The Times & Sunday Times "Good University Guide" Official University Rankings 2017

On the contrary, if anything it is in the interests of leaving students to upvote their university so future employers think they went to a "good uni". (Yes I know employers don't pay attention to rankings but many students don't realise that.)

It is indeed in their interests (or at least supposedly as you say), but I don't think many people appreciate that - I definitely feel that any survey concerning the uni will attract more people who're angry about something and want to voice that anger than your regular person who's voting for the sake of voting.

If that was the case the lowest scores wouldn't be 70%.

It might be slightly surprising seeing Imperial lower than St. Andrews, but it is still within range of where it should be. The latter certainly deserves to be above LSE which is bottom in teaching and student experience for the 3rd year in a row. LSE really needs to have a look at how it treats undergrads. It is *******s when its flagship course (Econ) has sub 80% satisfaction rates.

I didn't say that only angry students are voting, nor that frustrated students give 0%/very dissatisfied scores to everything. I'm just pointing out from my personal experience (which may or may not apply generally) that students who haven't like their experience at uni are more likely to vote.

Ok, so let's say "angry students" are the ones who are more likely to vote. And therefore universities with a higher proportion of angry students have lower scores then that tells us something doesn't it. i.e. it's the point of the survey...

I think you missed my original point re surveys - what makes a certain student angry and what may make another student angry can vary enormously. Someone may hate their course because they have to walk 10 minutes to get to their lecture theatre, and someone may hate it because the lecture is actually inappropriate/horrendous. Added to that, everyone has different expectations, so to conflate it like that makes no sense.

Once again, the results of the surveys are a good indication on what a certain university could improve - they should not however, for reasons as above, be used in such a way to compare universities themselves directly.

NSS says they have a completion rate of 70% - that's definitely statistically valid. Also, the survey is undertaken by Ipsos MORI, who generally know what they are doing.

So, in your opinion, East Anglia has a better teaching system than Cambridge/Oxford?

Okay, I guess.

Maybe they go the extra mile?

The teaching system at Oxbridge gets them both a rating >80 - so it's clearly good, but perhaps the intensity is too much for some, or some of the supervisors/tutors aren't as helpful as they might be, who knows. Yes we can't see the detail, but it does say something if both the Oxbridge universities are outside the top 20.

Harper Adams was never a polytechnic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytechnic_(United_Kingdom)#List_of_former_polytechnics
Nor was Liverpool Hope.

They're new universities - ie they got university status after 1992 - but they're not ex-polys but ex agricultural and teacher training colleges.

Also, forgot to say that your quoted response rate is given as an average. In 2016, Oxford's 59% response rate was hailed as the 'biggest one ever' - certainly in some unis it will be much higher and in others lower.

Btw does anyone know the difference between "most competition for places" and "overall offer rate"?

Maybe, but then again, it's hard for me to appreciate that point. Teaching at Oxbridge is, as everyone knows, very intense. Everyone going there knows that, and have been warned as such by the unis themselves. If someone becomes frustrated because of the intensity, s/he has no one but themselves to blame. It's not a mistake/carelessness by the uni, but by the student who had different expectations.

Essentially, East Anglia may get a better score because it's more accessible in terms of difficulty, but how can you say that is an accurate measure of the uni's quality? That's why I'm saying that these scores should be used locally by each uni to improve their courses (so, say, give Oxford a chance to evaluate the intensity of their courses), but not to compare the two institutions themselves.

Also, forgot to say that your quoted response rate is given as an average. In 2016, Oxford's 59% response rate was hailed as the 'biggest one ever' - certainly in some unis it will be much higher and in others lower.

Fundamentally, an offer is not a place. Many people get a number of offers but they all end up with only 1 place (assuming they are accepted somewhere).

So in the case of LSE who on their site advertise a 7,2% of acceptance rate, what does this actually mean in the context of the figures in the league table?

Their competition for places is 10.7:1

And their overall offer rate is 37%

If you have 100 applicants, 37 will get an offer, and 7 of them will end up at LSE.

The other 30 offer holders will have gone elsewhere (e.g. Oxbridge or wherever).

Thanks this actually makes this make alot more snese!

So just to get this clear

Oxford, has an acceptance rate of 17,5%, competition of 5.9:1, and offer rate of 24.8%.

This means with 590 applicants:

There are 100 spaces
25% of the 590 will get an offer. Then 18% of those 590 of them will actually attend.

But 25% of 590 is 148, and 18% of 590 is 106. Don't you still have more students than you need?

Also, what happened to the 7%? Did 32 people just not make their offer? It is hard to imagine anyone would turn down Oxford to go somewhere else.

On the contrary, if anything it is in the interests of leaving students to upvote their university so future employers think they went to a "good uni". (Yes I know employers don't pay attention to rankings but many students don't realise that.)