Are there any other 'prestigous' universities in the UK apart from from Oxbridge?

[mids2019]

Are there any other 'prestigous' universities in the UK apart from Oxbridge?

My daughter was watching some American teen thing yesterday on Netflix and there was girl who's entire future lay on getting into Yale and Ivy League entrance was the be all and end all for this particular group of teenagers.

I know the US has a different HE system and culture but do we still have similar views in the UK in 2022? If there are prestigious universities in the UK how would you define this prestige? If we only allow Oxbridge the prestige label does this mean anyone who wishes to go a prestigious university has one (or two) Oxbridge or busy type application experiences then that ship sails?

Or maybe prestige is an archaic class ridden concept that is fading this millennium?

I was drawn to one of the RG v other university discussions and it may appear that the RG is being used as an artificial label to convey prestige in an HE environment where competition for Oxbridge is more intense than ever.

State v Private is a hot topic especially now with the charitable status issue. It would be weird if it wasn’t discussed here.

Cambridge reject who went to St Andrews here. I can confirm that in the late nineties it was full of not very bright poshos, and Americans. As a comprehensive kid who wore the same outfits most days I was slightly baffled ( and my less than extensive wardrobe was commented on by horrible roommate.) I'm glad William went a few years later, otherwise I'm convinced I'd still be telling people that it's not in Birmingham.

Do you think prestige of universities is more important in the private sector?

For the more selective private schools does the fact Oxbridge may be admitting a lower.proportion of privately schooled.pupils.mean it is in private schools' interests to talk up none Oxbridge universities more? It seems to the general public (at least.round my.neck of the woods) that Oxbridge are the only two elite universities people.have heard of (quite a low.graduate population) but in regions of higher graduate numbers the range of perceived elite universities may broaden.

I don’t even know any kids who apply to London. London just isn’t on the radar for the London kids we know. Out of 120 going to uni in eldest year at school, 3 stayed in London.

Do you not think though @Toddlingturtle this is perhaps reflective of social circles and perhaps a somewhat narrow middle-class perspective?

If we considered the MN approved top dozen or so Unis and just look at full-time UK undergrads whose family home is in London, there are close to 34,000 undergrads. Around 75% will go to Unis outside London and 25% to one of UCL, Imperial or LSE.

University College London 4,905
Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine 2,270
London School of Economics and Political Science 1,235
London 8,410 24.9%

Imperial "home" full time undergrads - 40% from London
UCL 50%
LSE 48%

Outside London

The University of Warwick 3,635
The University of Bristol 3,540
The University of Cambridge 2,675
The University of Oxford 2,560
The University of Exeter 2,475
Loughborough University 2,280
The University of Edinburgh 2,110
University of Durham 1,960
Bath University 1,770
The University of York 1,290
The University of Lancaster 640
The University of St. Andrews 480
Outside London 25,415 75.1%

Extending it a bit further the next not MN elite but could be still raised - probably - in polite conversation group covers another 33,000 students. With around 70% at unis outside the capital.

King's College London 6,855
Royal Holloway and Bedford New College 3,145
London 10,000 30.1%

University of Nottingham 4,740
The University of Leeds 3,000
The University of Manchester 2,820
The University of Birmingham 2,595
The University of Southampton 2,355
The University of East Anglia 1,995
Cardiff University 1,420
Newcastle University 1,280
The University of Sheffield 1,225
The University of Liverpool 1,115
The University of Glasgow 485
Aberdeen 190
Outside London 23,220 69.9%

However that still leaves near 190,000 full-time uni students from London. Near 100,000 of these students attend other London Unis. Arguably QMUL could be in group 2 but I rarely if ever see it mentioned

Queen Mary University of London 8,650
The University of Greenwich 8,000
The University of Westminster 7,980
Middlesex University 7,715
Kingston University 6,925
London South Bank University 6,820
The University of East London 6,775
City, University of London 6,490
Brunel University London 6,305
London Metropolitan University 6,150
Roehampton University 5,525
The University of West London 5,375
University of the Arts, London 3,380
Goldsmiths College 2,930
Birkbeck College 2,390
St George's, University of London 1,665
St Mary's University, Twickenham 1,515
SOAS University of London 1,450
Ravensbourne University London 1,395

Total 97,435

another 30,000 at least are at unis in counties close to / bordering London - the likes of Kent, Essex, Anglia Ruskin, Reading etc.

Anglia Ruskin University 8,875
University of Hertfordshire 5,055
The University of Kent 4,515
The University of Sussex 3,275
The University of Essex 3,225
The University of Surrey 2,925
The University of Reading 1,960
The University of Buckingham 185

Total 30,015 just from those unis above

The picture really is a lot more mixed. Not far off 50% of full-time undergrads from London attend a uni in London.

For the more selective private schools does the fact Oxbridge may be admitting a lower.proportion of privately schooled.pupils.mean it is in private schools' interests to talk up none Oxbridge universities more?

