Does anyone have the top 10 from the new Times Uni Guide 2027?

[KizzyKoala]

It’s behind a paywall but would be interesting to see.

I have had DC at Cambridge and St Andrews - I'd say the calibre of students and the quality of teaching is very similar. Weirdly, St Andrews doesn't seem to have as many Scottish as you might expect. Walking around you hear a LOT of Americans. I think it's maybe even 20-30% Americans there.

The best thing about St Andrews is that degree programmes are far more diverse and flexible with many more options for dual honours degrees. In fact, students don't actually have to decide on their actual degree title until the end of the second year. I think, at an open day, they said about 30% of students come out with a different degree to the one they went in for due to having experienced a subject in their first or second year that they hadn't had an opportunity to study at A-level - eg. you could very easily go in to study English Lit, take Law and Modern History as your compulsory other two modules in the first year, and come out with a Law degree. Or a History degree. It's much more like the US system where you only 'major' in the second half of the degree programme. I think a lot of people in England aren't aware that the Scottish degree structure is quite different in this respect (well, we had no idea, but might have just been us).

The other huge benefit of St Andrews is the overseas study option in the third year because students come out with another institution on their academic record - eg. UPenn, Berkeley etc. There are very strong exchange links with a number of top US universities, but also many other global institutions.

On the other hand, Cambridge is obviously a much larger uni and has the international reputation that still carries clout. You can't really fault the tutorial system for value for money. I know people say many organisations recruit blindly, and I'm sure this is true in some industries. But not in all! The name does still carry benefits - but like anything, it depends on what they do with it.

I think we are lucky to have amazing unis in the U.K., as such a small nation. The London unis - Imperial, LSE and UCL -are also fantastic in their own ways. You can't go wrong with any of them.

ST Andrews and LSE do appear much lower in the QS global - I think this must be because they are smaller institutions. I mean, in London, everyone knows that Imperial and LSE are equally competitive entry - it's just one is a STEM and one is a Social Science institution. Yet, Imperial comes top of the QS Global with MIT etc, whereas LSE is much lower. I'm not sure why.

Which industries ignore good cvs from lesser universities and just pick a name?

This is a misleading statistic. It isn’t that they “take” a number of Scottish students, it’s that the proportion of Scottish v overseas students is different.

The number of Scottish students a university can offer places to is capped by the Scottish government. The number is based on historical data for the numbers of Scottish students who applied to the university, e.g, if around 400 students had always been awarded a place at UoE, that’s the number allocated to them. The reason they have a lower percentage of Scottish students is, they attract more overseas students. If UoE had 1600 students, the percentage of Scottish students is 25%, if they only had 800 students, the percentage would be 50%. In both cases the actual number of Scottish students hasn’t changed. They aren’t giving places to overseas students rather than Scottish ones. It makes sense that the biggest names will attract more overseas students.

What does happen is, the student offering is diluted to suit the larger cohort. At both UoE and St Andrews, if you are Scottish student, particularly from a non privileged background, you are very much a fish out of water.

@Heartw00d Definitely law. Around 40% of barristers are Oxbridge and around 10% are non RG. Not sure about top law firms but they tend to recruit uni blind but the cream rises! Same outcomes as before!

We really need to get away from relying on a narrow set of league tables or obsessing over Russell Group universities. They can be high level indicators, but what about other things like teaching quality, student satisfaction scores or widening access? I thought this was helpful: www.offtouni.co.uk/p/university-rankings-explained-what-parents-need-to-know-about-league-tables-russell-group-universiti

I disagree with this. University of Edinburgh frequently scores very high on this list, but when you dig in to it, the largest part of its score comes from its research numbers. The student experience last year ranked as one of the lowest on the list. Research funding has very little impact on the actual experience of the average student, other than the uni’s ability to attract funding they use for facilities. It makes little difference that you are sitting in a brand new lecture theatre theatre to learn, if outwith that room your needs aren’t being met. The “soft” offering in things like pastoral care, student support etc is woefully inadequate at UoE.

Why should a two month summer internship make that much difference? A few months down the line and any summer experience becomes very much irrelevant. A great candidate without that experience would be much more valuable than a mediocre one with it.

It isn’t the cream that is rising. Having a degree from a particular university doesn’t make you more capable of doing the job. The requirements to gain a law degree are set centrally. You need the same level of knowledge to get it, no matter where you study. Universities may “mark their own homework” but it is audited and benchmarked by independent bodies. They can’t just teach any old shit and pass any student.

The reason preference is given to students from certain universities by some employers has nothing to do with academic success or attainment, it is to screen for the right “type” of people. If you were to blind recruit based only on exam outcomes the picture would be very different, but the quality would not differ.

Remember, scum also floats to the top.

Universities are research institutions so are they being ranked on their whole business or just their undergraduate education? And if you are wanting to be educated with the most up to date knowledge in your field then you need your lecturers to be involved in the most up to date research.

Is that it?

Also isn’t focus re law applicants going to change with the advancements in AI? Won’t AI shift the skills law firms value, potentially reducing the traditional monopoly of Oxbridge candidates by placing a higher premium on technical literacy, practical judgment, and verified human reasoning?

Not everybody is going into corporate law or obvious graduate schemes where blind recruitment may be the norm. There are many more entrepreneurial organisations that search LinkedIn and approach maybe the top 1-2% of graduates from very top unis. They are featured on the website and contacted by employers for jobs they never had to apply for. Within weeks they nearly all will have amazing job offers with starting salaries of anything from 50-120k. I give those figures because they're just the ones I know about - maybe some start on higher salaries. Employers have to pay to access these graduate details and to interview them, but it must save them in time and cost overall because it cuts out sifting through thousands of CVs etc.

