How important is student to staff ratio when choosing university degree?

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My dd is looking at various universities hoping to apply for Psychology next year.
Student to staff ratio varies greatly, from 7 in Bath to 26 in Warwick.

Could someone please explain to me how to take those numbers and what to make of them.

2 hours is way more than we had back in the day. We had an hour a week of small group (4-6 of us) tutorials and 1:1 time with the tutor was something that you did when you were summoned and you got out of there again as fast as possible! I did a subject where lab based practical sessions were more useful, though, and we had 6 hours of those a week.

Do not think that "an academic being well recognised in their field" = "good lecturer" there is no correlation at all.

I would ask questions of the students on campus about how many are in lectures / tutorials / how available staff are to help if they get stuck or have a question, etc.

"an academic being well recognised in their field" = "good lecturer" there is no correlation at all

And equally, it doesn't mean there is NO correlation (looks at nominations for teaching excellence as well as large research grants).

As someone wisely said upthread, you need to look at specific courses in specific Departments in specific universities.

But one thing having the "top" academics means is that you're being taught in an atmosphere that values pushing the boundaries, and that really does have an effect on the teaching and the ethos of a place. You're being taught in a place where there are people who are writing the books that other people use to teach.

It looks liek it would be extremely hard to learn all those details of let say 7-8 university courses (assuming she isn't going to change her mind!!!!)
I am going to make a list/spreadsheet with questions and note answers as we travel between Open days.
I know this may sounds like a parent interfering but being educated abroad all of it is very new to me. I want to be able to be a sounding board (as far as possible) and point out to her things I notice. I am generally very skeptical of simplified data which could have been massaged and extensive marketing where fashionable words are used.

She is very much into her music so choosing place where she can join a decent percussion group, some orchestra and an active musical theatre production group is also important to her (Warwick had all of them under one roof on their campus!).

upthechimney and any others in the know. Would having info on the percentage of students getting 1st, 2:1 degree on a particular course be a good indicator on how good, well run, teaching quality of a dept plus quality of students. If so are these numbers accessible to us if not would it be rude to ask for them on post offer days. I don't want dd to offend the lecturer if its a sore subject. To some extent i think its up to students and their work ethics etc that will effect their final attainment. But if say a course had low percentage of students attaining say a 2:1 think it may put off potential students as they may percieve it as bad teaching or not enough contact time.

Data on the numbers of firsts etc is also hard to interpret. There are definitely departments who are inflating their marks to improve their NSS scores but such inflation doesn't benefit the students. (I suspect it is also quite well known amongst many prospective employers.)

polkadottyme THat's a good question but a tricky one., as I think the real indicator is the Value Added one. That is, how much better did students do than their school qualifications suggest. If you get a load of kids in with AAB at A Level, all coming from fee-paying schools (so bought privilege of small classes, pushing etc) then a load of 2, i results is what you'd expect.

And I think (from memory, on the run here as I should be marking) that several of the newspaper league tables have this data. Try the Guardian league tables (no pay wall like The Times).

And honestly, it isn't hard to collate data about the modes of teaching. When I've done Open Day talks (I don't generally insert MN phrases, maybe I should?) I've always talked about how we teach

Thanks ulien will bear that in mind that with these types of data theres more to it than meets the eye. So complicated.
upthechimpney yep I can see the logic to your thinking, which kind of got me thinking on another tangent??? say if the course is a AAB entry and because of low intake of student they decided to take on BBB or below students as well to make up the numbers would that have an impact on overall quality of teaching? as I assume BBB students will have gaps in their knowledge and would need extra help. And plus would this impact on group work since students will have to work with kids that are less able so to speak which may result in able students unfairly graded lower. Is it reasonable to ask the question of "what percentage of students have obtained a place lower than advertised" Obviously high A level grade students who didn't pull their socks up could just do easily as bad. But I would have thought students with lower grade entry would pose a higher risk of struggling. Ideally a university that purports that it has stringent selection process would be enough to satisfy my mind but in practice it seems this might not be the case as I've read on other threads. Or do you think I shouldn't be too bothered about depts selection process as there is little evidence or significant impact on the quality of the education offered.

Warwick is better than Bath.

say if the course is a AAB entry and because of low intake of student they decided to take on BBB or below students as well to make up the numbers would that have an impact on overall quality of teaching? as I assume BBB students will have gaps in their knowledge and would need extra help
Not necessarily ...

