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

[mayfly66]

So Scaryclown "some employers who consider themselves top employers can't think properly"...?

You mean like the major law and accountancy firms and investment banks who largely (but not exclusively) recruit from RG?

[scaryclown]

Yes, absolutely.

[mayfly66]

The same one's who make squillions of ££'s in profit for their partners and shareholders based on their intellectual prowess?

They are the one's you say can't think for themselves...???

Hmmmm......

[titchy]

Isn't it tedious when every thread about the relative merits of one university vs another almost always comes down to how lawyers do.

Sometimes I wonder if lawyers are aware they are a very very insignificant minority of graduate professions.....

To anyone wondering about whether x university is good enough - if your child is going somewhere with grades roughly the same as their offer, studying something they are interested in, and engaged in the process as a whole, then the answer is almost certainly yes.

[QuiteUnfitBit]

To anyone wondering about whether x university is good enough - if your child is going somewhere with grades roughly the same as their offer, studying something they are interested in, and engaged in the process as a whole, then the answer is almost certainly yes.
I think that's a great answer.

[Oldie2017]

It just depends what you want at the end of the day. Certain employers compete for the best graduates. often that is the higher paid jobs. So just do your research and apply accordingly. For other jobs it's different.

We lawyers know we are a small minority. We do tend to be fairly well paid. Also my brother read medicine at Cambridge and that has really helped his medical career by the way as he has done quite a bit on the academic and research side, got a merit award etc. My other sibling (not law) is very much helped in career terms by having gone to Oxbridge too.

[SoPassRemarkable]

Surely it depends on the individual course. Bath for example has a reputation for having the best architecture course (I think). I assume architect firms are aware of this and don't give a rats ass that. It's not a Russell Group.

[BubblesBuddy]

Architecture is fairly niche though in that you are only competing with other architecture degree holders for the job. For city jobs you compete with every type of degree going! It's very different.

Bath has many courses with a year in industry and that is an important selling point. The OP was asking about a city job and of course it's possible, but competition is fierce because the graduate is competing against maths, engineering, economics, management, science graduates and lots more. Another university isn't necessarily better but the cv and ability of the graduate will be crucial. The degree is only part of that.

[scaryclown]

Oh yes, totally.

I am someone who has trebled the results of a team run by oxbridge types who thought I was a thick. They were doing nearly everything wrong... But.. They thought they must be doing it right.. As.. Guess what, everyone had always told them they were better than everyone else...
They were very deeply and personally unsettled by this of course.

[BubblesBuddy]

Perhaps they could write English though scary!

[Oldie2017]

It's often the opposite with Oxbridge though isn't it? You will feel worse than most people there as most are very bright; whereas I was top of my year at non Oxbridge so perhaps more likely to think I am the best than my Oxbridge siblings. More realistically most people have a fair idea of how they are compared with others and real life soon makes that clear to most of us.

[TheMightyMing]

DS went to highly selective grammar in NW , and got brilliant GCSE results , but frankly v average A level results, way below expectation and missed out on first choice and insurance as a result (both RG), he wants to do Geography). A good friends daughter missed out in Leeds and was throwing her toys out because the options she had were non RG. She has ended up at Man Uni, the course is fashion management . Similarly my niece is doing a v random course at MU.

I'm hoping that a degree in an academic subject from a less than stellar non RG uni will be valued by employers ( Sheffield Hallam by the way ) .

Bath is highly regarded , my DS girlfriend attained v high uni grades and specifically targeted Bath only as the languages option she wanted wasn't really offered elsewhere.

[scaryclown]

Er
'Write in correct English'

Write, 'English'.. Means just writing 'English'

Hth brain box..

[scaryclown]

Ffs Oxbridge (UG) isn't full of very bright people, it's 50% full of people who got As at private schools.. So either private schools add no value, but just have genetically bright kids, or they do add value, but the kids aren't any brighter than any other cohort.

God why are people so dim.

