How much store do you set by league tables?

[Thepleasureofyourcompany]

As the 2024 tables are now on The Complete Uni guide. Looking at what dd wants to study and some unis have moved up 30 or 40 places! That seems like a huge jump and could be complete anomalies.

She's looking at sports science and UEA is now in the top five despite not actually offering actual Sports Science (purely education based degrees).

Just wondered generally how seriously people take them?

@thing47 Thsts not entirely true. Companies can look at all info about a candidate. Not just the most recent.

As for the other rant about me! Freedom of speech! I’m exercising it.

Most decent larger employers use blind recruitment (well done to them) so where you did your degree is becoming irrelevant - finally. A degree from a so called top Uni doesn’t mean you will be good at the job or a good employee.

They might do. They delete the university. But they still look at other data! It also doesn’t mean the lower ranked grads are getting the jobs. It turns out the same universities are still top of the tree. Why might that be? Maybe those students just do tests better? Or know more? Or are more suited to the job? Or interview better? Have better work experience? There’s no evidence of any change in employment at all in favour of other less well regarded universities. Unless the employer works with the university. Then it’s hardly a hidden bit of info!

@Parker231 whilst blind recruitment is on the increase, I don't think it's the norm yet for graduate employers.

A lot of them also use the term to signify they don't want the candidates' names on applications, to protect against minority bias etc; and not that they don't want details of education institutions.

My employer - huge global payments company - definitely still expects university name and degree classification to be provided - I'm not stating this is good btw

I’ve recruited from Uni’s referred to as top 20 and those in the 100’s. I want the best - I don’t care where they went to school or Uni. My current best grad recruit (global consulting firm) went to Staffordshire Uni and prior to that the local comprehensive school. They lived at home during Uni because they couldn’t afford campus fees. They are the first in their family to go through a graduate scheme for their first job.

Well done them! That’s one company. On employee. It’s not the overall picture. One swallow does not a summer make!

@lastdayatschool I agree with you. Many firms still want info. Names are removed. My employers did this decades ago. And ages, sex and ethnicity. If you take too much info away, other bias pops up! Clothes at interview for example. How someone speaks. It’s a long list!

If no one cares about university, why does it matter that @thing47 DD does her masters at the best for her subject? It would not matter one jot would it? Or are we really thinking the skills acquired are better so it’s worth it? If we do not think it matters to employers, why not stay at a lower ranking university? Why doesn’t everyone go to Staffordshire? Truthfully, we think it does matter. That’s why there are endless threads on mn about Oxbridge! It’s viewed as important. Employers tend to agree it appears.

That's brilliant for him and well done. But if he was the first from his uni to get to this company then it wouldn't have come up on this mythical list of job destinations that some are alluding to. I do look at the percentage of students in a graduate level job, but tbh so many jobs are now 'graduate level' that it's fairly meaningless.

Lol! I suggested law to dd and she said the same thing about AI!

That is an overly extreme example. Not the person you’re responding to originally but I said this to my children in the sense that if you’re choosing between Durham and Bristol don’t choose one just because it’s no 10 this year and the other is no 11. Obviously there are tiers at uni level but arbitrary year on year differences shouldn’t be the key factor in why you choose somewhere.

Oops that was meant as a reply to an earlier comment regarding Sunderland vs Durham. Still don’t know how to respond on here!

"Go and get a feel" should surely be the "tie breaker" once you've done all your other due diligence and research on Unis, subjects, etc. You can't seriously think it should be a major deciding factor on it's own??

DS had done loads of research, lots of soul searching, etc., when trying to choose the uni/course. We went to several open days along the way, but honestly have to say that he pretty much felt the same way about them all, none stood out in particular, all much of a muchness, and most of the presentations/info etc he'd already seen on the Uni's own websites. Basically he thought they all just did the same and probably copied each other - same format of "presentations", most labs looked the same, similar range of clubs/societies, etc. He got very little out of them and they didn't help him choose.

In the end, he finally chose the degree subject, and then his "short list" was very short as few Unis did that exact course. Basically just 2 Unis did it in our half of the country. He'd been to an open day of one, but not the other. He got offers for both. One was RG so his initial thought was that was the one to firm. But he went to both offer holder days, saw the reality of "a real day" at Uni at each, not the sanitised open day, and decided the RG wasn't for him at all, so he went with the other.

