads like these people pop up to talk about entry standards as an important indicator of which universities are ‘better’. In truth all entry standards tell you is a little bit about the academic quality of 18-year-olds applying to a given university. They tell you very, very little about the quality of a course or the quality of teaching, or indeed the quality of the graduates after 3 (or 4) years at that university.

All the pedagogic research indicates that academic achievement is not linear (there are myriad reasons for this, including the point made above by @VioletaDelValle, too many to go into here). There is no guarantee whatsoever that the brightest teenagers are going to be the brightest 20somethings. This is evidenced by that fact that when you are applying for a Masters course most universities don't even ask for your A level grades; they simply aren’t interested because they know it’s not a good measure of your suitability for higher degrees.

Always on threads like these people pop up to talk about entry standards as an important indicator of which universities are ‘better’. In truth all entry standards tell you is a little bit about the academic quality of 18-year-olds applying to a given university. They tell you very, very little about the quality of a course or the quality of teaching, or indeed the quality of the graduates after 3 (or 4) years at that university.

So true. Entry requirements are, in part, just a way of positioning a course in the market. The reality is an admissions tutor can make an offer that differs from the published entry requirements, and they often do!
Clearly some courses require previous knowledge and those are the ones that ask for specific grades in specific subjects but there is often a degree of flexibility when it comes to e try requirements!!

Whereas the millionaires in my circle have a PhD in engineering and a first in maths from Oxford.

Neither of these facts have any relevance to this thread.

My DS graduated from a RG uni last year. I was amazed he got on exactly the undergrad course he wanted.

He's always been clever but lazy. Totally screwed up his GCSE's, couldn't do the A-levels he wanted so ended up on a Level 3 B-Tec course. He matured and flourished, it was the best thing that could have happened (in hindsight!). He was graded Distinction (star), Distinction (star), Distinction, a total of 160 UCAS points.

His uni course entry requirements were based on UCAS points, they didn't care if they were from A-levels or a B-tec.

I can share the Times Good University Guide - if anyone would like the link?

While job-hunting we found this guide to be very interesting:

The Graduate Market in 2022 is a study of the latest graduate vacancies and starting salaries at the UK’s one hundred best-known and most successful employers, conducted by High Fliers Research during January 2022. - Source

@Needmorelego Hm, Aberystwyth or Bangor then possibly

I feel that the term Russell Group has simply become synonymous with requiring higher entry grades. So, while there is some snobbery I also think there is also some inverted snobbery, especially from parents of young people who are unlikely to achieve those grades.

For courses that are accredited by a professional body or other vocational courses it doesn’t matter where you study as there is more consistency around the marking and they all have to meet a minimum standard.
For other courses I often wonder if a history degree from say Durham would be regarded in the same light as a history degree from a university with entry grades of CCC or lower.

If they are considered equal then on what criteria are universities really ranked? How many students are really that interested in how research intensive a university is? Is it just the funding that the research brings in? Do students at universities with lower entry grades have more contact hours? Are they “spoon-fed” more? Is the teaching better?

What makes a university a highly regarded one?

DD went to a lower ranking RG university because that is where she wanted to go. She didn’t like Bristol, Manchester, Warwick, York or Lancaster so she went where she knew she would feel happy. She had a fair number of contact hours because it was a STEM degree but was certainly not spoon-fed. Her cohort was quite large – about 300, and the students had no opportunity to build a rapport with the lecturers and tutors as they studied a different module every few weeks.

She met her personal tutor just once. He then never turned up for subsequent meetings, so she changed her tutor during lockdown and “met” her second tutor just once on Teams. She excelled at her degree, but I did feel that the teaching staff were too “hands off”.

That's a real shame @Whichwhatnow. Law especially could do with greater diversity.

I'm massively privileged. I don't think my degree is worth anywhere near as much as someone with the same degree from a 'lesser' institution who didn't have the same advantages I had.

We are currently employing more and more apprentices - kids still at school who are continuing their education while working. They're such a breath of fresh air compared to some of the graduate trainees of the past who seemed to think we should be grateful to have them. Our apprentices work really hard and are an absolute joy. Sure, they need much more intervention at first but by the time they're the age of the graduates, they're streets ahead.

I'm increasingly of the mind that a degree is a very expensive three year waste of time unless you're planning a career in academia.

I think “Russel Group” is a sort of lazy shorthand.
When I first came to the UK people talked about Stone, Brick and Plateglass universities and polytechnics. It was lazy too.
These shorthands are snappier, and more poetic, than saying “top 10” or “top 20,” but also a lot less accurate.

I never use RG as a phrase as it didn't exist when I went to university and plenty in there are lower down the league tables anyway so may be RG but are not top of RG. Using entry standards is in my view the purest and market led and best way to assess them.

