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.

No they haven't. The ranking of UK universities and the Russel Group category is to do with research, not teaching. The teaching is often awful because academics are encouraged to seek research grants and buy out their teaching responsibilities. Lecturers at less 'prestigious' institutions are more likely to have teaching qualifications. The rankings change dramatically when teaching quality and student progress is taken into account.

Other than oxbridge, Russell Group University have generally always delivered high quality education for academic subjects, and so attract high achieving students.

Many would disagree based on direct, recent experience.

As someone with a senior in high school in the USA - the admit rates are hot garbage, as Americans would say. The universities encourage people to apply when they haven't really got a shot as low yield rates make them look better. There's no centralised application process so you can apply to as many universities as you'd like. It is very competitive certainly but the system is even more biased than Oxbridge when it comes to legacy admissions, private schools, obscure sports, etc. So you can't infer your personal chances from the stats.

But yes: the Ivy League is a sports/cultural thing. They're all certainly prestigious but so are others. The line about Harvard, by the way, is "The hardest part about Harvard is getting in."

Interesting points here, and something I think of quite often.

Agree you don't see teens on UK tv portrayed as obsessing over entry to Oxbridge the way they do in the US over Ivy leagues.

I wonder if this is because this would just be so unrelatable to a lot of British kids? But surely Ivy League is completely unachoevable for the bulk of US students? Possibly even more so as the fees are so much more over there?

However, there is a "pride" in school etc in the US that I just don't see here. The letterman jackets etc in, for example, Grease, going back to the 50s. From what i understand this is accurate and not just for tv.

I was at school in the 90s, a private school, and we didn't have this. However, I am noticing it now, at both state and private schools - "Leavers" hoodies with the school name etc on them. Seems to be a level of school spirit / pride similar to the US that just wasn't prevalent before.

We have relatives in US, Canada and India..They have all heard of Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, UCL and Imperial. They would come here for those unis, None of them are aware of Durham or St Andrews though.

I think Bristol has a bit of a reputation as a party university these days.., When I was a teen in the 90s it was more "prestigious," I think?

@jonesy1999

Obviously in the UK we have absorb a lot of American television generally and with regard to education perhaps we are importing US ideas e.g. proms?

I wonder if Americans are a little more transparently aspiration compared to the Brits who by nature are a little more conservative in showing their ambition publicly. It's a really interesting point about UK students not relating to a near obsessive attitude about HE and with my daughter's school though obviously HE is important there doesn't appear to be a focus on getting into certain universities from an early age. Indeed the school doesn't really talk about HE aspiration until relatively late and does so with a career focus.

There aren't many UK dramas feature students (Fresh Meat is the only one I can recall) but US drama aimed at the youth market seems to feature private schools quite a lot with good looking rich students with their eyes set on elite universities and glittering careers. I don't think this translates into British culture that well really.

It was interesting that my daughter started asking which universities were 'good' in the UK after watching some of these programs and I couldn't really give an immediate answer as it (look at this thread) a.challenging question.

@mids2019 yes, exactly, that was the phrase I was looking for, prom culture.

It wasn't really a thing here a few years ago, but now it's everywhere.

Also agree about Brits being less openly aspirational.

Scottish here - I went to Edinburgh and was rejected by St Andrews.
I also did a semester in the US, at Dartmouth, and was very surprised at the level of the courses, they were very easy compared to what I was learning at Edinburgh.

In my day they allegedly came to St Andrews.

Most parents have a pretty good idea in England as to which are the better universities and hardest to get into. If a teenager is unsure look up the linkedin profiles of new graduates in their first jobs in places where you want to work and see where they are most often from in terms of university.

Also as in the US those where it is harder to get in tend to be "better".

Most UK students will work in the UK and studey with undergraduate from the UK and get jobs with people from the UK. There is a completely different market for international students who want universities recognised in particular countries abroad. Whereas a home student might avoid London (particularly if they live in London - as my 5 did and someone above mentioned) whereas an international student might well particularly want the good London universities on a CV like LSE etc.

Plus, in academic terms,it's not very hard to get a place (or a degree).

You must be joking. St Andrews is one of the hardest universities in the Uk to get into. It’s small and at the top of all the league tables. Quite common to have three A star predictions and get rejected from St Andrews.

st Andrews has lots of US students due to various connecting programmes. It’s tiny though so prob not on most Americans radars

The stats agree - it’s harder to get into st Andrews than Oxford.

partly due to no entrance exam but also size

Just googled

Cam and Oxford each have around 25k students

St Andrew’s 10K

Fewer places to go round and without entrance exams to sift the applications no wonder it’s a very low acceptance rate

The young physicists at the (very international) CERN that I knew a few years ago largely came from Imperial.

Yes, Oxford and Cambridge are the most prestigious followed by the RG universities.

Having said that, who really cares apart from students who have Oxford and Cambridge as their goal? I'm not sure recruiters do! Yes they want strong academics but it takes SO, SO much more than that to stand out these days.....

No

Oxford and Cambridge and St Andrews move around in the top 3 rankings.

Then SOME Russell groups plus Bath, Lancaster and Loughborough. (Warwick, Exeter, Durham, Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh, lse, imperial, UCl, Kings - in no particular order)

Then typically the rest of the Russell Group including places like Nottingham, Newcastle, York, Liverpool, Leeds etc

Then other pre 92 universities plus a few former polys

Then lots of former polys

Obviously there are always a few exceptions to these groupings and the league tables are dynamic. Surrey has suddenly had a jump in the league tables for example. Plus subject specific league tables give different results. Bath will never top the league table in history for example since they don’t offer it.

I dunno, I'm more impressed if I hear that someone got onto the acting course at RADA or did fashion design at St Martins or fine art at the RCA. But then I'm a bit of a snob in some ways...

Russell Group were just the numerically larger "pre-92" universities. There was nothing about quality. The other major group at that time was the 94 group which was mostly smaller research intensive pre-92 universities. They lost the marketing battle and several joined RG (showing the arbitrary nature of the group).

Interestingly, one that has been mentioned on this thread as having 'social' prestige was one of these late joiners and was widely understood to have cooked the books to show whatever financial measure was the entry criteria.

www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2022

You can search by country - interesting results - very different to the Mumsnet rankings......

www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2023

The latest version.

I'm finding it quite amusing how biased all the English posters are on here about Scottish universities, particularly Glasgow which is both much older and higher ranking than many that have been repeatedly mentioned on here. It has also produced more prime ministers than anywhere but Oxbridge (equal to Edinburgh for PMs but has more Scottish First Ministers).

www.topuniversities.com/subject-rankings/2022

This is by subject. LSE does not do as well on the general list but is ranked top three, ie above Cambridge, for Social Science and Management.

I tend to agree with a couple of earlier posters that, from an international perspective
at least, there is a triangle: Oxford, Cambridge and some London Universities.

In England itself there seems to be more prestige given to Oxbridge. DC studied at LSE and Imperial and both seem to have given them access to great opportunities in their respective fields, which are as good as they could have got anywhere.

And yet again, as per my earlier post the QS rankings are highly problematic and everyone should not be wary of setting much store by them.

If anyone wants to know why they are controversial, you only have to google… In a past life I used to be involved in educational research, in lots of instances the QS rankings were largely disregarded.

Doh. 'should' be wary, that should have said!