Guardian university rankings out yesterday

[TheJollyCoralEagle]

The Guardian University rankings were published yesterday (The Daily Mail rankings are out today as well, but I don't really want to reference that otherwise this might take a political detour which isn't relevant to the conversation)
The usual subjects are at the top. Oxbridge, Imperial, UCL, Durham etc. What is interesting is further down. Established, high ranking globally, Russell Group unis like Newcastle and Nottingham at 62nd and 63rd, but Chichester at 26th and Bolton at 32nd
And then the variation between the league tables. Bolton for example is 108th in the CUG and Chichester at 79th.
I know the Guardian uses different metrics to CUG (and the others) but the rankings must have some relevance to each other?
Some good advice is to go look at the subject league tables but even there, that isn't always useful. My son wants to do Quantity Surveying. Speaking to Quantity Surveyors in practice they generally regard Oxford Brookes as one of the top universities for Quantity Surveying yet Oxford Brookes comes in at 12th on the CUG Quantity Surveying rankings. And for Magic Circle law recruitment or investment banking for example, apparently the vast majority of their recruits come from a handful of targeted top universities, but some other universities feature highly in these relevant subject rankings.
I know rankings aren't important for everyone. Some people just want to go to a university that they like for the experience, the city, their friends are going there, it's close to home etc, but for students concerned about getting a job and having to choose between more than 100 universities it's a bit of a minefield!
I know recruiters aren't supposed to look at which university you went to, so maybe rankings aren't such a big factor in the job market any more, but let's not kid ourselves if rankings/reputation/kudos weren't important most students would be going to Leeds Beckett, Northumbria, LJU or Nottingham Trent to have a great social life!

https://www.theguardian.com/education/ng-interactive/2024/sep/07/the-guardian-university-guide-2025-the-rankings?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

The Guardian rankings are plain wierd.

I find the best rankings to the the QS World rankings especially for subjects where industry reputation is important. I would always look at the ranking by subject rather than the overall ranking.

There's a good lesson here for potential students in critical thinking and not taking everything that's published as the whole truth.

We were smiling at Essex supposedly ranked higher than Warwick for Economics. Essex already have it on their website that they are 7th in the UK for Economics and 1st for value-added.

Fair to say there's a fair amount of cynicism about these rankings on social media.

One history lecturer posted the rankings for History and said some of these top 10 departments are severely threatened.

The top two universities for "Sociology and Social Policy" don't actually offer degrees just in sociology - although they have related degrees.

The OS rankings use data from asking academics to rate departments. Which is fine in theory but in practice senior management exert pressure on staff to contact their networks and ask them for a vote 🤷

I'm not sure everyone respects the quality of guardian reporting - it can be as politically biased as the DM.
My DH reads the full range, and while a lot of the dm is trash, he reckons it's money section - where it's more facts and figures - is pretty good. Maybe the uni league tables are more like that than their click bait stuff?

How do they work out their supposed 'value added' criteria? If it's essentially A levels vs degree classification out then it's obviously bollocks. The likes of Cambridge and imperial have nowhere to go with that! (Especially if they resist grade inflation as DDs course does). If they admitted students with lower A levels those kids simply wouldn't be able to handle the quantity and complexity of the course content. But the value to students capable of doing those courses in terms of what they've learned even if they aren't given a first... maybe it's beyond the comprehension of the guardian folk?

How do they work out their supposed 'value added' criteria?

@ErrolTheDragon - no smirking please.😀

Value Added
In order to assess the extent to which each department will support its students towards achieving good grades, we use value added scores to track students from enrolment to graduation. A student’s chances of getting a good classification of degree (a 1st or a 2:1) are already affected by the qualifications that they start with so our scores take this into account and report the extent to which a student exceeded expectations.

Each full-time student is given a probability of achieving a 1st or 2:1, based on the qualifications that they enter with or, if they have vague entry qualifications, the total percentage of good degrees expected for the student in their department. If they manage to earn a good degree, then they score points that reflect how difficult it was to do so (in fact, they score the reciprocal of the probability of getting a 1st or 2:1). Otherwise they score zero. Students completing an integrated masters award are always regarded as having a positive outcome.

At least 30 students must be in a subject for a meaningful value added score to be calculated using the most recent year of data alone. If there are more than 15 students in both the most recent year and the preceding year, then a two-year average is calculated.

This metric is expressed as points/10 and contributes 15% to the total score of a department but is not used for medical subjects

I had a quick look at the law rankings, saw that Solent was ahead of Durham in the top five, and binned it.

The likes of Cambridge and imperial have nowhere to go with that!

Tbf to the Graun, ICL and Cam have a piss easy job teaching compared to those who admit a lot of BTEC students.

But from the POV of students reading these tables, if they're able students they'd almost certainly be better served by being in that more easily teachable cohort - who can therefore be taught more/deeper content rather than the staff slacking off.

if they're able students they'd almost certainly be better served by being in that more easily teachable cohort

But if they're not in the AAA bracket they need to be able to identify the uni that can get the best out of them.

