[KCosmo]

(Original post by poohat)
Personally I dont think so, because a) most students except those in engineering/law/medicine/compsci end up working in jobs that are unrelated to their degree, and b) even the ones who end up in related jobs will probably learn more 'useful' skills in their first year at work than they learned during their degree. It seems very unlikely to me that after 5 years working, it matters what you learned at undergraduate.

I mean if we're talking about the difference between what you'd learn at (eg) Cambridge and an ex-poly then perhaps, but as long as we're talking about broadly similar universities I find it hard to believe it matters that much. Again within the exception of Oxbridge (who have the tutorial system), it doesnt seem likely that there are going to be huge variations in teaching quality across different universities.

True. I forget that most graduates end up working in jobs that are unrelated to their degree (most of my friends that have graduated are engineers, so their jobs are all related to their degree ) I suppose for vocational courses (or where you find that your job is strongly related to your degree), teaching quality is important, but for other courses I would agree that it is much less so (again assuming broadly similar uni's)

[M4LLY]

I'm not surprised that number 118 is where it is.

[theonelink]

(Original post by tinytadpoletim)
Apparently someone who went to Oxford would have worse career prospects than Newcastle and Buckingham, and the same career prospects as Robert Gordon University (which I've just had to look up as I hadn't heard of it before)... So basically, the PM and half the cabinet would be in a better job right now had they gone to Robert Gordon University???!!! Someone's having a laugh

Rgu is known for its employment prospects..

[TimmonaPortella]

Well, at least it got the top 3 places right.

[Rancorous]

(Original post by Vanbrugh)
Have to wholeheartedly disagree with that. If national rankings are problematic then Global rankings are horribly skewed affairs for a greater veriety of reasons.

Overall university rankings arn't reliable, period.

The Times Higher rankings are still by far the best of a bad lot. They are in a different league to The Guardian's or the Independent's yearly showings. 90% of THE's rankings come from teaching and research/citations which, whilst they have wildly problematic elements to them, make them far better than league tables which rely on student surveys, or which weight research in perverse and often incorrect ways. Or indeed tables which place emphasis on 'graduate prospects' without defining what these prospects are precisely beyond being in some sort of job or further study. Or a menagerie of other factors which have nothing to do with a student's experience at a university, i.e. how green the university is or how placing a disproportionate emphasis on the difference between 480 and 500 UCAS points as an average entry statistic. The Independent's table often has universities lower ranked but higher scoring on every criteria prima facie provided in the table than higher ranking universities. None of the tables give an indication really of how close the universities are to each other either.

[Astronomical]

(Original post by Tsunami2011)
They don't make the figures up...Some of that is down to subjects like History of Art lol.

This doesn't really make any sense. Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, Warwick,UCL,Durham and St Andrews all rank in the top 10 despite it being largely based on student opinion, and these 7 are widely percieved to make up the top 10 along with Imperial and a couple others. Students at those universities will have equally as high academic expectations as those at King's/Imperial yet fare much better in the table. Clearly, this suggests that something isn't right at King's or Imperial for them to fare below what is expected.

I think that the job prospects (or lack of, according to the Guardian) is perhaps failing to take into account that a greater proportion of students at places like Oxford continue with further qualifications, and this could explain the seemingly shocking ranking. Who knows?

That is only one view on the situation though. You can also see it from the point of view that the students at the institutes above them feel more satisfied. But again I don't believe such measures accurately reflect the difficulty/quality of the courses at any university, not only the prestigious ones. Essentially rankings mean very little is what I'm trying to get at!

[mc1000]

(Original post by Rancorous)
The Times Higher rankings are still by far the best of a bad lot. They are in a different league to The Guardian's or the Independent's yearly showings. 90% of THE's rankings come from teaching and research/citations which, whilst they have wildly problematic elements to them, make them far better than league tables which rely on student surveys, or which weight research in perverse and often incorrect ways. Or indeed tables which place emphasis on 'graduate prospects' without defining what these prospects are precisely beyond being in some sort of job or further study. Or a menagerie of other factors which have nothing to do with a student's experience at a university, i.e. how green the university is or how placing a disproportionate emphasis on the difference between 480 and 500 UCAS points as an average entry statistic. The Independent's table often has universities lower ranked but higher scoring on every criteria prima facie provided in the table than higher ranking universities. None of the tables give an indication really of how close the universities are to each other either.

Basically, by condoning the THE rankings, you're saying that Warwick and Bath are not worthy of being ranked in the top 200 in the world; and that Liverpool John Moores is better than Loughborough. Both of these statements are clearly bull****, but nonetheless are statements that can be inferred from THE. Their world rankings don't even correlate well with their research assessment exercise - which should really form a very strong correlation in a table that is based heavily on research. Awful rankings.