[scaryclown]

I have net some very thick people with As in the humanities, and the rabid blindness to the University recruitment game, the thinking shortcuts that assume wealth equals ability and the misunderstanding of the biases that inherently distort the outcomes are perfect examples of the denseness that is endemic in the UK education system and manifests in the inefficient and notoriously unproductive British management model.
When Japanese managers took over from public school - oxbridge management at Nissan using the sane British workers productivity exceeded that of other factories globally. There are myriad other examples..

[mayfly66]

Plenty of sweeping generalisations and not a little prejudice there too, Scary.

Have you got chips on just one or both shoulders...?!

[user7214743615]

Oxbridge (UG) isn't full of very bright people.

Remarkable how many of them go on to become world leaders in fields requiring high intelligence (academia etc) given that they aren't very bright.

[Oldie2017]

This is all making me laugh. On average Oxbridge (which is more from state schools than private by the way) students are brighter than most other places. I didn't go there. I was am pretty bright. I am no less bright than my siblings but that doesn't mean I cannot acecpt the truth that on the whole people there are more academic and better at exams than those at places which require lower grades.

As for what you need for a career after it depends on the career. Oxbridge will help in a quite a few higher paid careers but my daughter's done fine after Bristol.

I don't think anyone is saying wealth equals ability although it can - Beckham is good at football, better than I am and made more at that than many. Some people are not interested in money like my Ocado driver graduate son or monks and nuns and the like. Some money is indeed inherited but as most immigrants and many native born people know if you start out high as it were - good exam results, good career choice in a high paid area, good university then it is definitely easier to make more money.

[scaryclown]

Not at all. Public school kids tend to have weather parents by definition, Oxbridge has wealthier parents by definition. Wealth is a much better prediction of success, including earlier filtering into management positions. Added to that is the recruitment direct to management streams and the large companies you mention focus nearly all their graduate recruitment effort on the top 10 unis, and within that moreso on oxbridge. They don't even consider the very bright outside these filters. This is before the clear networking advantages of a management layer recruited from a small pool who know each other. Other initiatives that exclude 'lower ranked' unis compound this Eg the bright network.. Itself sponsored by the same top employers.

On top of all this, the financial wherewithal to maintain one's standard of living whilst taking unpaid internships or wait for a graduate role expands this bias.

There is very little consideration of aptitude through these processes because its mistakenly assumed.

[scaryclown]

Re Beckham though, if his kids are crap at football, he'll be able to pay for expensive training and give them access to the industry that few would have, and he could also get his kids to oxbridge far more easily than many of us, irrespective of their abilities. They would then be thousands of times more likely to get a graduate role in management, irrespective of their aptitude.

[mayfly66]

Oldie: I don't think an appeal to logic (or fact) is likely to gain much traction with Scary who clearly has "isshoos" with the social bias exercised in our better universities and employers...

[scaryclown]

No issues, just logic.
If you look at research groups in the same subjects at the same universities, you won't find many oxbridge graduates taken on for advanced sciences, maths, engineering, economics, etc etc as when academic ability becomes genuinely professional, students from lower ranked UK universities, European universities, US universities are preferred.

[boys3]

When Japanese managers took over from public school - oxbridge management at Nissan using the sane British workers productivity exceeded that of other factories globally

Oddly clown Nissan have a different version of events

nissannews.com/en-US/nissan/usa/channels/us-united-states-nissan-heritage-nissan-heritage-nissan-legends/releases/nissan-legend-sir-ian-gibson-an-englishman-who-served-as-a-bridge-between-japan-and-europe?mode=print

Ian Gibson is a graduate of Manchester University

[scaryclown]

Er an article saying what I said, but a bit later actually than the managerial change happened. He was appointed, according to that article, to install Japanese management.. Who ran the plant before then and how?

He's not from oxbridge either..

[user7214743615]

If you look at research groups in the same subjects at the same universities, you won't find many oxbridge graduates taken on for advanced sciences, maths, engineering, economics, etc etc as when academic ability becomes genuinely professional, students from lower ranked UK universities, European universities, US universities are preferred.

Evidence? Data?

Because I believe that you do know you are writing rubbish and that the evidence shows exactly the opposite effect.