Rank your personal ranking for uk Uni’s

[lightisnotwhite]

I’ve read the league tables but interested to know what MN prefers in a Uni. Bristol for example ranks outside the top ten but MN is keen.

I think (based on these threads) Durham, St Andrews, York, Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Manchester, one of the London ones LSE?

Oxford and Cambridge are givens. So what’s next.

Anyone care to rank Art?

@pisspants

in terms of prestige then after oxbridge I'd go

1 Durham
2 Edinburgh
3 University of London (UCL, LSE,Imoerial etc)
4 Bristol
5 Manchester

UCL, LSE and Imperial are no longer part of University of London. They are independent universities in their own right.

@lightisnotwhite

Interesting.

So far York hasn’t been mentioned but it’s a very popular choice on MN.
And in real life.

I think the gritty city Uni’s ; Manchester, London, Warwick, Birmingham etc may be equally good or better on paper but parents prefer a leafier environment?

Obviously influence by subject although clearly there’s also a bit of a ranking with that too.

Warwick is not a city university. It is a campus on the very edge of Coventry.

@OnGoldenPond

london.ac.uk/ways-study/study-campus-london/member-institutions

LSE and UCL are very much part of the University of London as are KCL, Queen Mary and Royal Holloway. Imperial is not a member.

I think Manchester Uni has just got too big. Someone told DS the number on the biology course and it was comparatively huge.

[quote Aslockton]@OnGoldenPond

london.ac.uk/ways-study/study-campus-london/member-institutions

LSE and UCL are very much part of the University of London as are KCL, Queen Mary and Royal Holloway. Imperial is not a member.[/quote]
That doesn't really mean anything though. They're autonomous institutions that award their own degrees rather than UoL ones. Practically speaking being part of UoL means nothing.

“Anyone care to rank Art?“

I would also like to know this. Kingston? Then there’s UAL which seems to incorporate all kinds of colleges such as Central St Martins and Chelsea School of Art & Design. But I can’t make head or tail of it.

Interesting.

@zaeema

“Anyone care to rank Art?“

I would also like to know this. Kingston? Then there’s UAL which seems to incorporate all kinds of colleges such as Central St Martins and Chelsea School of Art & Design. But I can’t make head or tail of it.

www.arts.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate-courses?collection=ual-courses-meta-prod&query=!nullquery&start_rank=1&sort=relevance&f.Course%20level|level=Undergraduate

The 7 constituent colleges have specialities (e.g. if you want to study Architecture, this is only offered at CSM, whereas 'Fine Art' is offered at CSM, Camberwell and Chelsea). You can search by subject and see where it is offered, or by college to see what is offered there.

@JackieWeaver101

It is always best to choose the university that best suits the student.

If rankings are going to influence the decision, then go by one of the international rankings. QS is the one most widely used:

1. Oxford
2. Cambridge
3. Imperial
4. UCL

16. Edinburgh 27. Manchester 35. KCL 49. LSE

Agree with this list which is probably more or less how I'd rank them, too.

But absolutely agree with those who say pick the university that best suits the student, and look at rankings by subject not just prestige.

My DS is not 'top Russell Group' material by any stretch of the imagination but the university whose offer he has firmed, whilst by no means a high-ranked one in terms of prestige and university status, is ranked in the top 20 for his course.

Also bear in mind that just because a uni is leafy and beautiful, it does not mean your child is going to love it. I was completely freaked by collegiate Durham back in the early 90s, but loved Warwick where I spent very happy years (whilst acknowledging that the campus is indeed not the most attractive, Coventry is grim and don't get me started on the ring road).

I think it’s worth considering whether a school is designed to teach undergraduates or whether it is designed to publish/research with grad students.

I know schools often aim to do both, but there are some very prestigious schools that are much better for grad students than for undergraduates.

Interested to see that (I don’t think) anyone has mentioned Nottingham so far? That was a hugely popular choice at my very academic school - very popular amongst the ‘not quite oxbridge’ crowd. I wanted to go to Warwick but they rejected me. My best friend ended up at Exeter with a D at a-level in her degree subject. It always left me with the (almost certainly incorrect) impression that Exeter entry wasn’t as competitive and not in the same league as some of the others mentioned here. If I had my time again I’d love to go to Edinburgh. My mother’s alma mater and a beautiful city. I have close contacts at York who’s tell me the university worked very hard on student welfare during the pandemic which has enhanced their reputation.

@Newgirls

Leeds is massively popular where I live. It’s a large uni so loads going on. Prob also why so many people mention it as lots go there iyswim

Shut tinned of drugs at Leeds uni though. Massive party university 😂

Shit tonnes*

MarchingFrogs - Thankyou for that - most helpful!

Durham although well known and regarded in UK is not well known worldwide ........

“If rankings are going to influence the decision, then go by one of the international rankings. QS is the one most widely used:

1. Oxford
2. Cambridge
3. Imperial
4. UCL

16. Edinburgh 27. Manchester 35. KCL 49. LSE“

I wonder why, in that QS international list, LSE is not up there with Imperial and UCL? From a U.K. perspective, its perceived as similarly “prestigious” I would have thought? I wonder if it’s because LSE is predominantly a postgrad institution (I think there are far more postgrads there than undergrads)?

