[Aeschylus]

(Original post by 0404343m)
I was really disappointed with York's response to this. The SU and the university managed to look like a bunch of idiots that really genuinely cared about two places in a table and would do whatever it took to get a higher score in it. It was a chance for them to say "we're moving forward, attracting quality students, regardless of whether we're 7th or 27th, and providing our students with the tools to succeed and we don't need a newspaper to tell us how to do our job". Instead, you get a guy sounding like his life is over because they're 13th. Idiot.

Partly because universities are run with PR in mind means you get this crap. Going up in a flaming table (even if it's 23rd to 21st) results in an email to all of the staff, students and alumni thanking them for their hard work, as if something's changed in the university that's meant they're a better institution from a year previously. When the opposite happens, everyone shuts up and pretends newspapers don't exist, or take a leaf from Edinburgh's book and just twist the figures: "if we multiply our bad RAE score in this subject with the number of staff we have, then we have the most people numerically in the top three bands outside of Oxford, Cambridge and London, and are therefore top four in the UK". While people seek good publicity at all costs, we're always going to get half of the universities releasing a press statement when they do well and the other half doing it the following year. The cycle will sadly probably never end, until the day where someone develops some sense and works out what students really want and need isn't best served by a newspaper, and more refuse to take part in them.

The campus media (nouse and vision) have a real bee in their bonnet about it. I don't really understand - we had a comment article the other day where someone said 'do we really want to go to oxford' which a) assumed everyone wanted to go to oxford and b) sounded like a sarky 17 year old who'd just got rejected. And I was surprised how many people freely admitted 'oh yeah I only applied to York because it was top 10 in the league tables'. People taking these things as gospel and wanting to be top dog above all else /fume

[Meat is Murder]

(Original post by nulli tertius)
Let me post a 1982 League Table produced by the legendary Brian Heap. It had a very simple methodology-average A level points offers as recorded by a large group of careers teachers.

The table deliberately excludes Oxbridge because of their entrance exams.

1 Bristol
2 Durham
3 Imperial
4 LSE
5 Bath
6 St Andrews
7 Edinburgh
8 Exeter
9 SOAS
10 Manchester
11 York
12 Birmingham

link?

[nulli tertius]

(Original post by Meat is Murder)
link?

The Times Sep 4, 1982; p3 via Times Digital Archive (subscription service-may be available free via your public library)

[Meat is Murder]

Does anyone know when the the Sunday Times will release their 2013 domestic table?

[swbp]

(Original post by anniemagnificent)
The Times Higher's Table of Tables is out -

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.u...ode=420400&c=1

Sussex has fallen the most in that table, promising for me haha. I blame the useless Guardian table.

[frank070691]

(Original post by Meat is Murder)
Does anyone know when the the Sunday Times will release their 2013 domestic table?

I think the Sunday Times normally release theirs a fair bit later than the others. If I remember correctly it might be around September time, but don't quote me on that!

[Wild_flower]

I understand that league tables are not very important because they are changeable, but what about Russell Group?

[Wild_flower]

I have just read about Russell Group
But then which universities are good?
In the future I hope to become a psychologist and it is a very competitive profession.
I am definitely going to apply to Durham and Exeter (I chose them because of league table and they both offer psychology and criminology course.)
Are Plymouth or Liverppol, Keele good?

[Fuzzpig]

(Original post by Wild_flower)
I have just read about Russell Group
But then which universities are good?
In the future I hope to become a psychologist and it is a very competitive profession.
I am definitely going to apply to Durham and Exeter (I chose them because of league table and they both offer psychology and criminology course.)
Are Plymouth or Liverppol, Keele good?

If you wanted to be a Psychologist, you might seriously consider staying away from anything other than Psychology, Applied Psychology or Clinical Psychology (or similar courses), not joint honours courses because as you say, it is a very competitive profession. Just putting that out there. If you're interested in criminality, specialising in Forensic Psychology at masters level after taking optional Forensic Psychology modules in your undergraduate course would be a better path. Taking an optional Criminology module in your first year would help you see if you're interested in the sociological approach to crime instead - they're very different.

[Wild_flower]

(Original post by aliluvschoc)
If you wanted to be a Psychologist, you might seriously consider staying away from anything other than Psychology, Applied Psychology or Clinical Psychology (or similar courses), not joint honours courses because as you say, it is a very competitive profession. Just putting that out there. If you're interested in criminality, specialising in Forensic Psychology at masters level after taking optional Forensic Psychology modules in your undergraduate course would be a better path. Taking an optional Criminology module in your first year would help you see if you're interested in the sociological approach to crime instead - they're very different.

