Gold, Silver and Bronze Universities

Please read post 12 again and don't misrepresent my posts.

Well in all seriousness

you mentioned employment and high level employment after six months Russel group universities should do well here.

None continuation after first year again Drop out rates are lower in Russel group universities. I would expect most Russel group universities to have decent academic support, I have heard a few negative things about some of the London ones but i am skeptical of that. Teaching quality and feed back I would also assume Russel group universities to be good for.

The only place where I see Russel group universities potentially falling down is Postcodes, sex and disability numbers.I think sure we want to rule out discrimination but we also don't want to encourage it either. I abhor the idea of quotas. There are many reasons as to why certain sections of society may be under performing none of which are the fault of universities or something universities should be held to account for.

We should strive to eliminate unfair disadvantages, to give those from poorer backgrounds a chance if they have the brains and the work ethic. However we should not expect universities to admit weaker students to fulfill quotas.

All the metrics are benchmarked against the average sector performance for students with the profile that each university admits.

You clearly don't understand what that means as you keep referring to the use of the data in terms of quotas.

I explained which Russell Group universities are likely to be underperforming in which benchmarks in post 12.

Yeah well I do question how they are under performing in terms of teaching standards, I mean how are students getting through such difficult degree programs if the teaching standards are so poor?

Bristol and UCL are two of our most successful universities with Bristol regularly featuring in the top 50 and UCL regularly featuring in the top ten in the world. If we trash that by giving them bronze we effectively lose a top 10 world ranked university and send them into the pile with Bristol west of England. this does not sound like a great idea at all. We won't get LoughBorough into the top ten you know. UCL ranked 7th in the world http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2016 they came above Princeton for heck sake.

We want to destroy that and tell the world that Sheffield Hallam is better quality university???

well I guess your not the one doing the rankings your only speculating on it but I really hope they don't give UCL Bronze because if they do one of two things will happen.

1. No one takes these rankings seriously and they become a laughing stock joke no one pays attention to

2. people do take this seriously in which case we won't get Anglia Ruskin, or Sheffield Hallam into the top 100 let alone the top ten we just destroy our reputation for world class universities. and everyone of our universities seen as mediocre at best.

I am actually proud of our countries achievements for world class universities and don't want to see that reputation destroyed.

Agreed, I have always had a lot of respect for the Russell Group and I'm proud in saying I go to one - we have succeeded many other international universities recently, just for people to say they arent good because they dont have a good student life/satisfaction etc etc

Yeah this just gets silly one or two universities in the Russel group are a bit weak and a few universities outside of the group such as Bath are very strong (although I don't think bath are good for research at the mo may be wrong on that though). So I can understand the case for not sticking religiously to Russel group, However for the most part they are all very prestigious universities that students have to work hard to get into.

Student satisfaction is a weak criteria for assessing our universities because a lot of students who go to really poor standard universities have a great time Drinking and partying. If I was younger I don't doubt I may well have a better time at Bath Spa then Say Imperial college, or Cambridge. Lots of hard work vs partying. However I don't think universities should be assessed by how much fun students have.

I think universities should primarily and to a very large degree be assessed by the rigour of the degree. when employers look for quality graduates they want just that not students who had a great time partying. The best rankings should go to the universities that can produce the most competent students.

Now if students have legitimate concerns such as lack of teaching or lack of academic support, or that they do not get enough contact time or lectures for there buck that is a legitimate concern. However measuring this on student satisfaction would be somewhat disingenuous. Students who score CCC at A level are going to have different attitudes and desires then those that score A*A*A*.

A universities job/function is to educate and produce quality graduates, now if Hull or Sheffield Hallam really were producing graduates who on average were more competent educated and skilled in mathematics then Bristol were, then sure I have no qualms with giving them a better ranking then Bristol. However doing it based of quotas or student satisfaction surveys would be very inappropriate.

Read the questions in the NSS that make up the metrics in the TEF.

They have nothing to do with "fun".

You seem to have argued that Bristol and LSE are bad universities and would get bronze whilst defending weaker institutions such as Sheffield Hallam and Anglia Ruskin. LSE scored 37th best in the world and Bristol scored 41st best in the world. on university world rankings. Anglia Ruskin and Sheffield Hallam did not even score on this.