For similar reasons, the QS rankings are also questionable, but to a far lesser extent. I find that the best overall ranking, year on year (except for the occasional anomaly), is the Sunday Times.

But at least we can all agree that the Guardian is the worst of the lot...

[alexs2602]

(Original post by Craig_D)
In my own completely biased opinion ....

Imperial, Nottingham, KCL, Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds, Liverpool and probably Bristol are all too low.

UEA, Aston, Loughborough, Surrey, Buckingham, Bath, Lancaster and City University London are all too high.
(Apologies to people studying at the second group, no offence is intended.)

I guess I tend to favour the traditional red brick universities; the Guardian conversely seems to be biased towards encouraging the up and coming universities (which no doubt have a less complacent attitude towards student satisfaction). I also long had a feeling that the Guardian enjoy kicking universities which have a more corporate and business oriented outlook, like Nottingham - but maybe that's just me making excuses. I still can't get over how low Imperial is.

I agree with most of this but why do you think Bath should be ranked lower? It's a very good uni, but maybe I'm just thinking about my course though. It doesn't seem far off. And UEA? I'd rank it 25th give or take, which it's pretty close to at 23rd.

[alexs2602]

(Original post by lovely_me)
Kings 31st is just beyond unjustifiable. Nearly spat out my milk.

Where would you rank it? It's good but not that great. Top 15, borderline top 10.

[mc1000]

(Original post by Craig_D)
In my own completely biased opinion ....

Imperial, Nottingham, KCL, Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds, Liverpool and probably Bristol are all too low.

UEA, Aston, Loughborough, Surrey, Buckingham, Bath, Lancaster and City University London are all too high.
(Apologies to people studying at the second group, no offence is intended.)

I guess I tend to favour the traditional red brick universities; the Guardian conversely seems to be biased towards encouraging the up and coming universities (which no doubt have a less complacent attitude towards student satisfaction). I also long had a feeling that the Guardian enjoy kicking universities which have a more corporate and business oriented outlook, like Nottingham - but maybe that's just me making excuses. I still can't get over how low Imperial is.

If Loughborough, Lancaster and Bath are too high, then so are Durham and Exeter.

Durham, especially, wouldn't be a top 10 if it didn't have a high intake of Oxbridge rejects. It's really pushed up to the top 10 by its disproportionately (and unrepresentatively) high entry standards and (most likely consequentially) the far-higher-than-average percentage of good degrees it awards. But in reality it isn't a top-10 research university, and in addition to this it's fair to say that its research quality is roughly on a par with a university that's ranked around 35th.

Same goes for Exeter, which is actually ranked 27th for research - behind Lancaster, Loughborough and Bath.

But as I say, the difference in research quality (and overall quality) of all these universities is negligible.

[cambio wechsel]

It seems that the table is good or bad to the extent that it comports with preconceived notions.

It's important to consider the criteria and the objectives of the survey. I can straightforwardly imagine a perfectly sensible car-ranking system which saw a Honda beat a Porsche, considerations here would include 'fuel-economy' and 'insurance costs'. This table ranks universities pretty well entirely for the undergraduate experience that they provide, and should be understood in the light of that. There is precisely no guarantee that the best such experiences will be provided at what are on other metrics the better universities. The positions of Oxford and Cambridge are assured by the tutorial/superivsion system, a provision so good that the wonder of it is that they manage to make the graduate experience comparably good. Beyond that, though, pretty well all bets might be off, if what you're looking for is what's being asked after here.

I've spent my working life at universities, this after having studied at three which many of you consider among the best in the country. In many instances the best teachers I've seen, those who were the best at imparting knowledge, provided the best feedback, laboured over their PowerPoints, were comparatively research-inactive. As against that, I've been signed up for lecture courses where every 2nd lecture was rescheduled due to the high-flying academic's being enticed to another conference or having his editor at The OUP breathing down his neck. A university full of these would do very well on a different ranking system, one which gave weighting to citations, but that's a different way of measuring a university.

The universities providing the best undergraduate experiences in the US are for the most part schools many on here will never have heard of. Likely no-one on this forum, or anyway no-one not American, would guess that the US school whose graduates go on to earn the most money is Harvey Mudd College. Schools such as Swarthmore or Sarah Lawrence or Mount Holyoke aren't "better universites" than some of the ones you might suppose to be in the frame, but they are 'better for this'.

Last I'm disheartened by the want that university ranking should be a static circumstance. Some of you seem to be saying "I cannot accept a table which ranks X over Y" in a way that suggests this as policy, i.e that you will never accept that - Y is better than X and there's an ultimate end on it. That kind of thinking does the universities no good, the traditionally strong ones as well as the would be up and comers.