Thank you, but I think I will stay with joint honours
But anyway, what about universities?

[fnm]

Pretty sure the Sunday Times table is out this coming Sunday, anyone know fo sho?

[PQ]

(Original post by fnm)
Pretty sure the Sunday Times table is out this coming Sunday, anyone know fo sho?

Unlikely - they usually wait until the national student survey results come out (which is right at the end of Sept this year)

[Meat is Murder]

A new ranking has appeared, the CWUR World Universities Rankings published by the Center for World University Ranking in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. British uni's that appear in the top 100 are:

4. Cambridge
7. Oxford
28. Imperial College London
31. UCL
60. Edinburgh
76. University of Manchester
97. University of Nottingham
98. Bristol

Durham, St Andrews as well as others that do well domestically have once again failed comparatively in international rankings. It baffles me how badly Manchester does in domestic tables but year after year is one of the highest performing universities internationally.

Here is a link: http://rankingwatch.blogspot.co.uk/

[Slumpy]

(Original post by Meat is Murder)
Durham, St Andrews as well as others that do well domestically have once again failed comparatively in international rankings. It baffles me how badly Manchester does in domestic tables but year after year is one of the highest performing universities internationally.

Without looking at the table, what you've said here suggests that this table favours a) large unis (perhaps has some kind of volume of top level output measure or something), and probably b) research intensive unis.

At a guess, I'd also assume it has some measure of research funding measured, and the equivalent science bias.

I will now look at the table

[Meat is Murder]

(Original post by fnm)
Pretty sure the Sunday Times table is out this coming Sunday, anyone know fo sho?

I can't find anything to suggest this is true

[fnm]

(Original post by Meat is Murder)
I can't find anything to suggest this is true

ahh sorry i thought it was usually early august! my bad.

[Podcaster]

I know league tables have a reputation for inaccuracy but this years guardian table is the worst I've seen.

1. Cambridge
2. Oxford
3.LSE
4.St Andrews
5.Warwick
6.UCL
7. Durham

So they start out all good and normal with the usual warriors at the top. But here comes the shockers:

7. Lancaster

I been seeing this quite a bit on the guardian tables recently. Where did Lancaster come from? How on earth could they be rated as better than Imperial? How on earth could they be occupying a spot UCL occupied last year? I'm not saying Lancaster isn't good but i don't see how it is better than Imperial.

12. Surrey

WTF. Guildford poly. Above Imperial. At 12.

16. Buckingham

Never even heard of it. Thought it was Bucks New but that's way down the bottom so it's not them. Either way they somehow made it above York.

22. Kent

Kent should be above Southampton only on a map.

27. Aston
30. Birmingham

Perhaps the guardian thinks they should switch names?

31. University of the arts London
31. King's College London

It is as if they dug up the bodies of the Duke of Wellington and King George IV and slapped them in the face with a giant wang with the words "university of the arts london" tattooed on it.

41. Manchester
42. Sheffield

They must have rejected someone working for the Guardian if they were just dumped in with the likes of Brunel and Coventry. Brunel isn't bad of course but it's no Manchester.

57. Sunderland
61. Plymouth
65. Goldsmiths

Dear lord. Goldsmiths may not be top but what did they do to be put below Sunderland and Plymouth? I know you have the good and the not so good London colleges all doling out the same London degree but no way is a London degree worth less than a freaking Sunderland degree.

My only explanation is that their method for compiling a league table goes as follows

Oxbridge at the top, London met at the bottom, toss coins for the middle.

[Podcaster]

This is some bull****. ive seen tons of less well thought out generic Muslim threads get far more replies. I'm not saying my topic is the most interesting but if you can blindly reply to every un-inventive Muslim bashing troll thread on here then why not this new fresh Muslim-free discussion? it's as if people on here only want repetitive troll threads.

[Jam']

(Original post by Podcaster)
This is some bull****. ive seen tons of less well thought out generic Muslim threads get far more replies. I'm not saying my topic is the most interesting but if you can blindly reply to every un-inventive Muslim bashing troll thread on here then why not this new fresh Muslim-free discussion? it's as if people on here only want repetitive troll threads.

Lol what?

[Breadington]

Although I know many will say that they are pointless all together, which out the pointless bunch has the best indicators, is least biased (if that is possible).. And all that.

Thank you, I appreciate all help


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