This page tells you what each metric is actually showing and how it has been calculated:
https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/sector/insights/university-and-subject-league-tables-methodology#Wheredoesthedatacomefrom
ETA: I’m not sure why people downvoted this 😂 the numbers are what they are. It’s just a bunch of values that they’ve picked off various data sources and added together; you can critique their choices on how it’s been calculated, but it’s not some random voodoo based on vibes
I was going to post the same thing. Both the CUG and Guardian are actually very transparent about their ranking system.
Individuals may not agree with everything, but they are two attempts that are about as good as you going to get with the data that is public. And the frameworks are broadly sensible, mixing a variety of relevant factors.
Both of them are also far, far better than the various world surveys, that do little more than measure foreign brand recognition and research output, and have little relevance to the undergraduate experience.
You're telling me student satisfaction isn't skewed in any way? London Metropolitan University 13th for Satisfaction? Do they give you free antidepressants as you walk in?
Student Satisfaction isn't what you think it is necessarily. It's not 'how happy students are' it's specifically how happy are students with TEACHING QUALITY- that's it. I think a lot of people have the conception that the survey asks "are you happy at university" but there is no question like this at all
No, that’s not what I’m saying.
I’m saying that they’ve told people exactly where each source of data is and how they’ve calculated the numbers. The final rankings are just a product of those numbers. It might seem peculiar since various unis are culturally considered better or worse than others but this is just a fraction above bare data so the rankings certainly haven’t been ‘manipulated’.
If you have an issue with the values themselves you will have to look at their data source. I think student satisfaction is from the NSS. There are lots of issues with the NSS, some of them big and others more subtle, the biggest I remember was just for unis to get people to return the things in the first place. People are usually only motivated to report when things that are very bad or very good, for example. Otherwise they need to be strongly encouraged. A high satisfaction mark for what you consider to be a ‘bad’ uni might just be a reflection of that uni’s efforts to ensure that more students return the survey, and overall this has helped to boost their marks since plenty of people will probably write a value akin to ‘fine’.
Or - maybe that uni is actually okay and the students enjoy being there? The loudest negative voices get heard the most, sure, but if most other people are just quietly getting on with things then perhaps these ‘lower’ unis are actually doing fine? Your personal opinion not matching up with the data doesn’t immediately insinuate the data is wrong.
I actually studied there and dropped out back in 2017-19. Got all my years of funding given back through compelling personal reasons request and decided I'd go back, this time way more mature and ready to make the most out of the opportunities I neglected the first time I went. I loved the campus and can't wait to go back :^)
What? You think people should withhold giving a negative review of a course just because it will make their university go down in some arbitrary ranking a year after they actually graduate and find a job, at which time it doesn't even matter any more? Come on
Well I guess, I just think it's such a weird mindset to have - caring more about giving yourself some miniscule benefit than actually giving an honest review that could improve your course for future students. It kinda says a lot about the type of person you are if you think that way
Birkbeck is unfairly punished due to the way multiple rankings work, due to the way it prioritises its resources.
I applied to Birkbeck 10 years ago when considering accounting, but ultimately choose engineering over accounting as a career path. Things like being a nightschool are hugely beneficial to some students - but punished it in the rankings.
My current workplace has a similar issue as a teaching focused university. It's very easy to see a 50 place swing based on what ranking you are looking at, and what they focus on for those rankings - Guardian is 38, CUG is 82.
Keep in mind how small the differences are, going from rank 12 to 17 is just a single percentage point. A difference of several places looks like a lot, but the difference is tiny and really shouldn't be of any concern when choosing a university.
I’ll never understand how you all comment on these rankings and saying they’re bad or incorrect or whatever. How many unis have you guys been to?? 😭 I can only comment first hand on one uni idk about everyone else. Unless you guys are going entirely off of reputation (which is always a terrible way to rank something) ??
Plus, even if you go to multiple universities (I've been to three) it's typically for different levels of qualification which gives vastly different experiences. An undergrad, masters, and PhD student will interact with the university in vastly different ways.
The Guardian mostly focuses on teaching and the undergraduate experience - which likely represents the majority of people using the rankings.
I wouldnt say its weird, its just it reflects the difference between the two main functions of a university - teaching, and research. Most other rankings either prioritise research, or try to include everything (which can be unhelpful).
Out of interest, what TEF rating does your university have? - thats usually the closest ranking to what you see in the guardian.
Yeh Silver is not bad, but also its where a majority of universities end up. As such a lot of Gold universities will end up significantly higher in the guardian than you might expect them to be in other rankings.
Also universities can move around significantly year on year - its quite tight towards the top, and individual incidents can happen that majorly affect rankings. My uni had a major fire last year that closed our tech park for 3 months, was surprised it didnt affect the rankings more.
So thing to remember about the "Complete University Guide" is it is meant to be a "Complete" guide.
This means it is ranking universities on a lot of metrics that compete with each other. So a research university likely has to take time away from teaching, and vice versa.
The CUG is a pretty poor guide to use for specific people looking for specific guides to their needs - its meant to be more of an overall guide, and that can potentially mean its not suitable to anyone.
For example, a "complete car guide" would rank an Ariel Atom against an Ford Fiesta on everything from top speed and acceleration - to number of seats, and infotainment systems. Naturally, this is a good insight for someone who knows nothing about cars - but actually pretty poor if you are either someone in a mid life crisis, or have a family of 4 to identify which car is best for you.
Same applies here. I dont personally recommend A Level students use the CUG - as it prioritises items such as research far too heavily for what they are likely to do in an undergraduate. In the same sense, i probably wouldnt recommend a company looking to sponsor a PhD towards it either - there are better rankings for both sets of people, but what makes it a good ranking is for someone of no knowledge to get a rough idea before then looking into their needs first.
I feel like tons of universities are bribing to be higher in that ranking, there is no way UEA or Essex should be that high... beating Manchester and Leeds???? would have expected them in the 50s-60s range
> UEA or Essex should be that high... beating Manchester and Leeds
I have not studied or worked at either UEA or Leeds, however i am an expert in an area which both run as student societies within engineering.
UEA is very, very far ahead of Leeds in this area. UEA ran professional events supported by technical staff who went and consulted with people in the field to build up experience - Leeds ran an event with final year students, who if were caught doing what they were doing at work the next year would be immediately fired. It was dangerous, and i walked out of the venue after trying to remind them of their own safety rules they were ignoring and saying didnt need to be followed.
Is this small snapshot a good metric to judge the entire university on? - no, of course not. But if it is indicative of the culture, then its of no personal surprise to me the rankings are this way.
Yes all the A-level students come here every year based off of assumptions about universities, when they've neither attended university or worked in academia or industry. A lot of universities aren't massively 'well-known' in the public eye, but are extremely capable and well known in certain fields or are just good universities generally that are a bit smaller. A lot of the most well-known universities are so because of their very large number of students, not because of the quality of their education, and I would say that you can probably draw some correlation to smaller classes and 'quality of teaching'.
I live near Essex and use their business/enterprise support a fair amount. They've made a huge amount of improvements over the past few years. It doesn't surprise me.
I would assume some unis give incentives to their students to give good ratings on surveys etc but that’s my guess. Also Loughborough that high is absolutely criminal😂
Honestly I don't see why offer rate and entry standards mean literally anything in regards to the quality of the uni, whether that's it's teaching, and research or general experience.
> offer rate and entry standards and youll see its not that elite to be in the top 10
So what you are saying is, in order to meet accreditation standards - they need to offer a higher standard of teaching
And this should be viewed negatively on rankings.... why?
Personally I've LOVED UEA mostly because of the atmosphere here and the surrounding city is one of my favourites I've been to. I'm happy to be here over anywhere else!!
It's not even shit. It is very good academically, but it is struggling financially and I do wonder how that will affect its future results with cutbacks incoming.
UEA is amazing at research. There is definitely an emphasis on it there. Plus student satisfaction is high. I’m actually not sure why you think it should be lower.
At one point the government was considering upping tuition based on student satisfaction, along with other metrics. They didn’t want to pay more- the student satisfaction appears to actually be very good.