I am aware there will be variance for specific subjects such as I want to do maths, Kings College rank 21st in the world but they are considered to be weak for maths. Going to Kings college for maths would likely be a mistake, However I should still expect Kings college to be world class overall.

Are you really trying to tell me that students whom graduate from Sheffield Hallam, and Anglia ruskin as an aggregate average will be more competent educated and skilled, then those that come from Bristol and LSE.

Bournemouth university are world class for animation, I would fully expect them to beat Bristol for this assuming Bristol do such a degree program. So it would not be to much of a stretch to entertain the idea that for the occasional subject graduates from Sheffield Hallam/Anglia Ruskin may well be more competent then their peers doing the same subject at Bristol.

However if your telling me as an aggregate average that Anglia Ruskin and Sheffield Hallam degrees are more rigorous and are producing better quality more competent graduates then Bristol, that is ground breaking news.

Is this seriously what your suggesting?

You're equating world rankings that measure research and prestige with the TEF which measures how well a university teaches. The two are not the same thing. Unsurprisingly universities that focus on teaching (and so don't do as well in research based league tables) are likely to perform well in an assessment of teaching excellence.

I never said that Bristol or LSE are bad universities. I said that they are likely to be rated Bronze (nb bronze medals aren't given to losers). I've just listened to the governor of LSE admit as much in a conference q&a. You have decided to label universities that don't meet your preconceptions as "bad" and "****".

Don't get angry with me for explaining how this system is going to work or pointing out that you're misrepresenting statistics.

You're equating world rankings that measure research and prestige with the TEF which measures how well a university teaches. The two are not the same thing. Unsurprisingly universities that focus on teaching (and so don't do as well in research based league tables) are likely to perform well in an assessment of teaching excellence.

I never said that Bristol or LSE are bad universities. I said that they are likely to be rated Bronze (nb bronze medals aren't given to losers). I've just listened to the governor of LSE admit as much in a conference q&a. You have decided to label universities that don't meet your preconceptions as "bad" and "****".

Don't get angry with me for explaining how this system is going to work or pointing out that you're misrepresenting statistics.

edit I noticed my reply was a bit long so put my preferences for university and me addressing your points on statistics in spoilers i suggest you look at the statistics spoiler (second spoiler) as you seem to be demonstrating a lack of understanding for statistics.

I dont get mad for people disagreeing with me that's how I learn if or when I am wrong, I just defend the position I believe to be right until I am given sufficient reason to believe otherwise.

In order to get this out the way crap/**** is a relative term I am sure compared to the world at large most of our universities are very good. its relative often when watching a sports game I might say player X is crap it is evident though that player X would absolutely destroy me on the court/pitch etc. I am talking in relative terms and for a uk university I consider the bottom half crap. Moving on.

I would be very concerned if what you are saying is correct. LSE are not so relevant to me because I want to do a maths degree they do a maths with economics degree and I don't want to spend half my time studying economics. So even if people said they were better then Cambridge I would not apply their. However Bristol have a very good reputation for maths and all things been well Would likely be one of my five on the UCAS form.

I have had a bad experience with university so far I completed a degree at poor standard university. They were actually considered fairly good for the subject but were ranked weak overall. Due to a number of factors long story I got by with a 6 hours of work outside of lectures and seminars a week and had only 8 hours a week of lectures and seminars. In total then my input was less then 14 hours a week. I came out with a 2:1. That should not be doable, a degree should be a full time job. There is something wrong with the course if I can coast through this easily for university exams I often learned entire modules from scratch not revised from scratch the night before the exam and still got a 2:1.

If I was an employer looking to employ graduates my concern would be the quality of the graduate I am getting how skilled how are they at maths/Engineering/topic X etc. The current impression I get and many would get is that A graduate from Bristol would be more competent then a graduate from Hull as a generic rule. EG if two candidates score exactly the same eg 2:1 with 65% average the candidate from Bristol would have completed a tougher degree and be more skilled in the area I wish to recruit for.

if you are actually telling me this in fact wrong and a candidate from Hull is more skilled then Bristol this is huge news, if this in fact true I need to know this to avoid making a mistake.Now in the Olympics Bronze is an accomplishment however when there are three categories to be awarded and you get placed in one of these three regardless getting placed in the third tier is not good it is bad. I would consider universities in the bottom third in the UK bad for UK universities and I don't want to go somewhere considered bad.

