[Oldboy5745]

Anyone else pleasantly surprised by the LSE ratings this year?

First in Economics according to the Complete University Guide
http://www.thecompleteuniversityguid...gs?s=Economics

Second overall in the entire country according to the Complete University Guide, which I find shocking for a specialised institution.
http://www.thecompleteuniversityguid...league-tables/

Second for Eonomcis according to the Guardian ratings (which I never really trusted)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/...uide-economics

Third overall in the entire country according to the Guardian league tables
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/...2013?fb=native

Of course league tables are not to be trusted blindly and often give a skewed representation of the quality of the respective universities, but they are still an indicator and despite their imperfections, an important one in my opinion.

So, what does everyone else think about this year's rankings?

[member910132]

How do employers see these league tables ? Or have the built up enough experience over the years to know which uni is good regardless of the rankings ?


This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

[Zürich]

(Original post by member910132)
How do employers see these league tables ? Or have the built up enough experience over the years to know which uni is good regardless of the rankings ?


This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

Nobody takes any notice if LSE is 1/2/3 or 4th in the rankings. It's just seen as being of sufficiently high quality to 'tick the box' for Economics related jobs. It's reputation is well established by now.

[Brantonli]

(Original post by member910132)
How do employers see these league tables ? Or have the built up enough experience over the years to know which uni is good regardless of the rankings ?


This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

LSE is one of the target universities that employers come to to do recruitment (along with Oxbridge, sometimes Warwick, maybe UCL). Big firms like BCG, all investment banks, will have recruitment teams specifically in charge of LSE and Oxbridge.

[danny111]

(Original post by Oldboy5745)
Anyone else pleasantly surprised by the LSE ratings this year?

First in Economics according to the Complete University Guide
http://www.thecompleteuniversityguid...gs?s=Economics

Second overall in the entire country according to the Complete University Guide, which I find shocking for a specialised institution.
http://www.thecompleteuniversityguid...league-tables/

Second for Eonomcis according to the Guardian ratings (which I never really trusted)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/...uide-economics

Third overall in the entire country according to the Guardian league tables
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/...2013?fb=native

Of course league tables are not to be trusted blindly and often give a skewed representation of the quality of the respective universities, but they are still an indicator and despite their imperfections, an important one in my opinion.

So, what does everyone else think about this year's rankings?

I don't see why a specialised instituions cannot be 2nd or 3rd overall. The overall university quality should not be dependent upon number of subjects offered.

Also glad to see that for the economics ranking in the complete guide LSE has 4.0 satisfaction - higher than Cambridge and Warwick. And in the Guardian economics one they are also above those two in both satisfied with course and satisfied with teaching. The latter got a score of 83. Decent score. Only Oxford out of the top unis has a lot more and we all know why Oxford's econ students wouldn't work as hard and thus be less satisfied as the other top econ students.

[fudgesundae]

(Original post by Oldboy5745)
Anyone else pleasantly surprised by the LSE ratings this year?

First in Economics according to the Complete University Guide
http://www.thecompleteuniversityguid...gs?s=Economics

Second overall in the entire country according to the Complete University Guide, which I find shocking for a specialised institution.
http://www.thecompleteuniversityguid...league-tables/

Second for Eonomcis according to the Guardian ratings (which I never really trusted)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/...uide-economics

Third overall in the entire country according to the Guardian league tables
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/...2013?fb=native

Of course league tables are not to be trusted blindly and often give a skewed representation of the quality of the respective universities, but they are still an indicator and despite their imperfections, an important one in my opinion.

So, what does everyone else think about this year's rankings?

LSE is only above Oxford due to the fact that the 'facilities spend' category is mucked up for Oxford. If you look at the category Oxford ranks in the bottom 15 or so because the people who make the rankings were unable to collect much data for them. Something to do with how Oxford spend their money.

But I don't think LSE needs validation from league tables, it has already been established as one of the top institutions in the country, despite it being reasonably specialised. Employers see it at least on par with Oxbridge for jobs in the finance industry (where most LSE grads seem to be aiming) and have done so for quite a while now.

[rippedbanana]

its supposed to be this way and has been so for quite a while. their students actually deliver and they do so consistently whereas oxford and cambridge graduates are too proud of themselves (after 72 weeks of training and only the final year counts toward their degrees). oxford and cambridge graduates are smart. good mean value but high variance.

as for undergraduate, yes lse is tough even from the 1st year with exams and coursework.

as for social sciences research, yes lse should be on a par. researchers from other universities do good jobs too.

as for graduate training, i think lse tops both because they run more or less americanized graduate school.

oxford and cambridge have the wow factor, but the wow factor is in the eye of the beholder. you wouldnt buy a house just because you are wow-ed by it, you buy it because you know that you can make a good return on it. the mean returns on the lse graduates are as high as those on the oxford and cambridge graduates, but the variance is much smaller.

the same applies to tutors and research at oxford and cambridge. sometimes you wonder looking at his or her cv, why does this person teach at oxford and cambridge? the mean is high due to a small number of celebrity academics but the variance is high too due to tutors with little or no publication. this doesnt happen in american universities. harvard offers the highest mean and the lowest variance. a community or 2 year college offers the lowest mean (the variance could be as low as the returns in this case) and the mean returns are almost zero and positively skewed (due to one academic that manages to publish something meaningful).

Opinion not a fact, when you think about the long term prospects, the returns on oxford and cambridge students should be roughly the same as the returns on lse graduates, but the variance of oxford and cambridge graduates gradually decreases with the investment horizon eventually becomes on a par with that of the lse graduates. but most employers cant afford to invest in the long term projects now.

[Swayum]

(Original post by Oldboy5745)
So, what does everyone else think about this year's rankings?

I reckon it's just that the students are putting better student satisfaction marks on those surveys to boost LSE's rankings

Nothing significant has happened with the Economics department very recently, has it? No major professor coming in, no ground breaking research, no Nobel prize, similar sort of teaching as previous years, etc.

Btw, private message/FB me your survival tactics for FM320 please haha.

[Oldboy5745]

(Original post by Swayum)
I reckon it's just that the students are putting better student satisfaction marks on those surveys to boost LSE's rankings

Nothing significant has happened with the Economics department very recently, has it? No major professor coming in, no ground breaking research, no Nobel prize, similar sort of teaching as previous years, etc.

Btw, private message/FB me your survival tactics for FM320 please haha.

I think the drastic improvement was caused by a change in the way the actual scores are calculated. There was a huge fuss last year that the ratings were biased against universities such as LSE and I'm guessing the weights attributed to the various categories were adjusted for a more accurate comparison. I'm sure students leaving better satisfaction ratings solely to boost rankings is also a factor though

As for FM320... I have the first term down pretty well, but will probably have to focus on just the first half of the second term. The fact that I also have Monetary on the same day really doesn't help. I'll catch you on FB to exchange tips haha

[j-b]

We are beating oxford?? Yesshhh!!!! Get in!!###