Bath, not a Russell group uni, is this a problem for employers?

[tropicalfish]

Hi,
DD has an offer for biochemistry at Bath but is probably going to find a job outside the science sector once she graduates, probably in a well paid City/tech job. She feels that alot of employers, or rather people in charge of recruiting for their department are biased towards recruiting from Russell groups and hence going to Bath would place her at a disadvantage. This is probably due to the significant competition for jobs. What has been the experience of people on the forum with respect to Russell and non Russell Group universities? I'm certainly not saying that Bath is not a great university, just that people show bias towards Russell group graduates.
Many thanks,
TF

[Headofthehive55]

Yes I am sure they will have some students with previous qualifications. But not all.

I would caution prospective students looking at the sandwich type degrees offered with a placement. If it's the uni that is responsible for finding it then fine, but my DDs friends from school are in the process of trying to find a placement in science without success. They are students with fabulous A levels at RG unis...

[titchy]

76% of undergraduate OU students have a level 3 (A Level or equivalent) qualification.14% have university qualifications. Quite a lot!

[Headofthehive55]

It's difficult to compare without knowing figures for both. Although I know several who had previous higher ed qualifications on my first degree but none who came without level threes.

[titchy]

The OU has just under 125,000 undergraduates. From that you can work out how many had level 3 etc.

[Headofthehive55]

Presumably courses moderate themselves within the uni, to make sure the results are comparable, and then courses which have extra requirements outside moderate their subject at another uni? That's how it seems to work sometimes?

[Headofthehive55]

And the figures for Nottingham? Much higher one would have thought but I could be wrong.

[Headofthehive55]

And the grades may be different.

[titchy]

Oh you meant compared to other universities

For the proportion of students with level 3, they are third from bottom of all UK institutions. For the proportion with a university level qualification they are 9th from the top!

[titchy]

The league tables still only measure the tariff score of full time youngsters though, and students without a tariff score are excluded anyway.

[flowery]

"I've only ever heard RG talked about on MN"

Me too. Hadn't even heard of it until I was on here.

[Madcats]

I live down the road from Bath Uni and was asked to pop up there for several milk rounds when I worked for a Big 4 Accountancy firm (to talk about City/Corp Finance stuff, not the regional work).

The Uni itself has a great reputation, great student satisfaction and employability stats etc. The fact that a great many courses are sandwich (so you can get work experience) is also a big plus. The sport facilities are fantastic too.

Traffic is absolutely hideous during their Uni open days (DD's school even notes the dates in the school calendar to warn us!) so you might want to arrive by train and walk down from the Uni in the afternoon.

[Headofthehive55]

They do have a different demographic profile! Thanks for that tichy I hadn't realised just how different.

My DD was at a presentation by Glaxo and they said they weren't interested in the uni you went to. They said they were more interested in transferable skills, but I think it depends on what type of job you are going for.

Certainly when I graduated there was a distinction between poly and uni. I got offered a couple of jobs off the milk round, and was surprised to find that my fellow uni graduates were getting turned down by employers who were going on to employ poly graduates.

I think it matters for certain top employers in the city perhaps, but most graduates don't get those jobs sadly. Bath seems a nice place though.

[Clavinova]

Page 33 of this market research report (universities most visited by top employers) shows Bath in a very good light at number 11 in the table.
www.highfliers.co.uk/download/2015/graduate_market/GMReport15.pdf

I have certainly seen job adverts for 'graduates from a Russell Group university' or 'graduates from a top 25 university.' Even the independent schools near me have teaching vacancies for graduates from a 'good university'.

[RhodaBull]

In other words, a 2.1 from Leeds (RG group) in English will be comparable to the same from Bradford (University Alliance group) and Bath Spa (Million + group) and Cumbria (GuildHE group) and Essex (1994 group) and Aberdeen (unaffiliated).

Snort. Any HR person who "believes" this is clearly sporting a family pack of McCain oven chips on each shoulder.

[Headofthehive55]

some firms have removed the institution from the selection process.

I've often wondered if you could tell who went to which uni if you were to line people up and observe their work skills. I think there would be a general trend, but I don't think it's as clear cut as one might think. I think perception has a lot to do with it.

[OrchardDweller]

DD is at Bath Uni and is taking a degree with two placements (thin sandwich). The placements' office has been fantastic and she's had jobs with two amazing companies. They have one of the highest rates of of graduate employment for her course. It's a great university.