I know that LSE graduates are very sought after by employers if they were less competent then their peers from other institutions to the extent that most universities provide better caliber graduates I would have thought this would have changed by now word would have got out. EG if I ran a small trading firm and employed a single graduate from LSE and found him to be a weak performer I would assume I got unlucky, If however I had a large trading firm and employed several hundred candidates from LSE over a period of years and had regularly noticed the majority of them seemed to be weak performers and the candidates I was getting from Hull were better overall I would start to seriously question the quality of the degree programs at LSE I certainly would not go on blindly saying LSE is a great university continue to employ from their regardless of what I see because league tables say so. Multiply this across the industry for Both LSE and Bristol and they just would not be targeted anymore. this relates to statistics and I will come back to that.

However for now for the reasons I just stated I find it hard to believe that the degree programs at LSE and Bristol as a generic average are not rigorous and or are producing weak caliber graduates. Is this what you are claiming? is a graduate from Hull better qualified on average then a graduate from LSE/Bristol? this is huge news if so.

I would have to assume your answer to that would be no, otherwise this is a major claim and I would require significant evidence of this if this is your claim then please correct me here.

I assume your claim has to relate to teaching as one could in theory have a very difficult degree program which is very rigorous and produces very higher caliber students but have poor teaching and relies on the students self teaching.

I have to assume this is your claim because this could be believable whilst the former would almost need a conspiracy to go have gone unnoticed by now. in that regard I think its highly contextual for example my subject in maths weaker students may need the lecturer to go slower and break down the stages whilst stronger students may have already seen the next several steps and the lecturer may well be able to skip over these. weaker students may need help going over many examples whilst stronger students may be able to be given problem sheets and work out practice most of these themselves. There are other things to debate and criteria etc but this is why teaching standards can be hard to assess and misleading.

in theory a university that admits students whom obtain CCC and gets them to graduate at the same standard or caliber of students at another university who admits students who achieve ABB would be better for teaching then the second university. This would be a clear measure and I am willing to accept there may be ways they can actually measure such things.

However if the second university was producing students of AAB caliber I would still choose this one in theory because whilst the teaching is poorer I would come out at a higher caliber.

I think rankings should be assessing the caliber standards and skills of graduates much more then anything else as this is what employers should and will be looking for.

What was your source for the graduate salary for each university?

Also for what it's worth: implying that the NSS results used in the TEF are indicative of "fun" IS misrepresenting statistics.

I used which university, http://university.which.co.uk/

as for the fun comment this wasn't commenting on statistics this was commenting on a grading criteria, If I misrepresented anything it would would have been the grading requirement not the statistics.

My general point was that student satisfaction is a vague criteria that can be misleading.
Generally if students report based on
Extremely satisfied
very satisfied
satisfied
not satisfied
very dis satisfied
extremely dis satisfied

many students may say they are satisfied rather then delighted, and i think lowering the ranking of a university because of the difference of satisfied compared to very satisfied/extremely satisfied is weak. If it was coming back that most students were dis satisfied or worse then yeah questions need to be asked and things investigated.

anyway I assume then that you are not implying that Bristol/LSE produce weak caliber graduates?

So you calculated an unweighted mean of median values that are rounded to the nearest thousand

And student satisfaction refers invariably to the NSS. Implying that it measures fun or satisfaction in the way you state is misrepresenting the data. Something you've done because the results point to underperformance in a university that you prefer.

I'm stating that Bristol and LSE (and a number of other russell group universities) underperform compared to the sector when it comes to teaching quality. That's what this whole bronze/silver/gold exercise has been designed to measure. Is it really so shocking to you that universities that employ staff for their research ability aren't performing above average for teaching?