Interesting point. I'd say our local private schools (including ours) still see Oxbridge numbers as a badge of honour and an effective marketing tool.

That said, numbers are definitely dropping and there were a number of disappointed Cambridge applicants last year.

If I measured prestige by the unis my son's cohort most aspired to get into (beyond Oxbridge), it would be Warwick, Durham, St Andrew's, Bristol, Imperial and UCL.

We're also near London and most kids chose non-London unis because they wanted to experience somewhere different. The exception was engineering at Imperial and medicine.

The few at London unis mostly had parents who seemed to be a bit suspicious/concerned about the partying part of the uni experience and were keen for their kids to live at home for some of the time at least.

DCs school is very realistic about the recent shifts in applications/acceptances. It’s a top performing academically selective independent but not well known outside of the area, never had masses of oxbridge kids but a fair few each year. This year I think they’ve had 7/8 Oxford offers. I’d expect more Cambridge offers since the school is maths/science heavy at A Level. They always have a ton of medicine kids since most parents are medics.

most “prestigious” (aka bragging rights) at that school are seen to be:

-oxbridge
-st andrews (although they very rarely get anyone in)
-any medicine offer from anywhere at all
-lse/Warwick/Durham
-exeter/edinburgh/UCL

I’m not wanting to knock anyone who gets into any university but bragging about Exeter is proving the point I’m trying to make. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it but it’s not prestigious. It’s sought after because it has an image of somewhere a lot of posh kids go to.

They’re really not struggling for employment when they leave, trust me. They’re walking into all the big graduate jobs and more. They’ll all move back to London and being London kids with parents who work in London in generally big jobs across the sectors they’re in a far better place than many other kids

That sounds very entitled indeed. To turn down the options of Imperial and LSE so they can 'live somewhere else for 3 years' is not rational. Unless their parents all own companies and offer them jobs. But even then they might have got a better education at LSE or Imperial?!

If prestige is being used for bragging rights then I'd define prestigious in two ways. High ranking universities that are difficult to get a place on all courses. That's why St Andrews would be in that list but also LSE and Imperial, Edinburgh, UCL. Maybe included in that list would be specific art and music colleges, royal Veterinary college etc... where they only do one type of course and it's known to be the best and hardest to get into.

The other measure of prestige I would use would be the ucas points of the students that are admitted each year. These figures are available on ranking lists. That scoops up quite a lot of the other Scottish universities, and then places like Durham, Bath, Bristol, Warwick, Manchester - but depending on what course you choose, they're not necessarily more difficult to get in to than other universities in a similar league.

It’s all entirely course dependent anyway. Choose an obscure subject and your chances of an offer rocket.

It’s perfectly rational. They don’t want to live in London, they know they’re going to come back so want to live elsewhere. My point is that they’re coming back and getting into law school, big 4, the banks, Google, etc etc and they’re not being held back by not being at uni in London. London unis just aren’t even discussed. Same as Xenia pointed out, it’s their opportunity to live elsewhere, London doesn’t hold any attraction for undergrad. They’re going off to Bristol, Oxbridge, Leeds, Birmingham, Nottingham and don’t feel that they’re held back by being out of London. It’s perfectly reasonable not to want to stay local to go to uni when there are excellent unis out of London and they want the experience of living elsewhere.

And much as people try to deny it, they’re not needing to make contacts in London, their friends and family are senior professionals across different sectors so they have exposure to the roles they can explore. No, parents aren’t giving them jobs but they’ve people to guide them in the routes they need to take to have the best chance of finding the jobs to apply to. It’s just a, probably not particularly fair, fact

Of course it’s a middle class perspective. I said it’s the kids I know. I never said it was all London kids. I said, in our experience the kids we know don’t want to go to uni in London for reasons I have outlined, I can’t speak for other kids,

It's not just "getting out of London for a different experience" for most of the kids we know. The fact is that if you want to live in halls in London (because living with parents the whole time is not really the experience most students have in mind), it's really expensive, travel is a hassle and the student experience is less concentrated in one area.
The bright lights of London are also less alluring if you grew up here, that is true too.

I get the impression only these groups stay in London:

• those where their favoured or best offer is at Imperial/LSE/ UCL so it's about the institution and course per se not the city - the former eclipses the latter's downsides
• cultural reasons mean the expectation is they will stay at home
• finances mean it might still be cheaper to stay at home and attend a more local university in their part of London (sometimes but not always this might be more likely to be a post-1992 one).

@boys3 What was your data source for the number of students that attend the MN list of approved universities etc ?

I am amazed people would rank York and Exeter above Manchester and Leeds.

@user1465390476 i think that is because all the undergrad league tables consistently place them higher. Rightly or wrongly.