A course at a university where I used to teach (about 15 years ago) was considered then and is considered now to be one of the best (ie top 10) and we took students with BBC. Our standard offer was BBB. I think it's now around ABB/AAB

I doubt the course has changed much. What's changed is what results attract what kind of funding Tories fucked up one of the best university systems in the world and a change in the way A Levels are marked, from standardised distribution model to a criterion-referenced model. So A Level results are higher, and universities can recruit as many ABB students as they can teach, without financial penalty.

Sorry, nothing's simple.

This is why my consistent advice is don't try to game the system, go for the university course which seems best to fit the applicant's criteria. Get your DC to sit down and think what is important to them:

• the kind of overall environment in which they want to study (eg campus university, greenfield site, city university, spread out, collegiate, small specialised, big etc etc etc)
• the way they want to study -- modes of teaching, modes of assessment
• the focus of the course (no two History degrees will be the same): what are the specialisms of the staff, for example?
• opportunities for year abroad etc

And so on.

The REF submissions have been published here:
results.ref.ac.uk
if you want to see how Departments represent themselves. Go to the "Environment Template" to see what particular Departments consider to be their USP and areas of concentration. Research focus will show up in teaching in good universities ie research-led universities. For example, I'm not teaching much as I have quite a jammy Fellowship. I'm writing a book, plus a whole ot of other stuff. In the run up to this period of writing, I taught a module based on the broad area of the book and so engaged the students in cutting edge research. So there's a direct relationship between my teaching & research, and my students say how much they enjoy it (pretty much "full marks" on my internal student satisifaction surveys).

So if there's an interest in Psychology at Warwick and Bath, go to the "Unit of Assessment" that includes Psychology, and have a browse.

If the students in your seminar group are much less clever or hardworking than you then yes, your learning may well be effected by the presence of less able students.

But A level results may not be a good predictor of this! I find that students with very good A level results can be as stumped & challenged as those with BTECs particularly if they've been bought an education, where they can often be much more spoonfed than those from the much maligned "bog-standard comp"

I know someone whose child recently dropped out of university after trying to re-take two years. He went to a top private school and couldn't cope with the transition to working alone. He had a fantastic time partying though. Equally, I know some state school children who got lower results at A Level and went on to get 2/1 and firsts.

Remember children in state comprehensives are being asked to get the same grades as someone who went to Marlborough College. Just because they sometimes don't quite manage it, doesn't mean that they are thicker.

That is not what we have found. A levels whether from a comp or state grammar or private schools are a pretty good indicator of how bright people are.

I suspect that the correlation between A levels and degrees depends on the subject. Ime A levels are a good predictor for degree performance in maths/physical sciences, regardless of whether the student attended a state or private school. I don't think you can buy As in Further Maths by attending a top private school; an A is an indicator that you will do well in maths/physics/engineering. Conversely if you get a B in Maths then maths/physical sciences are probably not going to the best option, regardless of whether that B was obtained at a state school or not.

BTW offers are also pretty standardised in maths/physics, which is another indication that we don't feel school type affects A level grades. (Obviously for schools in very deprived areas/with very poor track records slightly lower offers are given but offers are not lower for regular comprehensives.)

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9617603/A-level-results-2012-private-schools-dominate-top-grades.html

I don't see how the article addresses the question of whether A level grades are good predictors of university degree performance. (And indeed how this varies by subject.) Value added scores, which are declared by universities, do directly address this point.

Littleham, private schools select. Note the current anguish on the secondary education pages. It is quite hard to find a private day place in London for a less than academic child. I assume selective state schools, eg grammars also out perform the rest of the state scector.

I also agree with Uilen. A* grades generally seem hard to achieve without a real flair for a subject.

That said Private Schools seem to have an advantage when it comes to teacher recruitment, have better ability to get rid of difficult children, which when added to a selective intake and smaller classes presumably helps create an optimal learning environment. Our experience has been that this additional capacity has provided time to encourage the development of independent learning skills. Plus if you can avoid the party culture in affluent central London and get the grades needed, you should be pretty immune to distraction once you get to University.

And back to the origional topic, I would second suggestions to look at a University in the round. If your child is a self starter with an genuine interest in the subject, other things, like a high proportion of post graduates can be an advantage. For example DS seems to have attended some informal talks given by research students, and has had chances to work with others on an independent piece of research. This probably wont be included in his contact hours, but adds to his learning experience. Socially there seems to be far less of a distinction between the different years or UG/PG than I would have expected, meaning he has access to a lot of experience and mentoring. Plus there is a good programme of public lectures. Which all makes up for the fact that the main first year lecture has 1,000 students in the room, and inevitably has to be pitched towards a lower common denominator. A student only attending compulsary lectures and classes coud end up feeling quite let down.