I assume by unweighted mean, you mean my not taking into account student numbers at every university, Yes this was a flaw in my methodology which I openly pointed out in my first post. I was looking for a quick general idea not exact figures. I fail to see how i mis represented data when I specifically pointed to that flaw in the very first post addressing it.

I do notice my source actually gives this figure so it wouldn't of been too much of a stretch to account for this, however I wanted a quick rough guide and my data overall is satisfactory the purpose of this was to give me a generic impression of general trends not write my own research paper. If I was doing the latter I would have gone into much more detail. It was also to spot if a number of data points highlighted any specific universities for been good or bad. I found this by noticing Surrey a university I had never looked at or thought of before actually had quite a few strong numbers.

I also noticed Queens Belfast despite been a Russel group university did not have great numbers so I can avoid an application to there. Liverpool are bad for my subject and posted bad numbers for that but are okay in general. Kings College are weak for my subject but still post strong numbers for my subject £24000 I think because they are more prestigious then most Russel group universities and they are a London based university.

I now thanks to my research have my top ten for every grade point result now some names might surprise you.

EG A*A*A
1Cambridge
2Imperial
3Durham
4Warwick
5Bath
6Bristol
7UCL
8 Surrey
9 Loughborough
10 Cardiff

A*AA
1. Durham
2. Bath
3. Nottingham
4. UCL
5. Exeter
6. Surrey
7.Loughborough
8. Southampton
9. Cardif
10. Kings (weak but world wide prestige)

AAA
1. Lancaster
2. Exeter
3.Birmingham
4. loughorough
5. Southampton
6.Cardif
7 York
8.Kings College
9. Sheffield
10. Leicester
If I get worse then AAA then try Cardif otherwise seriously consider open university as alternative option.so AAB or better I need. I had a list for ABB etc but most of the universities that appear there are not desirable at all. I actually don't like the appearance of Leicester on the AAA

a notable miss for this list is Manchester they are actually a very desirable university its just that they don't beat my top ten for A*AA. Id still stand a chance with AAA so Guess they would be the ambitious target with AAA. this is why I made a thread moaning about why some universities have higher entry requirements then other universities that are similar or better standard. Id much prefer Machester to Leicester but manchester ask for A*AA (technically they ask for A*AA-AAA but with my academic past I have to assume universities will ask me for the higher end)

I will go to open days all being well to get better idea. As things currently stand the five I hope to apply to are
Cambridge
Imperial
Warwick
UCL

then one of Durham/Bath or Bristol

What you said about Bristol alarms me but they are very good for maths , Bath is very good for maths and well respected in the UK I just worry about internationally, Durham look good but I need to do more research on.

However My perspective has changed from research and I will make a point of visiting all my top ten for the grades i get.

I assume you already know this but you can't apply to both Oxford and Cambridge and if i had to choose between the two I choose Cambridge, which is a shame because I would hardly complain about going to Oxford.

I'm so confused.

You seem to debating with the underlying motive of organising your own university application? Huh?

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the university of Hull has an average graduate Salary of £20000 they are below the average but not by much. Having said that the averages are pulled down a lot by the weaker institutions so this is still a poor figure.

On the other hand I have heard positive things about Hull in terms of their support for students and openness. It is not somewhere I would like to go but there are many universities that are worse.

I would think it harsh to label them bronze but not really harsh, I would probably say they should just scrape Silver. Labeling them gold though would be a joke and make a mockery of the Hull thing.

Hull have this really kickass course:

http://beta.www.hull.ac.uk/Study/UG/2017/british-politics-legislative.aspx

It is the only university in the UK to offer students the option to take a year out and work for an MP in Westminister, at this scale. Even RGs usually do this for only around 2 months usually.

I also wanted to mention that the reason QUB is lower on grad salaries because it is in Northern Ireland, where wages have always been low in comparison to the rest of the UK.

no just showing the results of my study and how it changed my original perspective. My initial five were Cambridge, Warwick, Bristol, Liverpool and Kings.

I was unaware how weak Liverpool were for maths was not aware that kings were weak for maths and was not aware of just how prestigious Imperial and UCL are. I am still debating within myself the final decisions but I think overall my research is done for now I should focus on getting the grades and studying. Then i can go to open days to help with the final decision.