League tables should be taken with a good pinch of salt of course. Not sure all have a condiment set to hand. And is there really with what 130 unis a huge difference between being ranked say 10th and 20th? or 10th and 30th. Probably not.

the league tables are a very blunt instrument but are often not seen in that context, and that before drooling down into subject specifics.

so I completely get where you are coming from and largely concur with your general sentiment with regard to Manchester and Leeds. And certainly that for Exeter.

as far as Durham goes would it not be simpler just to plonk it down in say Richmond Park or Blackheath and save everyone the travelling at the start and end of term. 😀

@dunnott Higher Education Statistics Agency. www.hesa.ac.uk

table 59.

multiple filters available, eg all students, undergrads only, all / full time / part time, specific academic year back to 14/15. Home domicile is by a mix of council area (eg Kent) and conglomerations. London is shown as just that not by the 32 boroughs and City of London; Greater Manchester rather than the 12 (?) constituent councils.

Oh and just to clear my MN approved uni list, and then the next grouping was pretty much tongue-in-cheek.

My allocations reflect the perceptions I’ve seen on MN over the past decade or so. My perception of those perceptions that is.

Someone mentioned looking at UCAS points achieved on entry as an alternative to league tables - which I would agree are far from perfect. This sounds like a good way to compare how selective the institutions are but I have a couple of possible caveats.

I have heard that Scottish highers attract more points than A levels (as does IB I believe) so the Scottish universities may be flattered by a higher proportion of Scottish students pushing up their tally.

Also 3 A levels (and maybe an epq) seems to be the norm, but strong STEM unis may have more 4 A level candidates (maths and further maths) to bump up the possible UCAS total.

I am happy to admit I have no research to back up these suggestions and the impact may not be significant. It is just an added thought.

overall I have found it interesting to see the different perceptions of uni prestige, and have some of mine challenged.

For those focused on corporate jobs the Professional recruiters seem to be increasingly institution blind in their processes. Good candidates choose different unis based on their own priorities and i don't suppose any league table or metric, however good, will be definitive.

@Ellmau

This is correct but slightly misleading in that anyone with the application fee (waived for some) can apply to Harvard, whereas in the UK Oxbridge applicants have generally speaking been pre-sorted by predicted or actual marks and school support for their application. So Oxbridge, for the most part, is choosing from a pool more likely to be accepted.

Last year 8,570 students had 3 or more A stars

Oxbridge has roughly 6,750 freshmen places

Oxbridge accept from a far greater pool of candidates than just those with all A stars

So it’s obvious that Oxbridge cannot contain all the very capable students, both state and private, who will excel in higher education.

So there is room for other institutions to be considered prestigious or elite. The undergraduates to fuel them are there. It’s reassuring that there is disagreement on this thread about which ones those are. It leaves room for choice based on individual needs and preferences of both students and employers. A bigger pool of prestigious universities is good for the UK and to be celebrated.

(Yes, I know my rough cut figures don’t take into account Scottish students, foreign students, or the total number of students with all As or above. But I think it roughly makes the point. I have to get back to my paid work!)

Pro, UCAS points is not so useful. My son with 3 or 4 grade 8s etc in music would then be included as points whereas in my view only A level grades is a fair comparator.
boys3 on London v out of London, my sons went to a minority white London private school and lots of the boys have to live at home with parents until they marry due to their religion and culture, never mind to save on rent, or they wanted a university with a high proportion of non white people so they definitely did choose to go to London universities so I can see how both sides of this debate can be right - middle class children leaving London to have fun and learn about another City (3 of mine went to Bristol) and other children staying in London and going there. Of course lots of middle class children also go to London universities too - none of this is hard and fast rules.

In my grandparents generation, very few rich people went from prestigious schools like Eton, Harrow etc to Oxbridge. If you were from a properly rich family and due to take over an estate, you went straight into merchant banking or trading to make a lot of money quickly to fix the roof. Or you had enough in your trust fund to do something exciting, like become a war journalist, photographer, artist etc. You'd find a wife from an equally rich family who went straight to work as a 'diamond girl' at DeBeers, or like Lady Diana, as a preschool assistant. Oxbridge was for rich third sons who'd never inherit much and were not cut out to extend the empire and so needed to earn a save living, or children of professionals, like GPs, vicars, nurses etc. who valued books and learning. It only changed in the last 50 years that privileged families wanted their firstborn/most capable child to go to Oxbridge, and saw it as an economic advantage, as you started to need a degree to get into investment banking/corporate management etc. It's now starting to reverse to how it used to be, with many privileged kids going straight into employment through very selective apprenticeships/internships or people having enough money/connections to do a start up without degree.

I* get the impression only these groups stay in London:

• those where their favoured or best offer is at Imperial/LSE/ UCL so it's about the institution and course per se not the city - the former eclipses the latter's downsides*

Then we actually agree

I had misunderstood it that students don't even consider applying for Imperial/LSE/UCL because their desire to live outside of London for 3 years was bigger than the benefits of attending a highly ranked Uni!