It results in a lot of other htings too - whether you are at university with people with very low A lvel grades are high ones, what ambitions and types of jobs your fellow students will have and a heap of other things that to with say someone at Oxford compared with Sunderland (I am from the NE and my father and uncle and nephew went to Durham). it is a vast array of differences. Now you can argue until the cows come home about people getting great jobs from very low level universities but you are going to have a lot of better chances at the ones which have more competitive entry.

Large law firm. Believe me we still prefer trainees from top universities, however much the HR team might try to suggest it doesn’t matter where someone went to university. It is often an indicator of how academic they are and that is crucial for law.

I say this as someone who went to a poor performing comprehensive and was the first in my family to stay at school post 16.

Blind recruitment is yet another blunt instrument which doesn’t really work.

Shame law is so behind the curve. Male stale and pale will remain the default for another generation. Sad indictment of what used to be a respected profession.

@MrsPBlotto A degree is just one tool you add to your toolbox to get a job in the career you want.

It takes many things to get a Job and a Degree is just one part of it, lets face it you only learn once you have a job and then after you get a bit of experience no one ever looks a at your degree ever again its just one tick in a box.

From my personal perspective I and the others i work with have never cared where someone gets their degree it's just that they have it and what grade it is. In my industry you cannot get your foot in the door without a degree, RG or not I don't care and I don't know anyone who does.

Some may but their either extremely specialist and up their own arse and to be honest is they are picking their staff by RG only I would not want their business or work for them anyway.

I guess its just a MN my kids are special look at me. 🙄

To be fair, it is schools who push this narrative. After DD took her A levels the school 6th form posted on its website the percentage of pupils who went to RG universities.

There always a lot of lawyers on MN who post on threads like this, and I feel that their world isn't representative of real life.

Often there is the assumption that everyone wants to work in London, in law or finance or a magic circle firm and make a shed load of money. Most young people don't. No-one wants to be poor, but most young people want a job that they find interesting and satisfying that pays well.

DD wants a health care role and has just applied for a masters at an unremarkable university.

It's Russell Group btw.

Same. I went to two, undergrad and post-grad and only realised it was a thing on here. I had heard them referred to as ‘red brick’ v ‘polys’. Is that the same thing?

@Newnamenewme23 I'd be proud if she got into any uni. In fact the first offer she got was a non RG uni and I was delighted as if meant quite simply she had got a university she can do her desired course at. But the fact she has also had offers from several RG unis (including an excellent local one which is renowned for medical research ) is amazing because THEY ARE NOT TARGETED AT PEOPLE LIKE US!

And I did both my vocational degrees at crap unis I'd never even heard of Russell Group think they were refered to simply as red brick then

Using entry standards is in my view the purest and market led and best way to assess them.

Except that it's not. It's completely flawed. I have explained why just a few posts above yours. Entry standards INTO a university tell you precisely nothing about the quality of graduate LEAVING that university.

The Russell Group is a group of 24 universities focused on academic excellence and quality of research. They attract about 90% of the research funding in the UK in some years. The 'red bricks' are a different grouping of universities, typically created in the Victorian era. The post-92s are mostly ex-polytechnics, that focus on making higher education more accessible.

They all have their strengths. If your child wants to do post graduate research into nuclear fission, gain their phd and then continue with research, they probably need to aim for a Russell Group.

If the objective is to get a good business degree then a red brick would probably be better. If you want a degree in nursing, then this is the specialism of some of the post-92s.

It's more about what you want to study, and what the objective is, afterwards.

I went to a RG university, but didn't know it at the time. Looking back, all the people on the post graduate training course I was on were also from RG universities, so it has some weight to it..

I still stand behind "Using entry standards is in my view the purest and market led and best way to assess them."

For those jobs wanting people who work extremely hard, have very good exam results in school and at university picking from that group as an employer tends to get you the better candidates for the jobs where you need people of that kind.

However we can all agree to disagree; but my concern is if teenagers are told it does not matter if you pick London Met over Oxford or Durham they being wilfully deluded by those advising them and that is a pity.

The last two employers I’ve worked for have only looked at RG graduates for their graduate schemes. We have that many applicants that this is one of the first sifts they do. Regardless of whether they’re right or wrong to do that, the fact remains that they do it. So from that, I would always go RG in this field (STEM).

Surely this is terrible for workplace diversity and, considering we live in a global economy, really shortsighted of the employers in ensuring they obtain the best possible talent? I’d guess around half of my colleagues have been educated outwith the UK - and we have some incredibly talented actuaries, bordereaux specialists and statisticians who help make us a global market leader. The idea that they’d be immediately sifted out because they didn’t graduate from a tiny handful of British universities is astonishing.

I work in STEM and there are a couple of non-RG uni’s we look at over RG. The courses are outstanding, highly ranked, and graduates are sought after.

if your company is only recruiting RG graduates with no consideration as to the actual standards and rankings, they’re missing out.

surely it would make more sense to compile a list of the top 20 performing uni’s/courses and recruit from them, rather than some arbitrary marketing tool.