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.

I think Warwick, some of the London universities (KCL, LSE, ICL and UCL, depending on what you want to study, and maybe St Andrew's) there are others, too.

@MrsMitford3

Nearly.It was 'do revenge '

Your post.does.highlight the fact that at least in US drama.getting into a top university is a big thing. I don't think British teen drama unashamedly assumes there are 'great' universities where teens wish to aspire to in a rather obsessional.way.

I don't know if this reflects US culture or is simply.dramatic licence but UK.teens are portrayed in drama in a different way. For instance the only school based dramas I can think of are Grange Hill and waterloo.road, both focusing on inner city presumably underachieving schools. US drama seems to be more comfortable portraying students aspiring to elite universities and I think this is indicative of the difference in our cultures as we are a little more diffident in general.

I think you need to detach from what's seen in teen drama series and what happens in real schools and real students.

What I would say is that UK TV is very warts and all/gritty drama oriented. Showing characters on drugs and the street at 14 seems to appeal more than showing luxury proms and getting into Yale.

That says more about UK TV viewer preferences than about 18 year old university ambitions.

Real students in real schools with real grades and aspirations are ambitious and want to go to a good university and get a good degree.

You only need to read the threads on here to see there are some parents who (quite literally) make it a full time job in the last two years of school to make that happen.

As a teacher (and mother of university student) my ethos has always been to encourage students to find the best fit for them. I've sent kids to Liverpool poly (I'm that old) and I've sent kids to Sciences Po.

Whilst the conversation on this thread is interesting, extrapolating what UK students aspire to from an American TV series isn't going to work.

As someone with academic experience in both countries: rubbish.
You will get a different education stateside, which will suit some students better. Other students will do better in the more focused English degree system. Others will do better in the UK system. And Americans are familiar with LSE, Imperial, UCL. Quite a few Americans at LSE particularly.

I always think of Ivy League as people that have gamed the system - paid for entry.

Of course, I’m sure the vast majority haven’t but it’s not something I’d consider to be “valuable”.

There is a huge degree of snobbery and one upmanship around Uni - mainly, it seems around parents rather than the students themselves, that is in the main irrelevant to careers.

Only Oxbridge are recognised internationally. The rest of the U.K. unis aren't worth it if you need international recognition.

Imperial College is highly recognised internationally as a Technology/Science University.

Times and Guardian rank St A above oxbridge now 🤷‍♀️

International rep - let’s add RADA and Royal School of Music

Royal Academy for art?

My DC are mid 20s. Their school friends generally applied to:

Oxford
Cambridge
Imperial
UCL
KCL
LSE
Durham
Edinburgh
Exeter
Warwick
Bristol
Manchester
Nottingham
York

A few have gone to the US and Europe.

What interests me is that 40 years ago: Lancaster, Keele and Hull seemed to be on everybody's slate but now seem unheard of. DH and I both raised an eyebrow at Nottingham becoming more prominent.

The most important thing is that young people are happy and engaged with their choices. Prestige is nothing compared to happy children.

I agree with newgirls

Oxbridge plus St Andrews, Aberdeen (which had 2 Universities at the same time as England did), Glasgow and Edinburgh are the ancient universities (Edinburgh is post 1500 though so probably shouldn't count). It's very much a Scottish term though. I had to tell off the poor student who showed us round Durham Castle who thought Durham was the third oldest university in the UK, she had no idea about the Scottish universities at all.

America is much larger than the UK and has lots of money and cultural dominance. How many prestigious universities can you name in e.g. Italy? I'm guessing very few despite it having a longer history of higher education than the UK or the US.

And most of those were not on the radar of my kids friends

oxford
cambridge
bristol
Leeds
birmingham
nottingham

nobody has touched lOndon unis as they’re too local. A few outliers to Sheffield, bath, Exeter, St. Andrews

🙄

To my mind we don't have this American teen thing (at least on screen) where children (at possibly private schools) seem to have a existential angst about getting into high status unis.

really? Personally I think that age group are hugely worried about getting into what is perceived as a good uni. And by that they generally mean those that are thought to be prestigious by the general population. Which is generally the ones listed above. Which are also perceived as prestigious abroad as they tend to have a lot of applications from overseas students. Beyond the really famous US universities I wouldn’t really have a clue about their system, I don’t have any proof that their Ivy League is superior, ‘prestigious’ is often just word of mouth

I mean yes - Imperial has a big international rep, and after that it would be the Russell Group, but you have to allow that different institutions within it are more competitive in different subjects, and some are overall more prestigious than others.

The RG is of course a marketing ploy to some extent, but you could say the same thing about the IL, and it has made them hugely rich. In in the US there are great and famous institutions (eg Stanford) which are outside it, and many well known and solid state colleges with strong reps. US families have endless debates on whether the cost of IL is worth it - and the answer is often more about prestige and networking than academia. (Although there are huge bursaries available).

The movie she was watching was simplifying things somewhat for the narrative.

Imperial has a massive international rep.

London is well recognised generally.

Edinburgh and Manchester fairly well known, and St Andrews (Royal connection possibly)

Can I add that it does depend on the subject. For sport type degrees Loughborough university is consistently ranked Number 1 in the world.

It depends on the subject being studied. RG universities do attract funding for more traditional subjectsnbut not always for technical / professional / business /engineering subjects. For example the OU is the best place in the UK to study Business Management if you want a senior job quickly as the modules are often taught by well known professionals in the field. The best technical courses are those that have links to industry - eg Computer Science / Data Science at Birkbeck is the best couse you could take because of their links to IBM, Google, Meta. Leicester, Loughborough, Bath are also developing some really good computer science / analytics courses with IBM. All of them are much better than Bristol for Comp Sci / data science.

Also, DMU is one of the best places in the world to study architecture. Because they have professional links across the world. Grads rarely stay unemployed for long.

In my day all the oxbridge rejects went to Bristol as the next closest thing.
not sure if this is still true though

Times rankings, measures of the quality of courses aren’t synonymous with prestige. They’re two different things. A bit like when which test a particular product and a cheaper product outperforms a more well known make. To some extent it depends on what quality measures you are using. I would say prestige Is built by having a high quality, dependable product over a long time period. And the more products you have fitting that description the better.

A prestigious Uni to me means one that the person in the street knows by reputation.

DS is at Warwick. It’s reputation for Maths is outstanding and the whole Uni has always been in the U.K. top 10. Yet so many people don’t know it and think it’s actually in Warwick. So great for a career but less so for prestige.

Yes, tens of thousands of international students pay like £20k a year to study at universities with no value. Yep, definitely rings true.

Pp, you must have not been to university Louis. This is what I would have thought when I was about 11 and the only universities I knew were Oxford and Cambridge.

Others have already mentioned KCL, ICL, UCL plus other city universities like Manchester, Warwick, Birmingham, Sheffield... there's plenty.

I don’t think you can particularly compare - in America you go to the university and then major in your subject afterwards. In the UK you are going for that one subject, the university is less important compared to the course. Cambridge is one of the four unis that offer my degree subject, it is the worst one to go to. The best one for graduate salary and outcome to go to is a post 92 modern uni.

I think there is a difference between prestige in academic terms and prestige in 'social' terms, for want of a better term.

Oxbridge, UCL, KCL, Durham, Bristol and Exeter and St Andrew's seem to have a certain social prestige. That doesn't mean that they are necessarily better academically (especially for certain subjects).