Thanks to everyone who replied it really has helped me put some of my thinking to some kind of order and relevance. You see I always thought courses that say it requires AAA, was that grade for a reason, that in order to succeed in that particular course on offer it requires those grade capabilities hence me questioning that if they taking below it, will there be a impact all round to the students and teaching etc. Upthechimney you make a good point about government caps on ABB but aren't they removing this too. So technically AAB or whatever the university is advertising the course for they could take in whatever grade students achieved without being penalised so to some extent would impact on the students as my simple thinking would be like putting set1 able kids with set 4 need more help and slower pace kids together in hope they would be able to bring the best out of each other in reality don't think it would work. This scenario would only happen if the uni in question is more bothered about student fees, but I think it would kind of bother me if RG uni did this in the future as at the moment removing the cap is still new hasn't yet realised its full impact. Plus I think some kids might feel peeved that they worked extremely hard to achieve AAA offer say and yet they were going to be lenient anyways and let in high proportion of BBB's. I wonder though if this is what some good uni will be doing on some of their courses in the future rather than just in exceptional cases but more of a norm.

I think "good" universities are already being more lenient for many courses although not as much as allowing AAA to drop to BBB. I don't think that the actual standards of the courses are being dumbed down though i.e. it is up to the students who got AAB/ABB to keep up with the AAA+ students. Some courses are seeing increased dropout rates when the ABB students can't keep up but the academics are under some pressure not to fail too many...

Given the government's policies, i.e. the lack of increase in the fees with inflation accompanied by the removal of number caps, it is probably inevitable that universities look to fill more places with slightly weaker students. All universities, including the very top ones, are reliant on their fee income and need to maximise it wherever they can. Even Oxbridge will take less than ideal students at times e.g. self-funding students for taught masters.

It's very interesting ulien I can see that its not all the universities fault if they resort to recruiting weaker students they are somewhat controlled by funding and fees ultimately management. I guess Dept's would ideally like to have greater freedom in the selection process and somewhat be able to stay rigourous so they able to best choose those that will best succeed on their degree programme but because of upper management so to speak are unable to do so.

Also I hear that a lot of the blue chip companies aren't impressed if graduates don't at least have a 2:1 don't know how true that is. But if so with this in mind a degree being a very expensive investment I feel somewhat its important that selecting a uni that can best help student achieve this is quite important plus nobody ever declare a E grade they got in french at GCSE in their CV as it kind a officially confirms they crap at French! Getting a not very good degree classification would be kind of the same thing would you declare it or not on your CV. I never went to uni, 3 of my kids didn't go either only the youngest one decided she's off. I'm on one fast learning curve feel like things have gotten so un transparent since the early 80's its hard to see whats what and best for whom.

If you don't have a 2/1 it is very very hard to get a job in all sorts of companies - even places like Royal Mail which is hardly a hot house of the best of the bunch. now in my day 15% of us went to university and only a third of us got 2/1 or higher and even a 2/2 was perfectly okay.

However if it's a 2/1 from not a very good university that person will also not be considered for a good few jobs. Bath is fine. I think Warwick is better regarded so I would imagine most students would put Warwick above Bath in terms of general graduate recruitment issues. Just as you'd put Oxford above Bristol or Bristol above Exeter and Exeter above Middlesex ex Poly etc.

If you don't put your degree classification on the CV employers will ask and some on line applications these days anyway only let you through to the next stage if you have the basics which they need and they check with university and not just ask to see certificates by the way so never lie.

UptheChimney

Bath is missing from this list results.ref.ac.uk/Results/ByUoa/4

interesting reading though!

I thank you for spelling out what we really have to think about in matching my dd's personality and preferences with the actual course

I need to reread this thread to extract all wise words

flowerfairywhat's your opinion Bath or Bristol for graduate employment. Dd only got Bristol and Nottingham so far still waiting on Bath. upthechimpney ref link was also relevant read for me too as dd is reading neuroscience thanks this end too

I'm a current Psychology undergrad at Bath, and also had offers from Nottingham, Southampton, Kent, and Loughborough. I did a ridiculous amount of research when deciding where to go, which I'm unsure whether I can reasonably blame on being a mature student, or if it's just my obsessive personality! For psychology Bath really is second only to Cambridge for graduate employment - Bath psychology grads are very well thought of, and that is not bias making me say that - it's the main reason I chose Bath over my other offers. If you have any questions about the course or uni then please ask, and if I can help I will.