Where can one find rankings for courses?

[OneDivineHammer]

Ds is planning to apply for natural science next year.

I’ve seen people on mn talking about the ranking of different universities for a particular course. Is that information online somewhere - and who ranks them (and on what variables) anyway?

Ds has done some reading on uni websites and says that some of the natural science courses are accreditated by the society of natural science and some aren’t. Are any that are, good courses then?

Sorry - new to the whole UK uni thing as you can probably tell!

www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/by-subject

www.topuniversities.com/subject-rankings/2022

There are of course UK league tables as well. All have slightly different criteria. Break them down to get information you want. Also, look at individual subjects rather than whole university. Can have widely differing results league table to league table.

For example, Times and Guardian gave very different Rankings for a university and course ds looking at!

The Complete University Guide, The Times (paywalled ) and The Guardian all do subject league tables.

Triangulate the three and it can be useful. Risers and fallers across few years are also useful to look at.

Some subjects are better represented on league tables than others.

And it's not just where they are in the league tables - I'd consider what kind of uni and where. Then with a long list look carefully at each course modules to make sure content matches interest. Some really good individual courses are at middling ranking universities, and some top universities may not be that well regarded for that particular subject.

I would definitely recommend using the UK league tables rather than the world ones. Particularly the QES rankings which use some very odd criteria and are quite problematic.

With regard to accreditation, it depends what your DS's future plans are as to whether that is an important factor or not. In some subjects – I don't know if this is the case for natural sciences – if the course is not accredited you have to do further study and/or exams before you can work in that field.