But if they're not in the AAA bracket they need to be able to identify the uni that can get the best out of them.

Horses for courses...well yes.

That's not what these tables do though, is it? They'd need to do something more like a matrix of ucas points v outcomes than a one-dimensional list for it to be even vaguely meaningful.

Are the Guardian rankings as bizarre for other subjects as they are for law?

We've only really looked at Economics but South Bank (6th), Essex (7th), Huddersfield (19th) and Brighton (11th) are all in the Top 20 in the Guardian tables compared to 72nd, 43rd, 58th and 53rd in the CUG.

@ErrolTheDragon But you know those courses wanting CCC for engineering are just as good as those wanting AAA and selecting!!! All those firsts they give snd the value added must give those students a degree equivalent to Imperial - don’t they? Obviously I’m joking but these tables seem to be based on all degrees being equal. And some people do believe this! So the Guardian feeds off this. I just don’t understand why they print this table knowing everyone laughs at it.

As a FAT HASS lecturer at a RG university, I believe more creative writing went on in the composition of that Guardian table than unfortunately does in most universities these days!

It's true and heartbreaking however that history departments at threat of becoming, well, history.

Guardian ranking is a joke as always.

What is interesting is the relative improvement of Universities in London.

Go back five or so years and LSE, ICL etc were often well down the table. Their student satisfaction scores did for them. Historically LSE always propped up the national student satisfaction tables. I have not looked them up for this year but hopefully the completion of several building projects, leading to more student facilities and a better campus feel, has helped. This year both are closer to where you would expect them to be. I do hope it is because London students are happier, not because lags mean that the satisfaction is measured during Covid years when the student experience everywhere was challenged.

Law is odd, as is accounting and finance. Universities located in places where major banks have historically had their back office operations can have practical but well respected Finance degrees. It is in a bank's interest to work with Universities and students on things like summer internships and work placements, as they will want a steady stream of new recruits. There is a pathway that has a capable person without the A/A*s, getting a first job in one of those regional centres and making up the ladder to reasonably senior jobs in the city. But these are not the institutions that are receiving the surprisingly high rankings.

A lot of Guardian journalist s are Oxbridge so it is in their interest to keep Oxbridge too and it's hard to argue with that. However the Guardian have always supported the newe r universities in general as a campaigning paper. Bit patronising really as they are saying it's Oxbridge then the rest which isn't true.

The whole problem with this is that you have two historical universities Oxford and Cambridge that quite rightly sit at the top so we acknowledge we have a hierarchical university system (for historical reasons).

However if you are an intelligent Oxbridge reject you are automatically consigned to the rest and your achievements at A level etc. Aren't recognised. Don't some people see it's a bit insulting if a child has narrowly missed out on Oxford law and taken a place at Durham the right on papers fancy Solent on par. Surely this leaves Oxbridge rejects with a 'why bother' attitude which isn't fair and compounds the Oxbridge or just anxiety amongst high acheivers.

We should give our children credit for their efforts and that does mean extending university hierarchies be low Oxbridge despite a concerted effort by the press to manipulate rankings to support a social agenda.

If you’re going to try and be snobbish OP you should get your facts straight first. Northumbria is actually in the top 15 for vocational property degrees so not just good for partying!
TBH, unless it’s Oxbridge I’m not sure anyone is impressed these days and I know plenty of friends with Oxbridge degrees who earn a fraction of DH’s salary . DH went to Northumbria.

They have Trinity St David above Loughborough for Sports Science.

I think they might be trolling.

@Theseventhmagpie

If we just have Oxbridge (impressive) then the 'rest' what can we say to those Oxbridge rejects of which they are many that making efforts to achieve good A levels was worth it?

There are many outstanding young people that didn't make Oxbridge as evidenced by threads on MN and are we saying to them you can't enter any university with an impressive reputation as well, hey, they are all just members of a homogenous group in terms of intake?

I do feel this is unfair on young people and unfair on aspiration. Working hard and achieving should as far as possible result in reward and that is why there needs to be an element of competition in HE and we should be transparent about the universities positions for this competition.

If we are going to have elite education with today's population and grade profiles then there has to be expansion of the 'top' away from Oxbridge. We are conflicted about how to do this and have set up imperfect labelling such as the RG to try and relive this. I think this thread shows we are still having this debate.

I think we need to as a country decide whether we want to be elitist about height education. As we have Oxbridge then the answer partially is yes; we need to decide on what to do below that in a way fair to young people.

In the US popular culture has youth striving to be accepted into top colleges and many a teenage film my daughter watches has this trope. We do not have a similar culture in the UK and I find it interesting.

Higher not height!

Guardian focuses much more on student experience than some of the other rankings.

Why do people keep saying this?

Student satisfaction accounts for 10% of the Guardian ranking score (16% for medicine). It's 18.75% of the Complete University Guide score. The Times/Sunday Times ranking is harder to work out but it looks like student satisfaction is about 10% of that one, too. I can't find any details of the Daily Mail methodology that don't require a subscription to access.