University snobbery

[nysw]

Just wondering if anyone has come across this from adults/parents?

That is all

She has studied it at a 3h/week Arabic club at school, and loves it! Hope yours enjoys looking at Exeter and other unis.

Most employers know it is hard to get into Oxbridge, but there are not enough graduates just from there to fill all the higher paid graduate job roles so the net is definitely wider. I don't think my 3 Bristol children eg who are lawyers are at any particular disadvantage from not trying for Oxbridge in terms of most law jobs and the factors that matter in getting jobs will also be things like what you do at university - some of my sons' friends at Bristol put massive amount of work into getting banking internships and the like during their time there and others did not a single thing about thinking about jobs until they graduated.

A law firm Freshfields has just put up the pay of people after they have spent 2 years working at the firm as trainees - so when they qualify - to £150,000.

if you type Freshfields, trainee solicitor, linkedin on Google you will see where people went to university by way of example.... looking at the results there I am seeing first in law from Cambridge and 11 A stars at GCSE kind of thing but also Durham, someone with a first from oxford, a contextual candidate with a different background, just various places but generally most of the people have done well and most have been at the better universities.

My DD chose St Andrew's over Cambridge, loved the course and the University. She got her Cambridge offer first and her school said St Andrew's was a long shot but she held out and she's very glad she did.

This post has nailed it. LSE and Imperial each have a number of courses that compete well with Oxbridge but the man-in-the-street brand recognition does not have the same impact. The same is true of a number of other UK universities to a slightly lesser extent, including several mentioned by PP.

St Andrews and Durham are amongst the universities famous for taking Oxbridge rejects and famous for high teaching quality. This combination means that by and large offers are very high and the UG cohort is very strong.

Research strength is another matter; at both universities it varies substantially by field and this is a major contrast with Oxbridge. It also lowers the quality of PG intake in the weaker fields, again a contrast with Oxbridge. But they may catch up.

University snobbery can, I think, stem from insecurities about wanting to be seen to be part of a particular economic, social or cultural group. It can also stem from a lack of self-awareness that we all, to some extent, live in our own socio-economic and regional bubbles and this can influence our exposure to different people and situations.

I remember a thread about U of Exeter v U of Southampton. Some emphatically announced the former was clearly more prestigious than the latter; when quizzed it was clear this was based on knowing lots of Exeter alumni but no Soton alumni; absence of exposure was assumed, without sound basis, to be a negative for Soton.

There has been others threads querying whether Lancaster U was somewhat 'regional' (inferred to be a negative) when, in reality, it is probably less regionally biased in terms of intake than, say, U of Bath. Just because somewhere is some distance from your home region does not make it bad.

I think there can also be cultural overlays. St Andrews and Durham 'present' in aesthetics as 'near substitutes' for Oxford and Cambridge and, for some, this can be an additional dimension.

None of this matters if it does not influence recruitment and progression and hopefully this is becoming less of an issue but something to guard against.

@PerpetualOptimist

It very much depends in which field you are working too. Engineering at Exeter isn't the same as engineering at Southampton, for example. The latter is better. We do have very many great universities and for some subjects, there are market leaders in the league tables. They are not necessarily the same ones employers think are best though! That also varies and depends on employment sector.

@PerpetualOptimist @TizerorFizz
So now I’m really confused!
If all the unis are offering different things and the employers don’t agree with the market leaders what the hell are the poor A level students to do?

They should research each course they can reasonably aspire to for their subject. There are some clear market leaders in some subjects, but some of these courses are very small and some departments have fewer options than others. Look at entry tests. Which unis require them? It's not black and white to think employers value psychology at one uni over another 10 places below. So much is down to the individual,

Obviously the vast majority cannot get into the top 5 for a subject. So what then? They can of course be successful at number 6,11or 26. Some employers have good working relationships with local unis, not just the top ones.

Subject matters though. The ifs work makes this very clear. RG plus matters but that's 30 unis and others at the newer unis like Surrey and Former polys can have exactly the right skills for employers. So every student should think about subject, uni and career and where they can realistically go.

