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?

Of course solicitors historically never did used to go to university. You were apprenticed (or “articled”) to an experienced solicitor and learnt that way. My FIL was senior partner of the largest firm in Bristol and he never went to university. Same with the bar. You just got pupillage with a senior barrister. Didn’t need a degree although many had them. There is a circuit judge in the South east still working (in her 60s) who was at the bar, became a KC and then a judge and does not have a degree.

Also given that it is so unusual he gets a half page artivle written about him, definitely the exception rather than the rule.

Not at all. All the accountancy firms I worked in during the 80s and 90s had some partners who hadn't been to University. As a PP mentioned, professional firms usually had "articled" clerks who were trainees and working towards full qualification as a surveyor, solicitor, accountant or whatever after the requisite number of years and studying for the exams alongside working.

Yes, more have been going to Uni during the last 20 years, but they still have to do the professional exams and get supervised experience afterwards, under a training contract. An accounting degree doesn't make you an accountant, a law degree doesn't make you a solicitor!

I think it's more just a good marketing dept who've sent out a mailshot that's attracted the attention of the media.

The only thing unusual is the media attention. What he's done is what other professionals achieve every day.

Tell DD to divide unis up into tiers based on how hard they are to get into to.

Apply to the ones in the tier she will have the results for, filtering them by which offer the modules that sound most interesting. But also factor in how well known a Uni is. For example, Leeds just sounds better to many employers than Keele, regardless of their respective rankings overall, and for specific subjects.

Ignore anything to do with student satisfaction. It’s nonsense.

What people are publishing sometimes doesn’t trickle down to undergrads

Well, that depends. In a good research-led Humanities department, why wouldn't students want to be taught by the people writing the books on their subject? I do this all the time - when I start a new research project/book, I deliberately set up & teach modules on the topic I'm researching. The students get the benefit of my new research, and I, in turn, have the benefit of their fresh eyes on a topic I know inside out.

So research in the Humanities in particular, at a good university where staff are actively engaged in cutting-edge research (eg getting national & international grant funding, visibly publishing etc) it will always e great for the students, IF (a big if) they pay attention & get involved.

Think how lucky they are to be taught by world experts in their subjects!

I don't ignore really low student satisfaction.

Del, true. In fact I qualified as a solicitor under the then fairly new 1979 "qualifying regulations" the profession was trying to make solicitors a graduate profession. It was one of the aims of the then new scheme, but it was not that that long ago. My grandfather's brother was articled (although he did do an external London LLB in the 1890s of which the family was probably quite proud as it was mentioned in the obituary of him in the local papers). He set up on his own in Leeds. Mind you that is going back a very long way.

Also legal executives who had not been to university could and still can qualify as solicitors without university so perhaps solicitors have always been ahead of the curve on this.

What will be interesting for solicitors (sorry about the law tangent) is how their route to qualifying will affect later promotions including under the new SQE system where even 2 years volunteering in an advice centre will be enough to qualify even if worse experience than a formal 2 year of training in a firm.

University can be other things than just academic learning, ideas, critical thinking (if you are free to state facts about basic biology about people and IF you are allowed to vote Tory! and talk about it) and careers.

It can be a good bridge from home to independence.

It also helps people meet people. I probably have 5 children because I met their father during the final year of my studies which I might not have done were I not there. You never meet so many new people about your age at once as at that phase. I think some dating apps even let people choose a partner based in part on if they went to university.

@Xenia

It can be a good bridge from home to independence.

Being able to manage your own shopping, cooking and laundry isn't the be all and end all.

I "grew up" massively when I got my first full time job after leaving school. Working for 37.5 hours per week in an adult environment in an office full of adults. It's amazing how being surrounded by adults matures you!

Personally, I think university can just extend childhood. That's certainly how several of the graduates which my employers have taken on over the years have presented themselves.