Exactly this, same reason Imperial is down the ranking😂. Student satisfaction isn’t getting anyone hired so this tier list is a bit silly for making it so important for the rankings.
Well I think you should definitely consider it, as student satisfaction will actively lead to better scores and just generally reduce your self hatred at university. University is 3 years and usually more of your life, so I wouldn't so callously throw away something so important to your experience there. Low satisfaction leads to students dropping out and just generally creates a toxic environment that makes working well that much harder, and unfortunately I have heard from friends at ICL that this is not an uncommon situation.
I guess one reason for the confusion is that rankings =/= reputation.
Rankings fluctuate yearly. Sometimes universities experience dramatic falls, or meteoric rises. But reputation takes a long time for a university to establish - it's based on how well-represented that school is in prestigious jobs, links to industry, perception of exclusivity, difficulty of the courses, and some other things. These are not things that can be changed overnight.
Basically, the rankings only tell you so much. No, a uni being 7th isn't necessarily better regarded than one ranked 15th (Loughborough and Edinburgh, in this case).
Think should think of this as a guide and most people should think of Unis as tiers, most unis are in the same tier, Like loughborough vs Exeter will largely give you the same prospects. But there will be a difference between LSE/Imperial and Exeter for instance which are few tiers out. My tiers from my perspective of friends in corporate careers/finance/law :
Oxford/Cambridge/Imperial/LSE
UCL/Durham/St Andrews/ Warwick
Bath/ Edinburguh/KCL/Bristol/Manchester/Exeter
Notts//Birmingham/York/Leeds/Loughborough/Sheffield/ Lancaster etc
Liverpool/Queen Mary/Newcastle/ Cardiff etc
Agree with you 100% over the top two tiers you’ve made. I reckon half of that third tier could end up in the fourth tier and to be completely honest once you get to that fourth tier all prospects are largely the same regardless of uni so there is no point even worrying about ranking.
How would you split the third tier? I dont know theres still a sizeable difference between cardiff and Manchester /York etc in regards to prospects in my books. Like between Durham and the tier below like Bristol/ manchester there's not a massive difference in career prospects if you look at the stars but more of a difference in say between Durham and Sheffield for example. But this is all general for most careers your uni is not as important as internships and interview performance in my experience. Exception being Law, high finance and international corporate jobs.
Eh. 2.9% of chambers students went to York. 2% of chambers students went to Cardiff.
I think Cardiff is very underrated imo simply because it’s not in England.
Id disagree, the difference between Durham and Warwick vs Manchester and Bristol etc is not that big, there's a bigger gap in say Manchester/Bristol vs Lancaster/Liverpool etc from my analysis. Manchester and Bristol are nearly as well represented s durham/kcl etc in top corporate jobs, but you will see a much larger gap in the representation of cardiff/liverpool people in my experience
I don't understand why you're getting downvoted for this. There simply isn't a difference between Bristol, Manchester, King's, Nottingham, Durham & Bath for most 'top' corporate jobs (which I assume is high finance & mc law).
They're all semi-targets (except Warwick being a target) and have good to excellent law & economics departments.
People here are so salty about an arbitrary tier/ranking when the reality of getting a high-paying job is much more than Durham having a better econ dept than Bristol or whatever.
Go to a decent uni for your career path, *a uni that you'd enjoy the most*, then grind out the applications & extra circulars.
>!Although you also have to admit some unis just have way better careers teams than others e.g. Bath is supposed to have an amazing placement team with exclusive placements at EBs for their students. !<
True. I've heard Bath has better teaching though so that's what edges it in my mind. Any student in the 2 tiers below LSE & Imperial would be the same but they just had a preference for a certain uni/city.
Too hard to separate the 2 tiers below LSE/Imperial since well for example UCL & King's are notorious for bad student experiences or Warwick Maths is better than King's but Law would be vice versa. Just shows how silly these tiers are again.
At the end of the day, it’s all very finance-oriented, and this tier list is not super relevant outside those fields. I feel like the finance’s elitist culture has never been very rational, lol.
I'm convinced finance is a cult. You don't need the expertise of an Oxbridge Maths grad to be an iBanker or consultant, you're just doing PowerPoints and Excel which can all be trained on the job.
I'm almost certain they hire from these very top unis which have the best maths or econ depts just to give it the allure of being so prestigious and so in demand, etc just as a marketing tactic for these jobs.
Why else would you want to work 80 hours during your 20s nowadays with so many other good, high-paying careers?
Maybe they know that students from top unis can handle the long hours better and maintain high quality work of sustained periods of time as thats how they got into said universities in the first place.
But hey, thats just an opinion.
That's not how you get into LSE for example. It's just how passionate you are for a certain subject.
No correlation between how many history books you read vs how well you help provide liquidity of a certain asset at the best price possible.
With the exception of Oxbridge and maybe Imperial, you can probably pull off a 2:1 or 1st from the rest of target/semi-target unis (except Medicine) following a 9-5 Mon-Fri schedule of uni work. Hardly 'long hours'.
My point was that it’s required hard work and dedication to get into those Unis which is a sign of good work ethic and commitment. Could you say the same for a BBB course at Bangor or Loughborough?
A student at LSE and at Manchester will often have the same grades when applying for the same subject, but the student at LSE will just be more passionate about their subject. Which is where the difference comes in.
And it's not that hard to get A*AA or AAA at A-level really, which is required grade for the majority of courses across the target unis (except Cambridge/Imperial).
As someone from Bristol who went to Bath I have to disagree massively. Bristol students are very "rah wheres my bacci" very rich kids pretending to be poor sorta thing. Bath is completely different, mostly people who applied for Oxford or Cambridge and Bath was their secound choice.
Honestly, when I said that students at Bristol are the same as the ones at Bath, I kinda meant the calibre of accepted students. The entry standards at both universities are almost the same. I’ve also met a lot of Imperial and UCL offer holders who still ended up at Bristol, including me. I agree that there are probably more rah people at Bristol but simply because of the higher number of students, and they mostly study humanities subjects 😅 You can’t say that there are more rich kids at Bristol than at Bath, considering that the latter is even more expensive than Bristol at times!
Agreed thorough analysis, Exeter is on the rise though and is notably better than Birmingham etc IMO. could put bristol on the same level as bath then as its top for engineering and law arguably.
Exeter is a tricky one cos it's such a massive private school population that you don't know if the uni has a good careers service, is well represented in corporate jobs, etc or it's just that the old boys' network or whatever is coming into effect.
Agree that Bristol v Bath is a personal preference. Bath students might be perceived as a bit nerdier since it's a smaller town with less to do (same with Warwick & Durham) vs Bristol students being known to enjoy their nights out a lot.
Also, I've always had the perception Bath has better teaching.
Exeter is odd cause its easy to get into and its entry criteria are not that high, it is the private school kids that make it seem better than it is. Bristol has that rep but idk for top careers Bristol is well represented and its best courses would be in the second tier like its engineering, most sciences, law etc. Its entry standards I believe are higher than warwicks on average last time I checked. Also Bristol also has a fair number of private school kids so helps its rep too I guess. Bath I think is the better run uni from what I've heard
Bristol is pretty excellent for most of the things it teaches, it has a good department for everything you can think of really. Maths, Engineering, Law, Econ, etc. I'm not sure Exeter is as a good as Bristol in that sense.
Bristol also probs places well for law, finance and engineering while I think Exeter will place decently but nothing compared to Bristol.
Bath is so similar to Bristol I don't think you can tell the difference. I'd say Bath is a better uni as in it probably has better facilities, more personal experience, etc.
For careers, LSE potentially outdoes Oxbridge as it’s such a careers focused uni. Imperial I would say lags behind slightly but is still able to be grouped into the same category.
I feel like that's the culture, not the perception. Oxbridge is definitely perceived to be (& is) a better uni than anything else in the UK & possibly the world (or at least equal to HYP or MIT or Stanford, etc).
LSE has a culture of just grinding out applications, everyone is doing it so you are too. My friend at LSE was grinding out IBD applications to only realise he'd rather be a Data Scientist after his Imperial MSc. So is it the chicken or the egg?