Their research. Which they should be capable of, if they're even thinking of going to university.
Most universities will have a list of the employers which attend their career fairs - which indicates the quality of the degree. They'll also have strategic partners, current/alumni outreach, etc. Forums like TheStudentRoom even have verified university advisors to answer questions.

Young people these days spend so much time on their phones, they should be able to use it for something productive!

To answer your question @Pinkypinkyplonk, I refer you to the above post. Better to view choice of uni as being about the most appropriate vehicle for your personal development rather than simply an overall label to acquire and leverage; if course specialism is part of that, so be it; but how you squeeze the pips out of your uni experience is down to you and prospective employers, these days, are more likely to try and evaluate individual context via screening tests, assessment centres etc rather than lazily rely on overall uni 'name' and some grossly generalised assumptions that might attach to that. Some unis are research powerhouses, some have particular specialisms and some attract higher attaining students but the picture is mixed and varied and not easily boiled down to a brand name that transcends course specialism (perhaps with some exceptions as outlined upthread).

@pistonsaremachines I think it is actually quite difficult to assess what employer connections might exist within individual uni departments; I have seen good examples at U of York (Chem) and U of Bath (by broad subject group) but these are rare in my experience. Some MN posters on other threads refer to the annual High Fliers Report as 'evidence' of the unis most esteemed by employers. What the research actually shows are the most visited unis by the largest (bulk) grad recruiters and, for these organisations, pragmatic considerations of selecting one location by broad region comes into play so, surprise surprise, the list is headed by the likes of Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Nottingham, Bristol, Southampton and Edinburgh. London appears lower down the list by virtue of visits being dispersed across several unis; so we need to be careful how we interpret such info.

@PerpetualOptimist (didn't want to quote massive post!) completely agree, that 'most visited unis' might be so for geographic considerations, rather than solely university strength.

Individual/module connections are more important IMO for niche fields - there was a DC (was it this thread) choosing Plymouth for Oceanography instead of Southampton due to things like 'more ocean time'. Similarly, universities often highlight opportunities for undergraduates to do research, partnerships with employers (a couple of universities partner with VW and L'Oreal for Automative Engineering and Cosmetic Science respectively - and have a lot of students on placement).

The large graduate employers have a very structured hiring process, so 'connections' are irrelevant. You can find detailed tips online, and often even all the past year interview questions are available on forums like The Student Room. The difficulty with them is getting past 'process', often online tests, video interviews etc sift a lot of people out.

I do think that the push for uni straight away after A-levels is ridiculous. You only get one set of undergraduate loans and so many just pick a subject because all their friends are going, or they're expected to go. More and more are taking gap years and actually thinking about what they want, which is a good thing,

I've hired 10 people in the last 12 months and I didn't once look at what university they attended. I looked at their experience, samples of their work and culture fit in interviews. For all the snobbery you'd be surprised how many people who hire do not care.

@labamba007
That’s great to hear

Hiring older people is very different from graduate recruitment where you are looking at raw material! They won't have had a huge chance to build up a sparkling cv of competencies. There's also an issue of suitability for further training and many companies test to see if a grad can do the required work and complete professional training. This isn't just about uni, it is about lots of attributes. Even boring things such as writing accurately.

I went to uni in 2000 and my mum and some of my sixth form teachers were very snotty about ex-polytechnics. I now work in HE and nobody gives a shit.
The example I always cite if people are dicks about it is Chris Mason (friend of a friend) who did journalism at the university of central Lancashire (formerly Preston Polytechnic) and is now the BBC's political correspondent.
Russell Group, however, is another matter...!

Chris Mason, political editor at the BBC, went to Cambridge, where he did Geography. And then a postgrad in journalism at City.

You might want to revisit your choice of example https://alumni.christs.cam.ac.uk/chris-mason

Christ's College are understandably very proud of him

Because they do!

I went to a so called prestigious RG university and thought it was shite frankly. I’m not bothered whether my son goes there or to one of the other good non RG universities he has offers for. I’d probably have something to say if he knocked back those offers for a former poly though