Not talking about summer internships which are often linked to privilege and not always all that when scratched beneath the surface. There are all sorts of things that can bump up CVs and experience when applying for jobs.

They really are not. So much of QS is based on perception on the basis of surveys with a tiny response rate. It is basically a grift set up by a private company to extort money out of universities.

Well that is clearly going to start waning with AI and the reduction in openings for graduates. What top firms are going to want candidates on the basis of their uni name as opposed to candidates that can code and interact competently with AI?

DS2 is starting at Loughborough next week and I must say so far I have been very impressed. It has a real academic buzz which was lacking in a lot of the RG unis we visited I felt (for his subject), and compares extremely favourably to the RG where his elder sibling went (although that one graduated this year and very quickly found a grad job so I have to give reputation some credence there I suppose). Accomodation, and the whole process/rigmarole around that has been extremely impressive, in comparison to elder sibling and experiences of many friends at other unis.

I do think that there clearly is an elite and a top tier of unis in the UK, and anyone that keeps an eye on all the tables every year can clearly see that. Its just that some non RG non trad ones are clearly up there, like Bath, Loughborough, St Andrews etc. And some of the trad elite like eg Warwick etc were quite heavily in clearing this year. That obviously depends on subject/course as well and I've never found it hard to understand that some departments at some unis are clearly going to be punching above or below the overall weight of the institution. I've never understood emphasising RG status over consistent performance in tables and actual experience of students, open days, graduate employment etc. I dont know anyone my age that employs grads that would care whether the candidate was from Bath or Warwick say, and I have to be honest I've see some shy away from Oxbridge grads becasue they are worried they will think the eraly years grad work is beneath them. Interesting point about the age of recruiters and the unis that were highly ranked 15y ago. That kind of makes sense but I feel like its also to do with current experience. Many people recruiting grads will have children, friends children of university age and I think are very aware of the 'names' right now and I think candidates from the unis their kids and their kids schools big up generally get an easier first sift (in my industry anyway) and they will roughly be the top 25 odd on the domestic tables, rightly or wrongly. I've never heard anyone hesitate over RG status or not, as evidenced by St Andrew's current position and favourable light for Bath, Loughborough etc grads.

DS2 has a medical condition and had to pretty much give up team sports entirely during A levels and now only goes to the gym and swims. He was worried about that but was reassured by multiple existing students at the Loughborough open day and offer holder day that it shouldn't be a problem and that not everyone is doing elite sports. They do seem to segregate those people in different accommodation as well. They have also been exceptionally proactive and efficient with accommodations for his medical condition which I thibk was handled really well (although obviously dont have any comparative experience there).

There is very little extra that can appear on a 21 year graduates CV that is really a reliable indicator of how good a candidate they are.

Wow not sure that’s true. Many students can have extra study, projects, work/life experience and even qualifications.

Which reflect opportunity rather than ability with the job,

@allthemind Everyone knows Loughborough, Bath, St Andrews and Lancaster! It’s not rocket science is it. Look at St A and Bath entry grades. Tells you what you need to know. RG is simply shorthand in schools and they are not emphasized over the 4 I mention.

The Scottish unis are favoured by entry attainment which has been discussed. Whst really should concentrate minds is whether students get grad jobs. Unis can be full of students who are not that bothered and even Oxbridge stats tell
you that. So it makes little odds which uni you go to if you aren’t bothered about a career.

Not at all. Many make their own opportunities. Extra study and qualifications, projects and handling of life challenges are self made not handed by opportunity and can very much indicate higher ability in a job.

@Heartw00d I do think too many students just do the course. I see this a lot in friends dc. They have unrealistic career goals, or no idea of what career at all. They do little towards any career and then wonder why they don’t get a job as they scattergun applications. Some do believe a masters solves everything, but it doesn’t. Definitely not for non stem dc. Students need to understand they are selling a package - themselves. They need to look closely at what employers want and tick the boxes. Too many do what their parents did and think the degree is enough. These days it’s not.

One should not happen at the expense of another. What tends to happen is lecturers who are doing research treat their teaching obligations as secondary, as something they have to do in order to be allowed to do their “real” job. Research is published, every lecturer in a subject has access to it, not just those in the places it is carried out. Any institution that has a high ranking because they are top for research but scores lowest in the student experience is not a good place for students to be.

Extra study, qualifications, projects and “handling of life challenges” are also an indicator of privilege. If you are from a poorer background the amount of time you have and the environment you live in can hugely affect your ability to do those things. If your “life challenge” is that you are a carer for a parent and raising your younger siblings, doing extra study is unlikely.

I would like it to be true that blind recruitment leads to more diversity, but in the civil service dept my brother works in, all their current Fast Stream graduates are from Oxford and the Leadership team is all Oxford, bar one (Cambridge).

Much as the assessments and interview processes are blind, the scrutiny of the tutorial/supervision system and having to defend and interrogate your own thoughts does create students who perform very well at interview.

I’m not sure why St Andrews is being used as a “lesser” example. It is massively selective and harder to get in to than many on the RG list.

It also isn’t easier for English students to get in to Scottish universities than to English ones. It’s actually easier for an English student to get a place in a Scottish university, because they are paying full fees and those places are far less limited.