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Can anyone rank these five universities for Math Undergraduate?

Bristol, St Andrews , Durham ,Bath,Edinburgh

Any post will be appreciated
Reply 1
Tbh I'd say they're all so similarly good that you shouldn't base your preference on someone's ranking. But I suppose Durham and maybe St Andrews (not so sure about this uni, nobody ever talks about it on here but it always does well in league tables) tend to rank above the others.
Original post by 1 8 13 20 42
Tbh I'd say they're all so similarly good that you shouldn't base your preference on someone's ranking. But I suppose Durham and maybe St Andrews (not so sure about this uni, nobody ever talks about it on here but it always does well in league tables) tend to rank above the others.


As a St Andrews maths 3rd year student I can confidently say that the maths course there is amazing, especially for pure maths. Well-organised courses, friendly lecturers and tutors, challenging material. I chose St. Andrews over Durham because the maths course and the students I met felt more inspiring. It's possible that I just met the wrong people at Durham but I reckon I made the right choice.
Generally speaking, for undergraduate courses only you want to look at the Guardian league tables. They don't count research quality and other postgrad elements in their calculations which removes factors such as prestige and postgrad opportunities, which won't matter to you.

For these five, the ranking is:

St Andrews (92.2/100)

Durham (76.3/100)

Edinburgh (73.3/100)

Bath (72.1/100)

Bristol (60.9/100)


Hope this helps :smile:
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by TimGB
Generally speaking, for undergraduate courses only you want to look at the Guardian league tables. They don't count research quality and other postgrad elements in their calculations which removes factors such as prestige and postgrad opportunities, which won't matter to you.

For these five, the ranking is:

St Andrews (92.2/100)

Durham (76.3/100)

Edinburgh (73.3/100)

Bath (72.1/100)

Bristol (60.9/100)


Hope this helps :smile:

No, do not look at the Guardian league tables. They are based almost entirely on student satisfaction, which makes them pretty useless, as that is a very personal factor. I can see why a St Andrews maths student might like them, as they rank St Andrews above Cambridge, which is dubious to say the least. St Andrews is a very good university, so placing it in the top 3 isn't totally insane. On the other hand, putting Liverpool John Moores and Nottingham Trent above Bristol and Nottingham is completely ridiculous, and shows why they can't be trusted.
To OP: Durham, St Andrews and Edinburgh all have a degree of "old university prestige". I'd be inclined to rate Bristol slightly above the others, and Bath slightly below, but they're all very good. I think you should probably choose based on other actors, such as what kind of place you want to live in and (if you're Scottish or international) how expensive each is.
Reply 6
Thanks for all posts!!!!:smile::smile::smile:
Original post by sweeneyrod
No, do not look at the Guardian league tables. They are based almost entirely on student satisfaction, which makes them pretty useless, as that is a very personal factor. I can see why a St Andrews maths student might like them, as they rank St Andrews above Cambridge, which is dubious to say the least. St Andrews is a very good university, so placing it in the top 3 isn't totally insane. On the other hand, putting Liverpool John Moores and Nottingham Trent above Bristol and Nottingham is completely ridiculous, and shows why they can't be trusted.


If I'd wanted to give St Andrews a better rep, I would have provided the CUG ranking, which gives the university a much higher score. Student satisfaction can mean good or bad things. If a course has high student satisfaction but low graduate prospects and value added, then it's likely that the score came from easy course or sociable teachers, which is irrelevant. But at high achieving universities, having a high student satisfaction tends to mean a more inspiring course, or better morale, which is good for you long term.

I agree Cambridge's relatively low score is dubious, but looking at the score in detail it comes down to low value added, probably because improving the mathematical ability of already incredibly able students is rather difficult. So yeah, it probably should be higher than St Andrews. But regardless, in both the Times and CUG rankings, St Andrews and Durham are ranked 1st and 2nd out of these five, which is what OP is looking for.

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