So, for him, the only benefit of the "go and get a feel" was to put him off the one which was "better on paper"! So, yes, going and getting a feel was useful in the end, but it was way down his list of what he thought was important - what was far more important to him in both choice of Uni and course was the job prospects.

He wasn't going to waste 3 years of his life and get £50k in debt based on "go and get a feel" and risk not getting a good career at the end of it.

Companies can look at all info about a candidate.

You're absolutely right, they can. But quite a lot don't. I guess along with career planning, a student could look at whether companies in the professions they are considering/targeting do typically look at A level grades.

If no one cares about university, why does it matter that @thing47DD does her masters at the best for her subject? It would not matter one jot would it? Or are we really thinking the skills acquired are better so it’s worth it? If we do not think it matters to employers, why not stay at a lower ranking university?

I'm in agreement with you that it's dangerous to extrapolate from the specific to the general, but I can answer with regard to DD2. She went to a mid-rank post-1992 university for her first degree, and while the course and teaching were excellent her career aim is to get into research so she thought it would be better to go to a more research-intensive university where she could – and did – conduct original research for her Masters. I think she was as surprised as anyone to get onto the course tbh (second best, in fact, Oxford is higher, though Cambridge isn't). But she certainly made the most of it once there.

Incidentally, by tagging me on a post about universities not mattering at all I hope you are not implying I think that. What I have said on this thread is that A levels do not matter for the large majority of employers, and universities, when they are recruiting graduates.

But he totally "got a feel"!

It certainly could become demotivating if someone works like a dog to get to Oxbridge from a very badly off backround (or wins a full scholarship to Eton having come over to the UK on a refugee boat) if that is held against them ore is completely irrelevant for a future job. Same with A level grades. If Z is as lazy as sin and gets really bad A level grades and X works really hard and gets all As it would be great shame if they were both considered equally for a first job.

Good to read successes like this

@Parker231
He was offered a place to study Maths at Warwick. Think he might have done alright as well if he’d gone to Uni!

The point is that he did equally well without going down the Uni route.

You would hope so as he’s obviously bright, but guess it takes firms like Deloitte to have schemes like apprenticeships and degree apprenticeships for 18 yr olds, as alternatives.

So may be it has been a bit of a con to make solicitors, accountants, teachers, nurses go to university at all and incur debt when they could start at age 18 in the work place?

Same with A level grades. If Z is as lazy as sin and gets really bad A level grades and X works really hard and gets all As it would be great shame if they were both considered equally for a first job.

Why? There are lots and lots of reasons why schoolchildren mature (academically speaking) at different ages – some of these are tied to the schooling itself and some are tied to socio-economic status, parental support, peer group, home situation and so on. There is tons of pedagogical research data to support this, so if you're going to try to contradict it you're going to have to do a bit better than 'it's a shame'.

After 3 (or 4) years of university where students broadly have access to the same tutors, the same library, the same resources, some of those inequalities have been evened out to some extent. Therefore their most recent qualification, ie their degree, is much more indicative of their current academic achievement than A level exams taken several years earlier. Most universities do not ask for A level grades when you apply for higher degrees, but I'm sure you know better than post-graduate admissions tutors @Xenia

Definitely doing very well but, given Deloitte have over 1200 partners in the UK, saying he's at the top table is a bit of journalistic licence

Many roles we now perceive needing a degree probably don’t and training could be given on the job with more use of apprenticeships.

And there's a difference between salaried "partners" and equity partners. Professional firms like solicitors and accountants call people a partner but they remain on the payroll as salaried staff - they aren't "real" partners in that they don't co-own the business. It's basically so the firm can change "partner" rates to the clients which can easily be double the charge out rate of a normal staff member.

Who is the "we"? It seems like it's the employers who've decided degrees are needed over the past 2 or 3 decades. They're the ones who state degree requirements in their recruitment processes. It's not students nor the general public. Aunt Mabel wasn't the one demanding her nurse has a degree was she? It was the NHS/Govt/Medical bodies! It wasn't Joe the Plumber wanting 50% of school leavers to go to Uni - it was Tony Blair!

At least the tide is turning, helped mostly by one of the Tories more sensible polices - apprenticeship levies, where big employers either pay an extra "tax" or they have to fund their own apprenticeship schemes. It's taking time to work through, but at least, shoots are starting to appear.