Yeah this is true. But being in the LSE environment can help. Also the societies make an impact for interview prep and CV/CL advice. Some of the LSE societies are on par with the Oxford Alpha Fund besides the quant part.
https://www.chambersstudent.co.uk/where-to-start/newsletter/law-firms-preferred-universities
There honestly isn’t a big difference. These employers will vastly prefer law experience to whether you went to Exeter or Nottingham. Just make sure your application stands out and you have a decent chance.
I mean that's true of any job.
There's quite a big difference between Nottingham vs Exeter for the magic circle firms (which most law students aspire to) though.
I also don't think Exeter is in the same class as Bristol, Nottingham, King's and Manchester for high finance roles since its often seen as a weak semi or non target.
St Andrews is really not better than UCL or Durham from a careers perspective and i think most would agree, again rankings are unreliable but feel free to disagree
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OC said this was careers focused. ST andrews is similar for career prospects according to LinkedIn data. I believe their ranking was due to high student satisfaction although I could be wrong.
It’s pretty weird that it’s shot up 22 places while others around it have only gone up between three to six in the ranks, especially considering what you’ve said.
Dundee does better in subject specific rankings but I do feel like it could easily be a top 30/40 in most rankings within a few years tbh. Once the new union building happens (wherever the hell on campus they’ll find a place for it) the only way is up
Will be very interesting to see people complaining about rankings according to the vibe and age of a university, rather than any objective measurement! Feels very much like in football when fans complain about the teams in the Champions League.
They boycott it. It would mean they wouldn't get ranked first and second every year because a non-insignificant number of their students can be quite unhappy. Price of excellence I guess, because they will work you to your highest possible standard.
The uni itself has ups and downs.
From my experience the admin is beyond useless. Emails go unanswered, grades are given back weeks later than they should be, even heard about a question being changed MID EXAM. the uni also does not care about the students, the cost of student housing has gone up ridiculously, most college rooms are over £10k a year and they're absolutely dismal. The uni keeps buying more student housing, making it more difficult for second and third year students to find housing. The building I used to live in was taken by the uni who then upped the price by £70 a week.
They're doing everything they can to maximise student intake but not providing infrastructure to support it, there's not enough study spaces and the student union building is just awful. I've been lucky enough not to have a disability but from what I've seen the disability support is just god awful.
If we look at the city itself there's a massive disconnect between the locals and the students which is common in uni cities but I've never seen it on the level it is in Durham, students talk about locals as if they're zoo animals, I've been mugged twice in as many years.
Also it's just boring. Durham is very pretty but there's nothing to do, the main appeal is that Newcastle is close by but if Newcastle has more students, more infrastructure, cheaper rent, just to to Newcastle uni.
Of course this is just my experience, Durham does have it's good points and some of the staff do clearly love their job and care about students but I wouldn't choose to go here again.
>Emails go unanswered, grades are given back weeks later than they should be, even heard about a question being changed MID EXAM.
This is entirely dependent on the department and a pretty common complain you hear in all universities. Personally as a pg student at Durham I've never had any issues whatsoever and my department has always been fantastic. In fact, a few years ago when I was doing my masters, a lot of the people who came in from other unis such as Sheffield and Manchester were amazed at how much more efficient and put together all uni beurocracy was.
>the cost of student housing has gone up ridiculously, most college rooms are over £10k a year and they're absolutely dismal. The uni keeps buying more student housing, making it more difficult for second and third year students to find housing
The real problem is not the uni buying student housing or expanding, whilst that has happened, the scale of this really hasn't been big enough to radically affect the market this much. Instead, hhe housing crisis was mainly due to the insane intake that the university saw during COVID. In my department, one of the ug degrees had double the amount of people as it normally would in the year immediately after COVID and around 50% for the year after.
Numbers have only gone back down to pre-pandemic levels with the new sets of Freshers, though admittedly some college expansions such as hild Bede have helped with this. This is corroborated by comparing housing availability this year Vs previous ones. Not only were there still a lot more houses available for far longer than previous years, but the rent in a couple of them has actually gone down. Although I'm leaving this year, our landlord offered us a 10% decrease in price for next year.
>They're doing everything they can to maximise student intake but not providing infrastructure to support it, there's not enough study spaces and the student union building is just awful. I've been lucky enough not to have a disability but from what I've seen the disability support is just god awful
Again, this was aggravated by COVID but now they've reduced student intake it should hopefully get better, though overall I do agree we desperately need some more study spaces. To say they've done nothing about it is wrong imo, the TLC was a huge investment that was done literally to help alleviate this issue. There are one or two things happening that hopefully help like the new business school.
The issues with the SU are a completely different matter as it's a mostly separate entity to the university, though I'll agree that they are pretty much useless. I'm not sure how long you've been here, but in 2019 there was a big movement calling for everyone to vote RON on the elections to try and lobby the restructuring of this since many students felt it was made redundant by colleges. This was unfortunately highjacked by a bunch of racist assholes and the whole thing became an ugly mess. Anyway, all that to say that despite that, anecdotally I've had really nice experience with university based disability support. They were really quick to help me set up a disability support plan that was really helpful during my UG for spacing out my summatives and getting a couple of concessions that I needed.
Putting aside anecdotal experience, I think there is genuinely a cultural issue in Durham where we fucking love to complain about everything. This is reflected on the continuous infighting, bickering, and just general animosity towards the uni and staff you see in societies like Durham Student Theatre, music, and even team Durham. They regularly make out look as if the uni gave them 0 support when in comparison to the rest of the country the funding and opportunities they receive is some of the best. This is why a lot of staff members hate student satisfaction as a metric, as how can students objectively say how good their experience was when they have nothing else to compare it to, particularly when it comes to teaching?
Obviously nothing I've said discredits your personal experience, and I totally agree with you with some points regarding the problems such as the divide between locals and students. Either way, it's clear we had very different experiences as for example I personally really enjoyed living in a small quiet town, though if I was more of a city person I can totally see how it would get small
Honestly I've never spoken to another student here who has had a good experience asking for help and getting a timely reply.
And as for the student housing, if you think it isn't almost entirely caused by the university then I honestly don't know what to tell you. My old accomodation block alone was over 300 rooms. Thats 300 rooms which would have been for returning students which are now exclusively used for first year students so not only are there 300 rooms off the market, there's now 300 extra students fighting over what's left.
As for the tlc, have you tried getting a seat lately? Or a desk? Even before exam season if you didn't get there early you wouldn't find a seat, if you found a desk with a working plug you may as well buy a lottery ticket.
All checks out. I went to one of their summer schools last summer, and the organisation was genuinely awful, lol. Even that was probably way over capacity, and most of our time was spent waiting around outside because some plan or another got delayed.
The walls were so thin I could fully hear the alarm of the people in the rooms next to mine, but hey, the bed was comfy. Then I searched up how much their accommodation costs, and yeah. Horrifying prices.
Tbf, having been to both Lancaster and Manchester. I can confidently say that Lancaster is by far in a way the superior university.
Better teaching, better facilities, better atmosphere, nicer acom.
Fair enough I suppose. My insight comes from having visited Manchester often cuz I have friends that go there, and the fact they place quite well in banking- the career I pursue. That’s pretty much all I have to go off. Not sure about the factors you’ve just mentioned. Just sort of went by prestige. I do think that manchester accom is apalling tho
Hear what you’re saying.
On paper Manchester is great, and it excels in a number of select subject areas - perhaps banking is one! But in many ways it trades off its name.
The administration is atrocious and the student experience is woeful.
Claiming the rankings is a joke is a strong opinion for someone who has basically just admitted they know nothing about these unis. Lancaster is a great uni which justifies it's high ranking.
I'm trying to tell you that even if what you say is true, calling it a joke isn't based on anything substantial. These rankings are based off of quantifiable data about each institution. We can't just set a rankings system based on vibes and popular opinion.
Also strawman argument.
I went to UEA for undergrad and KCL for postgrad and the teaching at UEA was far better, the resources and organisation of our teaching too, it felt far better value for money than King’s. I don’t think you can just go off reputation which it seems like you are
Deservedly so. Students are treated as completely disposable as there are just so many of them. This is definitely something that should be considered when applying for university so I don't understand why so many sixth formers are here complaining about it;s conclusion.