[kbountra]

(Original post by James A)
I thought Bath got Sunday Times University of the Year?

Apaz Bath won the award given by the Sunday Times and Sheffield won the one given by 'Time Higher Education'

[Aquinas]

I think most people have an idea of the way they'd rank universities:

e.g.

1-10 (Tier 1) - Oxbridge; LSE; UCL; Durham; Imperial; Warwick possibly and the next few places often interchange...

11-25 (Tier 2) - You'd get York; Exeter; Birmingham; Kings; Manchester; Nottingham; Bath; Bristol; St. Andrews; S'hampton; Glasgow; Edinburgh; Leeds; Lancaster; Loughborough; Sussex; Newcastle; Cardiff; SOAS - with these universities making up the next places and fighting for the remaining top-10 positions above them.

26-40 (Tier 3) - Liverpool; RHUL; QMUL; QCB; UEA; Kent; Surrey; Essex; Keele; Aston; Leicester; Reading etc...

I've probably missed some out and these are in no particular order, but that's how I see the top 40 places in terms of reputation/prestige/career opportunities in the main and probably in the long term too.

Would be interesting to see if people agree. Or if, like all rankings seem to, there are droves of people in disagreement.

[Torpedo Fish]

Why must people whinge about this every single year? The methodology is openly available to anybody who wises to study it. Yes the Guardian table gives a heavy weighting to student satisfaction; perhaps some people think that students' opinions and experiences of their course are important. Others, of course, will disagree. My point is why can't people just take it or leave it rather than blathering on year after year about "OMG Imperial is below Exeter... "Well knock me down with a frisbee... Manchester is below Heriot-Watt" etc.. etc.

Boring.

[The Dynamic Uno]

Okay I know Trent isn't the best of uni's, but down to 80th? Really?

[poohat]

(Original post by Aquinas)
I think most people have an idea of the way they'd rank universities:

e.g.

1-10 (Tier 1) - Oxbridge; LSE; UCL; Durham; Imperial; Warwick possibly and the next few places often interchange...

11-25 (Tier 2) - You'd get York; Exeter; Birmingham; Kings; Manchester; Nottingham; Bath; Bristol; St. Andrews; S'hampton; Glasgow; Edinburgh; Leeds; Lancaster; Loughborough; Sussex; Newcastle; Cardiff; SOAS - with these universities making up the next places and fighting for the remaining top-10 positions above them.

26-40 (Tier 3) - Liverpool; RHUL; QMUL; QCB; UEA; Kent; Surrey; Essex; Keele; Aston; Leicester; Reading etc...

I've probably missed some out and these are in no particular order, but that's how I see the top 40 places in terms of reputation/prestige/career opportunities in the main and probably in the long term too.
.

Durham is an interesting case because its reputation is mainly based on its teaching in humanities subjects; its research output isnt great (in the sciences at least) and it has one of the lowest research incomes in the Russell group (which it only joined this year). The Durham vs Manchester thing sums up the different criteria used in rankings - international tables which give more weight to research usually put Manchester as the top UK university after Oxbridge/London, while Durham is barely top 10. On the other hand, most domestic tables, which give more weight to teaching, put Durham high and Manchester low. However with the exception of those two universities, generally research output and reputation/ranking are highly correlated and you wont see any huge differences between sensible (ie non-guardian) rankings.

If you moved Oxbridge up a tier and moved Durham down to Tier 2, I think thats generally a ranking most people could agree on, regardless of which criteria they used. You could probably split Tier 2 in half since some of those universities are more prestigious than others, but its more or less right. You could argue about Warwick since its high reputation is mainly based on its mathematics output and the fact that for fairly arbitrary reasons its a target for investment banks; its not really clear why its 'better' than (eg) Bristol or Edinburgh, especially once you start factoring in international reputation.

[River85]

(Original post by poohat)
Durham is an interesting case because its reputation is mainly based on its teaching in humanities subjects; its research output isnt great (in the sciences at least) and it has one of the lowest research incomes in the Russell group (which it only joined this year).

It is a complete myth Durham excels largely in the humanities. Some of its strongest research departments are in the sciences. It is the second largest centre for astrophysics in the world and other departments, chemistry for example, are placed among the top in the country in terms of average quality and quantity.

Conversely a number of its social science and arts departments aren't as strong as they used to be (sociology, perhaps english - though english is still very strong) and some weren't really particularly well known for research to begin with (philosophy, school of government).

It is only a mid-size multi-faculty university, unlike Manchester which is the largest in the country, and it does lack a proper medical school, and, but please don't perpetuate the myth that Durham is somehow this place for Law, Classics and History and not the sciences.