If you look at the U.K. university rankings you probably have a list a bit like this:

Oxbridge, Imperial, LSE, UCL, St Andrews, Durham, Warwick, Bath

Global rankings and QS rankings would favour Oxbridge, the London universities and Warwick (no. 61 in QS rankings) but substitute Edinburgh, Manchester and Bristol instead of Durham and St Andrews.

In reality (going through the process as we speak) all these universities are considered “top” in terms of the grades they require but some of them seem to be more desirable and therefore harder to get into even if you have the grades….Oxbridge obviously and then LSE/Imperial/UCL/Edinburgh/St Andrews/Durham….I’m not really sure why but probably something to do with their locations (I.e. London and Edinburgh) or their “pretty buildings” (St Andrews and Durham). You just need to look at some of the mumsnet and student room threads to get a sense of the angst involved with trying to secure a place at one of these universities!

This is quite a good list of from where big law firms recruit and indeed it would be much the same list for any high paid graduate employers

www.chambersstudent.co.uk/where-to-start/newsletter/law-firms-preferred-universities-2019

However as some universities like St Andrews do not have many students that list does warp things a bit as if there are hardly any graduates then fewer will be hired from there.
The order onthe list is
Oxford
Cambridge
Durham
Bristol
Exeter
Overseas
Nottingham (although it is probably above Warwick here simply because it has a lot of graduates)
Warwick
KCL etc etc

Basically go for the ones wanting highest grades as that is a pure and free market. If you can get in with CCC then it may not be that good a university. If it is really hard to get into and most people fail then it will be very good.

Bear in mind that some unis are well known for letting people in with much lower grades than are published..Exeter is very well known for this..

I wonder why, in that QS international list, LSE is not up there with Imperial and UCL? From a U.K. perspective, its perceived as similarly “prestigious” I would have thought?

It's because of the methodology employed by the QS rankings @anotherotherone. They place a large emphasis on citations (ie publications) by the academic staff and post-graduate students which, as a metric, tends to favour universities which are strong in STEM subjects over those which are stronger in liberal arts and humanities.

To be fair to QS, all league tables have their flaws, but this is one of theirs.

@Piggywaspushed

Elephant - UEA is University of East Anglia in Norwich. Basically the pioneer university of Creative Writing under Sir Malcolm Bradbury.

Thank you

@thing47

I wonder why, in that QS international list, LSE is not up there with Imperial and UCL? From a U.K. perspective, its perceived as similarly “prestigious” I would have thought?

It's because of the methodology employed by the QS rankings @anotherotherone. They place a large emphasis on citations (ie publications) by the academic staff and post-graduate students which, as a metric, tends to favour universities which are strong in STEM subjects over those which are stronger in liberal arts and humanities.

To be fair to QS, all league tables have their flaws, but this is one of theirs.

It also of course favours larger institutions,so smaller ones such as St Andrews,LSE etc do not do well under the metrics used..

Basically go for the ones wanting highest grades as that is a pure and free market. If you can get in with CCC then it may not be that good a university.

This is really much too simplistic. It's not wrong, per se, but the academic achievements of teenagers at A level doesn't tell you very much at all about the quality of a university department – its teaching or its resources or its support for students etc – and hence isn't a wholly accurate guide to the academic achievements of its graduates 3-4 years later.

To take one random snapshot example – for History, students starting at Bristol average 11% points higher than those going to Southampton, but overall the two universities score the same and Southampton scores higher for graduate prospects at the end of a 3-year history degree. What can we read into this? Well, within the limitations of the data (and I am on record as saying all university league tables should be taken with a huge pinch of salt), it would seem to indicate that students applying to read History at Bristol have markedly better A level results than those applying to Southampton but that the course isn't actually any better and its graduates aren't any more employable.

Good points except if you go somewhere were good people go then you are also going int a peer group which applies for high paid work a bit like not picking a sink school where most people don't do A levels. As teenagers are often influenced by their peers if you can pick a university where the "best" people go (however you define that) you might have that peer pressure to go for the higher paying jobs, be with people whose parents might be advising them well on better paid jobs etc etc.

Totally off topic my son had dinner the other night with 4 boys from school and we were chatting about why they had all now got good jobs - one is a quant at a hedge fund and doing very well (as he is excellent) - I think he did maths at somewhere pretty good in London; another is at a famous tech company; another just got a management consultancy job at a very famous company; and another has a job at the FT (and my son is the only one not in a job as does not finish his law studied until June when he will be a trainee solicitor). They are all hard working boys from a fee paying boys' school and all are BAME other than my son so have done very well. I also said their families are mostly in good jobs so I suppose that feeds down to encourage the child to want a certain lifestyle in terms of money too. They left school 5 years ago. Looking at where people end up not just on graduation but 5 or even 10 years down the line is always quite interesting.

Of course I accept plenty of people are not after high paid work in London and would be more than happy teaching and all kinds of worthwhile jobs.