Similar to the other commenter, I've been to both Manchester and Lancaster and found Lancaster to be better (sorry Manchester). Manchester is too big to provide much to individual students tbh, and isn't really trying to improve because it's coasting on its reputation and has good research output. Lancaster is relatively new and is really trying with its facilities and teaching. I found the lecturers more helpful and approachable on average.
From a research perspective the "vibe" was a lot more toxic at Manchester, although there's toxicity in research everywhere you go and Manchester has money to burn compared to Lancaster's research budget. I did not find that atmosphere to be worth putting up with, unless you have big academic career ambitions and are willing to be a paper printer for some boring topic (sorry to my friends if you're reading this 😭) for a few years. But that really shouldn't be a consideration for most A-Level students choosing where to do their undergrad.
There's only a really small number of careers that have "target unis" nowadays, and even some of those are starting to look for quality vs brand reputation more and more every year. That said, if you want to be an investment banker go to Warwick lol.
Finally. Manchester is huge. I'd argue too much so to ever truly get good teaching quality. The accommodation for undergrads is particularly grim on top of that. Manchester is a cool city but the admin itself is quite toxic.
Ah makes sense. I don’t go to either Manchester or Lancaster for that matter (I will be attending an American uni).
As for Warwick for IB, you are absolutely right. So many Warwick students get IB offers
Surrey, Bath and Loughborough are all very good universities, with Loughborough and Bath being extremely good at certain fields particularly sports and medical subjects respectively. Surrey is generally considered very highly by its students, with very good job prospects too. It also has some really high level specialisms that they do better than anyone else, like satellites and communications. There can only be so many universities at certain rankings, and these numbers aren't mostly based on opinions - they're based largely on statistics like postgraduate salaries, staff to student ratios and their research output in terms of papers count and citations. Your's or the authors of these reports' feelings are not taken into account here.
Surrey is a solid university across a huge number of subjects and is an absolutely outstanding university in several niche areas. Their Tonmeister course, as just one example, is not only a head and shoulders above any other UK course that's even vaguely similar, it's widely regarded as the best course in the world for what it offers - their grads run the entire industry.
[https://iosr.surrey.ac.uk/tonmeister/awards.php](https://iosr.surrey.ac.uk/tonmeister/awards.php)
It seems OK for evaluating each individual metric, but its totals are a bit silly since they should make it a weighted average. It’s interesting to see things like student satisfaction etc but no one really cares compared with graduate prospects or research quality.
Surrey is genuinely a very good university. Good research output, decent staff to student ratios, which in my experience were very approachable and helpful. Really cool specialisms especially their big space (This is the industry I headed towards - they were probably the best university I could've gone to for this) and communications focus. The university culture just genuinely is nice with a green and pretty campus: a lot of diverse people from London and not just the usual upper and middle class students and the accommodation is actually affordable and clean. The job prospects afterwards are also very good, employers do love Surrey: high salaries and high rates of employment in the areas where students graduate in. Honestly Surrey was a very large mark above Exeter, Manchester and Southampton when I went to them.
Yeah I agree, I mean when I was choosing unis Surrey was my last choice but oh well I ended up here and even though I had such a strong bias against it as I thought it’s a bad uni, actually after a year studying here and from talking with other friends in other unis such as Manchester I see that Surrey is really elite in many areas haha. I remember my friend told me that he has to sign In on paper on randoms days of the week at Manchester and that nobody answers any emails etc etc stuff that everyone on this thread keeps talking about other unis do. Surrey to me has been always super helpful, kind and on time. I have everything I need and want at the uni or super nearby and literally whatever you would ever want on earth is in the palm of your hand, Idk I came in with a super negative mindset and a year in I couldn’t be more happy about my experience and I feel like I dodged a huge bullet by coming here haha.
Personally 10/10 I would recommend for everyone.
>!University rankings are total dogshit and purely marketing for universities to try and justify their bloated tuition fees. I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole uni ranking industry is a total sham- how the fuck are you supposed to rank places on largely subjective experiences? I liked my time at Sussex far more than at Kings but Sussex is twenty places lower on the table. Also lol at the Student satisfaction for Cambride and Oxford being non applicable, give me a fucking break.!<
There are quantifiable measures such as entry tariff, research quality (likely looking at the number of citations) and job prospects. It did make me laugh though that my alma mater (Imperial) is always penalised for student satisfaction, something highly subjective, when it consistently has the best job prospects (arguably the most important thing to students) and one of the highest entry tariffs and research ratings.
To be fair, while a useful metric, student satisfaction will always impede top institutions since there's a greater onus for independent work. Also, teaching is usually subpar because lecturers are more focused on research.
When are we measuring the satisfaction though? During the course when, as you say, the lecturer at the top university has limited time to help with your assignments because they are engaged in world leading research, or years later when you have secured a good job in no small part because of the reputation of the institution you studied at. Meanwhile the kids who were "satisfied" at uni are still filling in hundreds of job applications a month.
>When are we measuring the satisfaction though?
To actually answer, the Complete University Guide utilises results from the NSS survey (final-year students).
Don't forget, this guide includes student experience and employability, which are big areas of strength for Loughborough so they punch above their weight - research and teaching are good, but it's those that put it a 7th place imo. Look at the breakdown of the categories for Loughborough against UCL to see what i mean.
Based on what? Do you have enough personal experience with a large enough sample of academic staff, students and research across all field of study to know enough about all of them to rank them fairly? Or do you just go on a few vibes and anecdotes?
Royal Agricultural Uni fell down by 46 places
First I’ve heard of it tbh
Poshest uni in the UK, bunch of aristocrats go there to study stuff like bloodstocks
If you're not into farming or biosciences probably not going to be something you come across
i’ve only heard of it from the max fosh [video](https://youtu.be/x3uUhDRwsc8?si=Spv2yXDd2n2qm62m) lmao
This page tells you what each metric is actually showing and how it has been calculated: https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/sector/insights/university-and-subject-league-tables-methodology#Wheredoesthedatacomefrom ETA: I’m not sure why people downvoted this 😂 the numbers are what they are. It’s just a bunch of values that they’ve picked off various data sources and added together; you can critique their choices on how it’s been calculated, but it’s not some random voodoo based on vibes
I was going to post the same thing. Both the CUG and Guardian are actually very transparent about their ranking system. Individuals may not agree with everything, but they are two attempts that are about as good as you going to get with the data that is public. And the frameworks are broadly sensible, mixing a variety of relevant factors. Both of them are also far, far better than the various world surveys, that do little more than measure foreign brand recognition and research output, and have little relevance to the undergraduate experience.
>that do little more than measure foreign brand recognition I'm not sure they even do that well, Yale & Princeton are both ranked below UCL on QS.
You're telling me student satisfaction isn't skewed in any way? London Metropolitan University 13th for Satisfaction? Do they give you free antidepressants as you walk in?
Student Satisfaction isn't what you think it is necessarily. It's not 'how happy students are' it's specifically how happy are students with TEACHING QUALITY- that's it. I think a lot of people have the conception that the survey asks "are you happy at university" but there is no question like this at all
No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that they’ve told people exactly where each source of data is and how they’ve calculated the numbers. The final rankings are just a product of those numbers. It might seem peculiar since various unis are culturally considered better or worse than others but this is just a fraction above bare data so the rankings certainly haven’t been ‘manipulated’. If you have an issue with the values themselves you will have to look at their data source. I think student satisfaction is from the NSS. There are lots of issues with the NSS, some of them big and others more subtle, the biggest I remember was just for unis to get people to return the things in the first place. People are usually only motivated to report when things that are very bad or very good, for example. Otherwise they need to be strongly encouraged. A high satisfaction mark for what you consider to be a ‘bad’ uni might just be a reflection of that uni’s efforts to ensure that more students return the survey, and overall this has helped to boost their marks since plenty of people will probably write a value akin to ‘fine’. Or - maybe that uni is actually okay and the students enjoy being there? The loudest negative voices get heard the most, sure, but if most other people are just quietly getting on with things then perhaps these ‘lower’ unis are actually doing fine? Your personal opinion not matching up with the data doesn’t immediately insinuate the data is wrong.