The Durham vs Manchester thing sums up the different criteria used in rankings - international tables which give more weight to research usually put Manchester as the top UK university after Oxbridge/London, while Durham is barely top 10. On the other hand, most domestic tables, which give more weight to teaching, put Durham high and Manchester low. However with the exception of those two universities, generally research output and reputation/ranking are highly correlated and you wont see any huge differences between sensible (ie non-guardian) rankings.

If you moved Oxbridge up a tier and moved Durham down to Tier 2, I think thats generally a ranking most people could agree on, regardless of which criteria they used. You could probably split Tier 2 in half since some of those universities are more prestigious than others, but its more or less right. You could argue about Warwick since its high reputation is mainly based on its mathematics output and the fact that for fairly arbitrary reasons its a target for investment banks; its not really clear why its 'better' than (eg) Bristol or Edinburgh, especially once you start factoring in international reputation.

Only the Guardian takes teaching into account, I think. If you're referring to the NSS then is affected by a number of things, including student support services and local environment, and not just teaching.

[poohat]

(Original post by River85)
It is a complete myth Durham excels largely in the humanities. Some of its strongest research departments are in the sciences. It is the second largest centre for astrophysics in the world and other departments, chemistry for example, are placed among the top in the country in terms of average quality and quantity..

You can find the last RAE scores here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/...ubject/rae2008

Durham is around the middle of the Russell Group in most hard science subjects, including chemistry.

edit: you're right that its small size means it suffers in these sort of rankings though

edit2: Im not denying its a good university, I was just questioning the guy who put it as the best UK university after Oxbridge/London

[River85]

(Original post by poohat)
League tables arent that inaccurate, its only the Guardian one which gives ridiculous rankings because it assigns such a high weight to student satisfaction, which is too subjective and doesnt really tell you much about university quality (a student who is happy to be accepted at a low tier university may be more satisfied than one who has been accepted to LSE and is depressed about how hard he has to work).

What sets the Guardian apart from other league table is its value added score as much as, if not more than, its focus on student satisfaction. It is unique to the Guardian and is often what results in the "strange" results.

But I think that comment does students a disservice though. Will students be stressed by having to work more? Yes. But if they appropriate student support services, and contact hours, are in place then most students will relish the challenge. In my experience it is a university's poor student support service, its teaching quality, as well as the local area (small city or campus universities tend to out perform large city universities) and not how hard a student is worked. There are many universities who have high standards and intensive terms but also high student satisfaction rates.

Realistically, when you rank universities most weight should be given to research quality (which is also a good proxy for teaching quality)

Really? Depending on subject it's quite the reverse and a research intensive department will often offer little in the way of contact hours. Unless the specific department specifically uses some research-led teaching, and still provides sufficient contact hours, it usually has a negative effect.

Student satisfaction has its problems and, like many criteria used in league tables, I'm not a great fan of it. But I see it as no worse an indicator of teaching quality than research.

graduate employment prospects, and reputational among academics/employers. The Guardian ranking gives almost no weight to these most important criteria, which is why it produces such a ridiculous table. Probably the best league tables around are the international ones (QS, Times World, etc) since these use more relevant criteria.

The international tables also provide absurd criteria. What about the number of international staff and students? Does a higher percentage make for a "better" university? How is that relevant?

although they do have a slight bias towards research where you'll often see Manchester being listed as the 4rth or 5th best university in the UK, above places like (eg) Durham which are more teaching orientated.

Again, Durham is certainly a research intensive university. My experience at even its poorer research departments (SGIA) is that academics are more pre
occupied with funding and bumming oppressive reigimes for funding than they are teaching.

All you need to do is look at the 2008 RAE and you'll see how Durham does in Physics, Chemistry, Archaeology, Geography and the like. I'm not denying that, being one of the smallest Russell Group universities (has it officially joined yet? Thought it was later this year) it is restricted by size.

[River85]

(Original post by poohat)
You can find the last RAE scores here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/...ubject/rae2008

Durham is around the lower middle of the Russell Group in most hard science subjects, including chemistry.

Whether Durham is "up there" at the top of the Russell Group generally speaking is another matter. It is a smaller university and cannot compete with a Manchester, Cambridge, OXford, Imperial or Leeds in terms of research income. I was just objecting to your claim that its research in the sciences is relatively poor and it is better known in the humanities. That is nonsense. Its science departments are amongst its strongest.

I know where I can find the 2008 RAE scores. I use the actual website. Take physics for example, it is placed toward the top of the Russell Group in both staff submitted and quality

http://www.rae.ac.uk/results/quality...id=19&type=uoa

It remains that Durham is known worldwide for its research in astrophysics. Do you think its known worldwide for its research in...moral philosophy?

That a university is placed in the "lower middle" of the Russell Group, which is a group of leading research intensive universities, does not mean that it's known more for teaching.