[Emptynester1967]

My daughter is at bath University and turned down an offer from Cambridge to go there, as did a number of her friends. For sciences, particularly physics it ranks at the top along with Manchester Uni really. I do not think for one minute she is disadvanataged - it is more about the course reputation than the uni.

[flamingnoravera]

Bath has specifically chosen not to be a Russell Group uni. The reputation is on its merits and as a pp said Bath is consistently in the top 5 universities for employability. This is because of course design and the subject range are vocational. It's also frequently tip fir student satisfaction too.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

zombie thread.

[Bluntness100]

I never heard my Ds or his friends refer to "RG" when they were applying to universitieS

That's interesting because my daughter and all her friends did, she's just entering her final year and all my friends kids did also.

I also work for a very very large well known corporation and we only recruit from a select few rg unis. Or we "target" them. Doesn't mean anyone else can't apply but I can't recall any graduates in my memorty from a non rg uni being recruited, but then I can't remember us recruiting anyone who didn't have a first either to be fair.

I genuinely don't know any kids who are at the top end ie straight a or a* who don't take it into account and as said in my experience the top employers also take it into account.

Rg is not a mumsnet phenonemen.

[Oldie2017]

I think in my day Durham wasn't in the Russell Group but was still second to Oxbridge! the RG has never been the be all and end all. Look at where people hire from for the sort of job you want.

My daughters chose a legal career. So for that look at this list www.chambersstudent.co.uk/where-to-start/newsletter/law-firms-preferred-universities which shows on the whole where the highest paid law firms recruit from although I was surprised Bath was not higher on that link by the way so perhaps look for more up to date stats. My sons' friend has not got into Bath this year as missed by one grade. Bath is certainly very competitive for entry. Lovely place too. My boys are off to Bristol.

[QuiteUnfitBit]

Re legal careers I was surprised Bath was not higher on that link
Degrees from Bath are mainly science/business, with strong links to industry. It's unlikely that many of those graduates would head for law. My DS is going to Bath this year, and he partly chose the course because it has work placements, as he wants to have a career in his degree subject (engineering).

Re: Russell Group I genuinely don't know any kids who are at the top end ie straight a or a who don't take it into account and as said in my experience the top employers also take it into account.*
I know many who don't - DS, for example, put Bath as his first choice, because it's great for engineering. :) It depends on what your goals are, perhaps.

[Gannet123]

The problem with Russell Group is that a lot of people rely on the concept, and a lot of schools push it, without really understanding what it means. They use it as a proxy for quality, but it isn't - it's a lobbying group. Russell Group universities are all research intensive (and the original premise was that they all had medical schools, although some more recent joiners do not) but a lot of non-Russell Group universities do a lot of excellent research and some Russell Group universities are regularly quite low down on league tables and other performance indicators. Academics in any subject will be able to point you to world class departments in their subject at non-Russell group universities.

As I say the Russell Group operates as a lobbying group to present the interests of a certain type of university to government policy makers. The other significance of working in a RG university (as I do) is to do with the recruitment market: because many schools and applicants place great emphasis on a university being RG, we tend to compete with each other for the best students, and thus measure ourselves against each other on performance indicators. As far as employers are concerned, any employer who solely recruits from RG is essentially doing so because of the prior qualifications of applicants - because they are popular, RG universities tend to be able to ask for higher grades, which means that employers who are looking for students with good A level grades (the majority of training contracts in law firms, for example, require at least ABB at A level) will focus their attention on RG universities, where there will be a larger proportion of students with such grades - not because the education at a RG university is somehow necessarily 'better' - it will be highly variable depending on the institution . A number of top law firms are piloting 'CV blind' recruitment, where final interviews take place without the interviewers knowing what university is attended by the applicant, and it will be very interesting to see what the outcome of that is in terms of broadening the range of universities represented.

So RG is not a mumsnet phenomenon but it is not terribly helpful as an indicator of anything in particular. Over-reliance on it means that some very mediocre departments are very difficult for undergraduates to get into and some excellent ones are relatively easy. And Bath has a tremendous reputation in science and engineering, and a very strong league table position in a lot of subjects./

[Oldie2017]

That is very helpful indeed.
Also some teenagers will want to be amongst others who are getting similarly high grades. We know someone who messed up A levels, went to an ex poly, didn't like the place or people and tons of other students dropped out and they left too after just 2 weeks. In other words it may not be the right peer group for you at some places.

[Gannet123]

That is very true. Although a grade or two doesn't make much difference. An AAA student will usually be fine on a course where they ask for ABB, because the grade margins may be quite minor, but will be unlikely to be stretched on a course asking for CCC.