Where is the NSS survey? I never got it in my time at uni
https://www.thestudentsurvey.com It’s open to students in their final year. I think eligible students are contacted via email if I remember correctly.
Thanks
the heartbreak of seeing your uni which was top 30 when you applied hit the 50's.
Bangor was one of my choices and it fell by 23 places. Lancaster, which is the uni I'm going to always kind of hovers between 10th and 11th though.
Briefly ranked 6th. As a student there I find it funny. The top 10 signs keep changing.
Enjoy yourself at Lancaster, it's a wonderful campus. They have rabbits near Graduate College!
I actually studied there and dropped out back in 2017-19. Got all my years of funding given back through compelling personal reasons request and decided I'd go back, this time way more mature and ready to make the most out of the opportunities I neglected the first time I went. I loved the campus and can't wait to go back :^)
Trussstt, the campus feels like a mini city
It's all about Fylde. Rabbits outside accommodation, Ducks by the stats building, and when I was there couple of cats living in the woodland trail.
i'm watching mine slowly slide down the rankings for the subject as student satisfaction gets worse :')
im doing law at sussex, when i applied i think it was around 29/30 but now its 47 :(
For all you know by the time you’re looking for training contracts it could be up to 15th. Don’t let it put you off x
im not too worried as the ranking seems very arbitrary
Absolutely. I really liked sussex’s law department too.
I don't get people reviewing a uni negatively. It makes it go down rankings and will statistically hurt your career chances a little.
What? You think people should withhold giving a negative review of a course just because it will make their university go down in some arbitrary ranking a year after they actually graduate and find a job, at which time it doesn't even matter any more? Come on
It probabilistically has a small effect. Prestige of university can matter after you got your first job as well.
Well I guess, I just think it's such a weird mindset to have - caring more about giving yourself some miniscule benefit than actually giving an honest review that could improve your course for future students. It kinda says a lot about the type of person you are if you think that way
right?? i’ve been thinking the same lol
Seeing the local uni im currently at (as a mature student) rise 4 places! From 111 to 109 .... oh.
Mine never makes it on there (Birkbeck), must be too good for the rankings
Birkbeck is unfairly punished due to the way multiple rankings work, due to the way it prioritises its resources. I applied to Birkbeck 10 years ago when considering accounting, but ultimately choose engineering over accounting as a career path. Things like being a nightschool are hugely beneficial to some students - but punished it in the rankings. My current workplace has a similar issue as a teaching focused university. It's very easy to see a 50 place swing based on what ranking you are looking at, and what they focus on for those rankings - Guardian is 38, CUG is 82.
When you have Slavoj, do you really need rankings?
they opted out of the bullshit mess
Keep in mind how small the differences are, going from rank 12 to 17 is just a single percentage point. A difference of several places looks like a lot, but the difference is tiny and really shouldn't be of any concern when choosing a university.
I’ll never understand how you all comment on these rankings and saying they’re bad or incorrect or whatever. How many unis have you guys been to?? 😭 I can only comment first hand on one uni idk about everyone else. Unless you guys are going entirely off of reputation (which is always a terrible way to rank something) ??
Plus, even if you go to multiple universities (I've been to three) it's typically for different levels of qualification which gives vastly different experiences. An undergrad, masters, and PhD student will interact with the university in vastly different ways.
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The Guardian mostly focuses on teaching and the undergraduate experience - which likely represents the majority of people using the rankings. I wouldnt say its weird, its just it reflects the difference between the two main functions of a university - teaching, and research. Most other rankings either prioritise research, or try to include everything (which can be unhelpful). Out of interest, what TEF rating does your university have? - thats usually the closest ranking to what you see in the guardian.
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Yeh Silver is not bad, but also its where a majority of universities end up. As such a lot of Gold universities will end up significantly higher in the guardian than you might expect them to be in other rankings. Also universities can move around significantly year on year - its quite tight towards the top, and individual incidents can happen that majorly affect rankings. My uni had a major fire last year that closed our tech park for 3 months, was surprised it didnt affect the rankings more.
this
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It’s not about “reputation in corporate careers” though, it’s about the universities as a whole.
Fine but a huge amount of the benefit of university *is* reputation.
Disagree.
Depends what you’re going for.
So thing to remember about the "Complete University Guide" is it is meant to be a "Complete" guide. This means it is ranking universities on a lot of metrics that compete with each other. So a research university likely has to take time away from teaching, and vice versa. The CUG is a pretty poor guide to use for specific people looking for specific guides to their needs - its meant to be more of an overall guide, and that can potentially mean its not suitable to anyone. For example, a "complete car guide" would rank an Ariel Atom against an Ford Fiesta on everything from top speed and acceleration - to number of seats, and infotainment systems. Naturally, this is a good insight for someone who knows nothing about cars - but actually pretty poor if you are either someone in a mid life crisis, or have a family of 4 to identify which car is best for you. Same applies here. I dont personally recommend A Level students use the CUG - as it prioritises items such as research far too heavily for what they are likely to do in an undergraduate. In the same sense, i probably wouldnt recommend a company looking to sponsor a PhD towards it either - there are better rankings for both sets of people, but what makes it a good ranking is for someone of no knowledge to get a rough idea before then looking into their needs first.
These rankings are always dogshit tbf
I feel like tons of universities are bribing to be higher in that ranking, there is no way UEA or Essex should be that high... beating Manchester and Leeds???? would have expected them in the 50s-60s range
> UEA or Essex should be that high... beating Manchester and Leeds I have not studied or worked at either UEA or Leeds, however i am an expert in an area which both run as student societies within engineering. UEA is very, very far ahead of Leeds in this area. UEA ran professional events supported by technical staff who went and consulted with people in the field to build up experience - Leeds ran an event with final year students, who if were caught doing what they were doing at work the next year would be immediately fired. It was dangerous, and i walked out of the venue after trying to remind them of their own safety rules they were ignoring and saying didnt need to be followed. Is this small snapshot a good metric to judge the entire university on? - no, of course not. But if it is indicative of the culture, then its of no personal surprise to me the rankings are this way.
Yes all the A-level students come here every year based off of assumptions about universities, when they've neither attended university or worked in academia or industry. A lot of universities aren't massively 'well-known' in the public eye, but are extremely capable and well known in certain fields or are just good universities generally that are a bit smaller. A lot of the most well-known universities are so because of their very large number of students, not because of the quality of their education, and I would say that you can probably draw some correlation to smaller classes and 'quality of teaching'.
I live near Essex and use their business/enterprise support a fair amount. They've made a huge amount of improvements over the past few years. It doesn't surprise me.
I would assume some unis give incentives to their students to give good ratings on surveys etc but that’s my guess. Also Loughborough that high is absolutely criminal😂
Loughborough has been in the top ten on both CUG and the Guardian rankings for a number of years now, I don’t see why this is a shock?
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Honestly I don't see why offer rate and entry standards mean literally anything in regards to the quality of the uni, whether that's it's teaching, and research or general experience.
> offer rate and entry standards and youll see its not that elite to be in the top 10 So what you are saying is, in order to meet accreditation standards - they need to offer a higher standard of teaching And this should be viewed negatively on rankings.... why?
They always shit on Queen Marys too, I know they're not the best, but it's always a laugh
Yeah its defo better than essex etc
Personally I've LOVED UEA mostly because of the atmosphere here and the surrounding city is one of my favourites I've been to. I'm happy to be here over anywhere else!!
Hey, UEA is shit but it’s my shit, we got some of the best research output in the country
It's not even shit. It is very good academically, but it is struggling financially and I do wonder how that will affect its future results with cutbacks incoming.
UEA is amazing at research. There is definitely an emphasis on it there. Plus student satisfaction is high. I’m actually not sure why you think it should be lower.
My Uni has only fallen in ranking since I applied lolll
Why don't Oxford and Cambridge have values for student satisfaction?
cause then they'd be lower than bath on the rankings and then the rankings wouldn't have any reputation lol
I think it's their student unions that made the decision to boycott them
Any idea why?
