new RG uni's

[betternextlife]

Announced today are 4 additions to the RG Group of Unis, Durham, Exeter, Queen Mary, and York. They were all previously part of the 1994 Group.

They all had a good reputation to start with and are not likely to be doing anything differenty at all, but presumably they think this will make them seem better.

So the question remains as to if any 'uni associations' which confer status really based on any actual superiority or just self-imposed hype.

Having taught within a range of institutions (including RG) I think that that it is definately the latter.

No. A Russell Group lecturer. An RG lecturer.

Try reading "a RG lecturer" out loud - doesn't work.

Flipping is far too strong a word thetasigmamum. It was very mild.

It's only relevant because of what OP said she did and because of the subject.

It works for me! :)

I hadn't heard of these groups until fairly recently and, in ignorance, thought Russell Group was like Ivy league and includeD all the best academic Unis. Therefore, I thought Durham and Exeter were in there already! I don;t even know who are in the Ivy League to be honest!

Will it makes a difference to those with special entrance exams? Medicine for example? Do they have to apply for all their choices in a certain group dependant on the 'BMAT' etc etc type exam they chose to sit?

May work for you, but it's wrong.

Yep, and I often despair of my Eng Lit undergrads. And I correct them. But I wouldn't do three successive posts pulling apart someone's well-intentioned and not particularly controversial post on here, because that person is not my student.

And I also make mistakes on here and pay less attention to my punctuation and expression than I am currently paying to my abstract open in another window. Don't we teach children about writing appropriate to situation? I'm on Mumsnet, not in the MLA journal, and I shall, accordingly, edit myself with less care.

DC's - short for dear children's surely. So fine.

No Kez, Durham was one of the first to introduce the LNAT in the same year as a small number of the RG universities and the BMAT has nothing to do with a particular group.

A lot of people think Durham and Exeter are RG. It's been used as a term to denote top or competitive universities and the 1994 group is barely referred to, except by pedants .

And wot SteamingNit said.

Three tiny weeny posts, hardly pulling OP apart! Anyhow, probably not worth pursuing I wouldn't have thought.

I thought it was quite simply a way of identifying (for those who are too young to remember) universities which had always been universities and which generally had the higher academic reputations across a range of subjects.

Well of course, if you were thinking your argument through and being measured in your expression, you should probably have got them all into the one post anyway! Bit adding 'ps' and then a 'pps' and then a 'ppps', I thought, which, as any fule no, is bad form.

I think you were ungracious and unkind, and needlessly so.

No, the 1994 group doesn't include any ex-polys and several of its members are more competitive to get into than some of the RG ones.

Nit I think you're overthinking it.

I assure you not - it was but the work of a moment to surmise the above

Blimey Nit. Like I said, it was just funny.

Actually the University of Bath (in the 1994 Group) started out as the Bristol College of Technology.

@Nit yes. I am known for being a vile evil witch when reviewing work because I am so mean about the way in which people write. Because it's often very crap and it absolutely has to stop being crap and start being adequate (this is employees, not students or even trainees). But this is mumsnet. And if I don't get to pull people up for misquoting Shakespeare then picking up on iPhone apostrophes is a bit harsh I feel.

@yello It's possible some of us can't work this morning because South West Water are making a big old racket in the street. Such hypothetical people might be looking for diversion To be honest my real thing is why this thread and not some of the other frantic bishes that have been paraded recently. And it's just idle curiosity.

OP, I'd get this thread deleted and start again, possibly in the FE section. I think it's a really interesting topic, esp. the lack of understanding of what these groups really are. I wonder if the new entrants have just got bigger, and so have a greater volume of research income? It gets interesting when you look at per capita RI rather than volume - but the media constantly labelling a self-selecting group of universities as "The top" doesn't help, and I suspect drove this change. Not good for small but excellent places like St Andrews.

So it seems that being a lecturer who can't be arsed to proof read is like being a doctor who enjoys the occasional cigarette. Or a dentist who likes sweets. We undermine our whole profession and are a disgrace.

And I don't think Loughborough started out as a university either.

Edith, that's exactly the problem, that people don't understand. They're all essentially lobbying groups, but the RG is big and powerful, and the media lazy.

Agree with habbibu.

1994 also includes Loughborough (used to be a CAT)

I can see (from this post) some parents will really know their stuff about the current uni scene, but sadly I feel a bit out of touch.

So just wondered how clued up and helpful are schools with all of this?

Or is it really down to the kids/parents to suss out what's in/what's out, what's up/what's down in the world of HE?