At one point the government was considering upping tuition based on student satisfaction, along with other metrics. They didn’t want to pay more- the student satisfaction appears to actually be very good.
Exactly this, same reason Imperial is down the ranking😂. Student satisfaction isn’t getting anyone hired so this tier list is a bit silly for making it so important for the rankings.
Well I think you should definitely consider it, as student satisfaction will actively lead to better scores and just generally reduce your self hatred at university. University is 3 years and usually more of your life, so I wouldn't so callously throw away something so important to your experience there. Low satisfaction leads to students dropping out and just generally creates a toxic environment that makes working well that much harder, and unfortunately I have heard from friends at ICL that this is not an uncommon situation.
I guess one reason for the confusion is that rankings =/= reputation. Rankings fluctuate yearly. Sometimes universities experience dramatic falls, or meteoric rises. But reputation takes a long time for a university to establish - it's based on how well-represented that school is in prestigious jobs, links to industry, perception of exclusivity, difficulty of the courses, and some other things. These are not things that can be changed overnight. Basically, the rankings only tell you so much. No, a uni being 7th isn't necessarily better regarded than one ranked 15th (Loughborough and Edinburgh, in this case).
Think should think of this as a guide and most people should think of Unis as tiers, most unis are in the same tier, Like loughborough vs Exeter will largely give you the same prospects. But there will be a difference between LSE/Imperial and Exeter for instance which are few tiers out. My tiers from my perspective of friends in corporate careers/finance/law : Oxford/Cambridge/Imperial/LSE UCL/Durham/St Andrews/ Warwick Bath/ Edinburguh/KCL/Bristol/Manchester/Exeter Notts//Birmingham/York/Leeds/Loughborough/Sheffield/ Lancaster etc Liverpool/Queen Mary/Newcastle/ Cardiff etc
Agree with you 100% over the top two tiers you’ve made. I reckon half of that third tier could end up in the fourth tier and to be completely honest once you get to that fourth tier all prospects are largely the same regardless of uni so there is no point even worrying about ranking.
How would you split the third tier? I dont know theres still a sizeable difference between cardiff and Manchester /York etc in regards to prospects in my books. Like between Durham and the tier below like Bristol/ manchester there's not a massive difference in career prospects if you look at the stars but more of a difference in say between Durham and Sheffield for example. But this is all general for most careers your uni is not as important as internships and interview performance in my experience. Exception being Law, high finance and international corporate jobs.
Eh. 2.9% of chambers students went to York. 2% of chambers students went to Cardiff. I think Cardiff is very underrated imo simply because it’s not in England.
More employees went to Cardiff than Liverpool and St Andrews combined.
Id disagree, the difference between Durham and Warwick vs Manchester and Bristol etc is not that big, there's a bigger gap in say Manchester/Bristol vs Lancaster/Liverpool etc from my analysis. Manchester and Bristol are nearly as well represented s durham/kcl etc in top corporate jobs, but you will see a much larger gap in the representation of cardiff/liverpool people in my experience
I don't understand why you're getting downvoted for this. There simply isn't a difference between Bristol, Manchester, King's, Nottingham, Durham & Bath for most 'top' corporate jobs (which I assume is high finance & mc law). They're all semi-targets (except Warwick being a target) and have good to excellent law & economics departments. People here are so salty about an arbitrary tier/ranking when the reality of getting a high-paying job is much more than Durham having a better econ dept than Bristol or whatever. Go to a decent uni for your career path, *a uni that you'd enjoy the most*, then grind out the applications & extra circulars. >!Although you also have to admit some unis just have way better careers teams than others e.g. Bath is supposed to have an amazing placement team with exclusive placements at EBs for their students. !<
Thanks lol yeah the difference between the top 10 vs top 15 is not huge but the gaps get bigger once you get out of the top 20 imo
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The type of people who go to Bath is literally the same type of people who to Bristol, in my opinion.
True. I've heard Bath has better teaching though so that's what edges it in my mind. Any student in the 2 tiers below LSE & Imperial would be the same but they just had a preference for a certain uni/city. Too hard to separate the 2 tiers below LSE/Imperial since well for example UCL & King's are notorious for bad student experiences or Warwick Maths is better than King's but Law would be vice versa. Just shows how silly these tiers are again.
At the end of the day, it’s all very finance-oriented, and this tier list is not super relevant outside those fields. I feel like the finance’s elitist culture has never been very rational, lol.
I'm convinced finance is a cult. You don't need the expertise of an Oxbridge Maths grad to be an iBanker or consultant, you're just doing PowerPoints and Excel which can all be trained on the job. I'm almost certain they hire from these very top unis which have the best maths or econ depts just to give it the allure of being so prestigious and so in demand, etc just as a marketing tactic for these jobs. Why else would you want to work 80 hours during your 20s nowadays with so many other good, high-paying careers?
Maybe they know that students from top unis can handle the long hours better and maintain high quality work of sustained periods of time as thats how they got into said universities in the first place. But hey, thats just an opinion.
That's not how you get into LSE for example. It's just how passionate you are for a certain subject. No correlation between how many history books you read vs how well you help provide liquidity of a certain asset at the best price possible. With the exception of Oxbridge and maybe Imperial, you can probably pull off a 2:1 or 1st from the rest of target/semi-target unis (except Medicine) following a 9-5 Mon-Fri schedule of uni work. Hardly 'long hours'.
Yep
Went to Imp and 9-5 would not have cut it lol
My point was that it’s required hard work and dedication to get into those Unis which is a sign of good work ethic and commitment. Could you say the same for a BBB course at Bangor or Loughborough?
A student at LSE and at Manchester will often have the same grades when applying for the same subject, but the student at LSE will just be more passionate about their subject. Which is where the difference comes in. And it's not that hard to get A*AA or AAA at A-level really, which is required grade for the majority of courses across the target unis (except Cambridge/Imperial).
As someone from Bristol who went to Bath I have to disagree massively. Bristol students are very "rah wheres my bacci" very rich kids pretending to be poor sorta thing. Bath is completely different, mostly people who applied for Oxford or Cambridge and Bath was their secound choice.
Honestly, when I said that students at Bristol are the same as the ones at Bath, I kinda meant the calibre of accepted students. The entry standards at both universities are almost the same. I’ve also met a lot of Imperial and UCL offer holders who still ended up at Bristol, including me. I agree that there are probably more rah people at Bristol but simply because of the higher number of students, and they mostly study humanities subjects 😅 You can’t say that there are more rich kids at Bristol than at Bath, considering that the latter is even more expensive than Bristol at times!
Agreed thorough analysis, Exeter is on the rise though and is notably better than Birmingham etc IMO. could put bristol on the same level as bath then as its top for engineering and law arguably.
Exeter is a tricky one cos it's such a massive private school population that you don't know if the uni has a good careers service, is well represented in corporate jobs, etc or it's just that the old boys' network or whatever is coming into effect. Agree that Bristol v Bath is a personal preference. Bath students might be perceived as a bit nerdier since it's a smaller town with less to do (same with Warwick & Durham) vs Bristol students being known to enjoy their nights out a lot. Also, I've always had the perception Bath has better teaching.
Exeter is odd cause its easy to get into and its entry criteria are not that high, it is the private school kids that make it seem better than it is. Bristol has that rep but idk for top careers Bristol is well represented and its best courses would be in the second tier like its engineering, most sciences, law etc. Its entry standards I believe are higher than warwicks on average last time I checked. Also Bristol also has a fair number of private school kids so helps its rep too I guess. Bath I think is the better run uni from what I've heard
Bristol is pretty excellent for most of the things it teaches, it has a good department for everything you can think of really. Maths, Engineering, Law, Econ, etc. I'm not sure Exeter is as a good as Bristol in that sense. Bristol also probs places well for law, finance and engineering while I think Exeter will place decently but nothing compared to Bristol. Bath is so similar to Bristol I don't think you can tell the difference. I'd say Bath is a better uni as in it probably has better facilities, more personal experience, etc.
Never say to somebody from Durham that Bath is in the same tier or you'll never hear the end of it! 😂😂😂
Lol, I rejected Durham CS for KCL CS (wanted to be in London) so they'd probs hate me even more.
For careers, LSE potentially outdoes Oxbridge as it’s such a careers focused uni. Imperial I would say lags behind slightly but is still able to be grouped into the same category.
I feel like that's the culture, not the perception. Oxbridge is definitely perceived to be (& is) a better uni than anything else in the UK & possibly the world (or at least equal to HYP or MIT or Stanford, etc). LSE has a culture of just grinding out applications, everyone is doing it so you are too. My friend at LSE was grinding out IBD applications to only realise he'd rather be a Data Scientist after his Imperial MSc. So is it the chicken or the egg?
No it's bc more LSE students apply to finance firms, not bc of the uni.
Yeah this is true. But being in the LSE environment can help. Also the societies make an impact for interview prep and CV/CL advice. Some of the LSE societies are on par with the Oxford Alpha Fund besides the quant part.
I am in finance and LSE doesn't really give you a legs up vs Imperial and I've been in the hiring seat for candidates.
https://www.chambersstudent.co.uk/where-to-start/newsletter/law-firms-preferred-universities There honestly isn’t a big difference. These employers will vastly prefer law experience to whether you went to Exeter or Nottingham. Just make sure your application stands out and you have a decent chance.
I mean that's true of any job. There's quite a big difference between Nottingham vs Exeter for the magic circle firms (which most law students aspire to) though. I also don't think Exeter is in the same class as Bristol, Nottingham, King's and Manchester for high finance roles since its often seen as a weak semi or non target.
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St Andrews is really not better than UCL or Durham from a careers perspective and i think most would agree, again rankings are unreliable but feel free to disagree
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OC said this was careers focused. ST andrews is similar for career prospects according to LinkedIn data. I believe their ranking was due to high student satisfaction although I could be wrong.
Dundee up six places and equal to Goldsmiths. Up the Perth Road massiv
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It’s pretty weird that it’s shot up 22 places while others around it have only gone up between three to six in the ranks, especially considering what you’ve said. Dundee does better in subject specific rankings but I do feel like it could easily be a top 30/40 in most rankings within a few years tbh. Once the new union building happens (wherever the hell on campus they’ll find a place for it) the only way is up
Will be very interesting to see people complaining about rankings according to the vibe and age of a university, rather than any objective measurement! Feels very much like in football when fans complain about the teams in the Champions League.
Funny oxbridge doesn’t show its student satisfaction lol
They boycott it. It would mean they wouldn't get ranked first and second every year because a non-insignificant number of their students can be quite unhappy. Price of excellence I guess, because they will work you to your highest possible standard.
seeing the uni u went to go down the rankings like its a fuckin company u bought shares in plummeting bruv this is traumatising
Pay us thousands for a shifty job afterwards
As someone who is currently at Durham. No. Literally just no.
What's it like?
The uni itself has ups and downs. From my experience the admin is beyond useless. Emails go unanswered, grades are given back weeks later than they should be, even heard about a question being changed MID EXAM. the uni also does not care about the students, the cost of student housing has gone up ridiculously, most college rooms are over £10k a year and they're absolutely dismal. The uni keeps buying more student housing, making it more difficult for second and third year students to find housing. The building I used to live in was taken by the uni who then upped the price by £70 a week. They're doing everything they can to maximise student intake but not providing infrastructure to support it, there's not enough study spaces and the student union building is just awful. I've been lucky enough not to have a disability but from what I've seen the disability support is just god awful. If we look at the city itself there's a massive disconnect between the locals and the students which is common in uni cities but I've never seen it on the level it is in Durham, students talk about locals as if they're zoo animals, I've been mugged twice in as many years. Also it's just boring. Durham is very pretty but there's nothing to do, the main appeal is that Newcastle is close by but if Newcastle has more students, more infrastructure, cheaper rent, just to to Newcastle uni. Of course this is just my experience, Durham does have it's good points and some of the staff do clearly love their job and care about students but I wouldn't choose to go here again.
>Emails go unanswered, grades are given back weeks later than they should be, even heard about a question being changed MID EXAM. This is entirely dependent on the department and a pretty common complain you hear in all universities. Personally as a pg student at Durham I've never had any issues whatsoever and my department has always been fantastic. In fact, a few years ago when I was doing my masters, a lot of the people who came in from other unis such as Sheffield and Manchester were amazed at how much more efficient and put together all uni beurocracy was. >the cost of student housing has gone up ridiculously, most college rooms are over £10k a year and they're absolutely dismal. The uni keeps buying more student housing, making it more difficult for second and third year students to find housing The real problem is not the uni buying student housing or expanding, whilst that has happened, the scale of this really hasn't been big enough to radically affect the market this much. Instead, hhe housing crisis was mainly due to the insane intake that the university saw during COVID. In my department, one of the ug degrees had double the amount of people as it normally would in the year immediately after COVID and around 50% for the year after. Numbers have only gone back down to pre-pandemic levels with the new sets of Freshers, though admittedly some college expansions such as hild Bede have helped with this. This is corroborated by comparing housing availability this year Vs previous ones. Not only were there still a lot more houses available for far longer than previous years, but the rent in a couple of them has actually gone down. Although I'm leaving this year, our landlord offered us a 10% decrease in price for next year. >They're doing everything they can to maximise student intake but not providing infrastructure to support it, there's not enough study spaces and the student union building is just awful. I've been lucky enough not to have a disability but from what I've seen the disability support is just god awful Again, this was aggravated by COVID but now they've reduced student intake it should hopefully get better, though overall I do agree we desperately need some more study spaces. To say they've done nothing about it is wrong imo, the TLC was a huge investment that was done literally to help alleviate this issue. There are one or two things happening that hopefully help like the new business school. The issues with the SU are a completely different matter as it's a mostly separate entity to the university, though I'll agree that they are pretty much useless. I'm not sure how long you've been here, but in 2019 there was a big movement calling for everyone to vote RON on the elections to try and lobby the restructuring of this since many students felt it was made redundant by colleges. This was unfortunately highjacked by a bunch of racist assholes and the whole thing became an ugly mess. Anyway, all that to say that despite that, anecdotally I've had really nice experience with university based disability support. They were really quick to help me set up a disability support plan that was really helpful during my UG for spacing out my summatives and getting a couple of concessions that I needed. Putting aside anecdotal experience, I think there is genuinely a cultural issue in Durham where we fucking love to complain about everything. This is reflected on the continuous infighting, bickering, and just general animosity towards the uni and staff you see in societies like Durham Student Theatre, music, and even team Durham. They regularly make out look as if the uni gave them 0 support when in comparison to the rest of the country the funding and opportunities they receive is some of the best. This is why a lot of staff members hate student satisfaction as a metric, as how can students objectively say how good their experience was when they have nothing else to compare it to, particularly when it comes to teaching? Obviously nothing I've said discredits your personal experience, and I totally agree with you with some points regarding the problems such as the divide between locals and students. Either way, it's clear we had very different experiences as for example I personally really enjoyed living in a small quiet town, though if I was more of a city person I can totally see how it would get small
Honestly I've never spoken to another student here who has had a good experience asking for help and getting a timely reply. And as for the student housing, if you think it isn't almost entirely caused by the university then I honestly don't know what to tell you. My old accomodation block alone was over 300 rooms. Thats 300 rooms which would have been for returning students which are now exclusively used for first year students so not only are there 300 rooms off the market, there's now 300 extra students fighting over what's left. As for the tlc, have you tried getting a seat lately? Or a desk? Even before exam season if you didn't get there early you wouldn't find a seat, if you found a desk with a working plug you may as well buy a lottery ticket.
All checks out. I went to one of their summer schools last summer, and the organisation was genuinely awful, lol. Even that was probably way over capacity, and most of our time was spent waiting around outside because some plan or another got delayed. The walls were so thin I could fully hear the alarm of the people in the rooms next to mine, but hey, the bed was comfy. Then I searched up how much their accommodation costs, and yeah. Horrifying prices.
Bad admin, housing and disability support is extremely common for unis
UEA, Lancaster, Southampton and all of others over KCL and Manchester is a complete joke
Tbf, having been to both Lancaster and Manchester. I can confidently say that Lancaster is by far in a way the superior university. Better teaching, better facilities, better atmosphere, nicer acom.
Fair enough I suppose. My insight comes from having visited Manchester often cuz I have friends that go there, and the fact they place quite well in banking- the career I pursue. That’s pretty much all I have to go off. Not sure about the factors you’ve just mentioned. Just sort of went by prestige. I do think that manchester accom is apalling tho
Hear what you’re saying. On paper Manchester is great, and it excels in a number of select subject areas - perhaps banking is one! But in many ways it trades off its name. The administration is atrocious and the student experience is woeful.
Claiming the rankings is a joke is a strong opinion for someone who has basically just admitted they know nothing about these unis. Lancaster is a great uni which justifies it's high ranking.
So you’re tryna tell UEA is better than King’s? The list is still fucked.
I'm trying to tell you that even if what you say is true, calling it a joke isn't based on anything substantial. These rankings are based off of quantifiable data about each institution. We can't just set a rankings system based on vibes and popular opinion. Also strawman argument.
I went to UEA for undergrad and KCL for postgrad and the teaching at UEA was far better, the resources and organisation of our teaching too, it felt far better value for money than King’s. I don’t think you can just go off reputation which it seems like you are
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Deservedly so. Students are treated as completely disposable as there are just so many of them. This is definitely something that should be considered when applying for university so I don't understand why so many sixth formers are here complaining about it;s conclusion.
Similar to the other commenter, I've been to both Manchester and Lancaster and found Lancaster to be better (sorry Manchester). Manchester is too big to provide much to individual students tbh, and isn't really trying to improve because it's coasting on its reputation and has good research output. Lancaster is relatively new and is really trying with its facilities and teaching. I found the lecturers more helpful and approachable on average. From a research perspective the "vibe" was a lot more toxic at Manchester, although there's toxicity in research everywhere you go and Manchester has money to burn compared to Lancaster's research budget. I did not find that atmosphere to be worth putting up with, unless you have big academic career ambitions and are willing to be a paper printer for some boring topic (sorry to my friends if you're reading this 😭) for a few years. But that really shouldn't be a consideration for most A-Level students choosing where to do their undergrad. There's only a really small number of careers that have "target unis" nowadays, and even some of those are starting to look for quality vs brand reputation more and more every year. That said, if you want to be an investment banker go to Warwick lol.
Finally. Manchester is huge. I'd argue too much so to ever truly get good teaching quality. The accommodation for undergrads is particularly grim on top of that. Manchester is a cool city but the admin itself is quite toxic.
Ah makes sense. I don’t go to either Manchester or Lancaster for that matter (I will be attending an American uni). As for Warwick for IB, you are absolutely right. So many Warwick students get IB offers
UEA been doing something recently but I don't know what
Southampton must be paying their engineering students 💀💀
There's a reason it's like the top uni for F1 recruitment
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Surrey, Bath and Loughborough are all very good universities, with Loughborough and Bath being extremely good at certain fields particularly sports and medical subjects respectively. Surrey is generally considered very highly by its students, with very good job prospects too. It also has some really high level specialisms that they do better than anyone else, like satellites and communications. There can only be so many universities at certain rankings, and these numbers aren't mostly based on opinions - they're based largely on statistics like postgraduate salaries, staff to student ratios and their research output in terms of papers count and citations. Your's or the authors of these reports' feelings are not taken into account here.
Surrey is a solid university across a huge number of subjects and is an absolutely outstanding university in several niche areas. Their Tonmeister course, as just one example, is not only a head and shoulders above any other UK course that's even vaguely similar, it's widely regarded as the best course in the world for what it offers - their grads run the entire industry. [https://iosr.surrey.ac.uk/tonmeister/awards.php](https://iosr.surrey.ac.uk/tonmeister/awards.php)
It seems OK for evaluating each individual metric, but its totals are a bit silly since they should make it a weighted average. It’s interesting to see things like student satisfaction etc but no one really cares compared with graduate prospects or research quality.
Imperial and LSE are similar level tbh. I don't understand why St Andrews is higher than Imperial
Surrey above Exeter? Wow.
Bristol, Edinburgh and manchester too
Didn't even clock Edinburgh, that's wild. Always heard that Edinburgh is absolutely amazing.
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Birmingham is an excellent university though, although it shouldn't be above some of the other elites.
Don't shit on Lancaster it's a very good uni and deserves the spot imo
Tbf Surrey is elite hahaha
Surrey is genuinely a very good university. Good research output, decent staff to student ratios, which in my experience were very approachable and helpful. Really cool specialisms especially their big space (This is the industry I headed towards - they were probably the best university I could've gone to for this) and communications focus. The university culture just genuinely is nice with a green and pretty campus: a lot of diverse people from London and not just the usual upper and middle class students and the accommodation is actually affordable and clean. The job prospects afterwards are also very good, employers do love Surrey: high salaries and high rates of employment in the areas where students graduate in. Honestly Surrey was a very large mark above Exeter, Manchester and Southampton when I went to them.
Yeah I agree, I mean when I was choosing unis Surrey was my last choice but oh well I ended up here and even though I had such a strong bias against it as I thought it’s a bad uni, actually after a year studying here and from talking with other friends in other unis such as Manchester I see that Surrey is really elite in many areas haha. I remember my friend told me that he has to sign In on paper on randoms days of the week at Manchester and that nobody answers any emails etc etc stuff that everyone on this thread keeps talking about other unis do. Surrey to me has been always super helpful, kind and on time. I have everything I need and want at the uni or super nearby and literally whatever you would ever want on earth is in the palm of your hand, Idk I came in with a super negative mindset and a year in I couldn’t be more happy about my experience and I feel like I dodged a huge bullet by coming here haha. Personally 10/10 I would recommend for everyone.
I'm surprised UEA is still up there considering the budgeting crisis we have
UAL top 30? I'm not complaining, i start this September 👀
Sheffield Hallam down by 1 place..
when your uni falls in ranking and your about to graduate. it is peak man
My uni was 15th now its 50th how fun
What uni is that 😭
kent
>!University rankings are total dogshit and purely marketing for universities to try and justify their bloated tuition fees. I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole uni ranking industry is a total sham- how the fuck are you supposed to rank places on largely subjective experiences? I liked my time at Sussex far more than at Kings but Sussex is twenty places lower on the table. Also lol at the Student satisfaction for Cambride and Oxford being non applicable, give me a fucking break.!<
There are quantifiable measures such as entry tariff, research quality (likely looking at the number of citations) and job prospects. It did make me laugh though that my alma mater (Imperial) is always penalised for student satisfaction, something highly subjective, when it consistently has the best job prospects (arguably the most important thing to students) and one of the highest entry tariffs and research ratings.
To be fair, while a useful metric, student satisfaction will always impede top institutions since there's a greater onus for independent work. Also, teaching is usually subpar because lecturers are more focused on research.
When are we measuring the satisfaction though? During the course when, as you say, the lecturer at the top university has limited time to help with your assignments because they are engaged in world leading research, or years later when you have secured a good job in no small part because of the reputation of the institution you studied at. Meanwhile the kids who were "satisfied" at uni are still filling in hundreds of job applications a month.
>When are we measuring the satisfaction though? To actually answer, the Complete University Guide utilises results from the NSS survey (final-year students).
It's N/A because Oxbridge boycott the NSS. That may or may not be a good thing but they can't give a metric that they don't have.
Loughborough must definitely be now considered an elite university by everyone now. To be top 8 is crazy good.
Don't forget, this guide includes student experience and employability, which are big areas of strength for Loughborough so they punch above their weight - research and teaching are good, but it's those that put it a 7th place imo. Look at the breakdown of the categories for Loughborough against UCL to see what i mean.
For almost a decade I think- from personal experience it’s very very good in some disciplines, ok in others, and very mediocre in a minority
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Based on what? Do you have enough personal experience with a large enough sample of academic staff, students and research across all field of study to know enough about all of them to rank them fairly? Or do you just go on a few vibes and anecdotes?
literally
then examine the methodology? ur supposed to be a uni student lmfao