[Rei]

(Original post by rig_my_role)
It's called the search function, use it.

The point of a forum is discussion.

[The Magnificent KoloToure]

Do they mean anything?

I'm just in my AS year at the moment and have started looking at stuff to do with universities. The thing that I find very confusing is the league tables and how they work. For example on The Times' University rankings table Manchester is 27th even though from what I've heard it's one of the top Unis in the country. Does that mean that employers will see the other 26 Unis as better than it when looking at job applications or does this mean very little in the wider scheme of things?

[Akkuz]

League tables aren't very accurate. You should visit universities and compare course content of each course instead of looking at tables.

[zeb191]

You have to look at the course in particular too. Some Uni's may be low on the overall Uni ranking, but have top courses on a certain subject / area.

[River85]

Once again.

League tables are just a set of statistcs (sometimes they can seem quite random) and given arbitary weighting. The very fact that league tables (domestic and international) can vary so much shows their inherent subjectivity. Manchester is let down by the out of date RAE score (which predates the creation of the University of Manchester as we now know it, back in 2004) and also modest student satisfaction.

I wouldn't really say that Manchester is one of the best in the country, but it's certainly a strong institution. Also don't think that there's every few league table positions equals a sudden drop in quality as it doesn't.

There was life before league tables (and it wasn't all that long ago) and people managed. Take into account location, teaching quality, course content etc. and not league tables.

[0404343m]

Do a forum search on this, there's threads about it all the time. They aren't really very important- aside from a very select few, lots of them are targeted by employers, and the league wont make much difference. In certain areas, employers will be aware of an institutions strength, such as engineering at Strathclyde or Southampton, but in most cases they wont. In short, it doesn't matter if Birmingham is 14th and Liverpool 44th, they'll not generally be looked on any differently by the majority of employers to the extent the Liverpool candidate is rejected because of the University they studied at.

League tables, although effective at convincing some, don't really work effectively. They are just a manipulation of the stats (look at a thread I created on this for a way of bending them). For instance, a University might on one hand be commended for doing more to attract students from poorer backgrounds, which is good. The trade off is, these students are less likely to complete the course, less likely to move away from home (which is a big factor in student satisfaction) and more likely to have lower grades. So for that little stunt, you can drop 5 places in a league table, since grades, satisfaction and dropout are all calculated. Since points are also awarded for the % of firsts/2:1s, then this means making degrees easier might move you up the table, but dumb down the standard of education.

To this end, they can't really be trusted. A city based University with a high proportion of students from poorer backgrounds and a commitment to maintaining high standards can look poor in comparison to a campus uni with a high private school intake that is conscious of 'playing the game' to increase their ranking. In reality, the 'quality' of the former might be much higher. Look at the RAE and QAA for a better indicator of research and teachinig standards. Employers aren't daft- they'll never reject someone from a 40th ranked Uni (especially if its Liverpool, Queens etc which have been this low in the past), and pick someone merely because they're institution is 10th this year. I'd advise you don't trust what journalists write, as a general rule, but especially on newspaper league tables.

[The Magnificent KoloToure]

Thanks for the help.

Sorry bout not searching for related threads, I'll do that next time I have a query.

[megaduck]

League tables should be treated with a certain degree of caution and an awareness of the figures behind them, but they're probably more reliable than other sources of info available to potential students, like their teachers' or parents' outdated views, or unis' own marketing materials.

You can't beat visiting unis, finding out loads about the courses and aiming in roughly the right entry grade area when making your decisions, but league tables have their place.

[lmoore3]

I'm so confused: I've seen about four or five with differing opinions regarding both universities and specific subjects.

Any advice?

Liv.

[hamzab]

What subject are you applying for?

[Renal]

It depends which ranking is using criteria that you care about.

[PQ]

http://duckdensity.org.uk/uni_index?...ty&reverse=yes

[lmoore3]

(Original post by hamzab)
What subject are you applying for?

I'm applying for either Linguistics or English Language and Linguistics.

I've actually already sent off my application and received 3 offers, but, due to the general obscurity of the Linguistics course, not many places do it, and I ended up putting Aberdeen and Queen's Belfast down for no reason.

I'd be greatful for any advice as I'm deliberating about whether or not to reapply next year.

[matrix15]

(Original post by PQ)
http://duckdensity.org.uk/uni_index?...ty&reverse=yes

Win.

[Good bloke]

(Original post by PQ)
http://duckdensity.org.uk/uni_index?...ty&reverse=yes

You'd have to be quackers not to use that one. I like the way it avoids accusations of being cootist by counting all waterfowl equally. However, like all tables, it will have problems as soon as a coastal university, Southampton perhaps, tries to claim the seas out to territorial limits and to include gulls and terns.

[Cultivated]

None is accurate tbh, except for Oxbridge being considered top 2 unis.

Choose 5 which you think are suitable for you rather than the Guardian's annual university rankings. Think outside league tables and go for your personal preference; tuition fees, location/environment, subject and social life. Seriously, I don't see what the big fuss is - you could always transfer when doing a postgrad degree and that's all that matters in the end. Good luck.

[invictus_veritas]

UCAS points tariff, based on the fact that Oxbridge will probably have the best teaching due to the massive funding anyway and all the other universities teaching methods (for comparable institutions) seems to be very similar.

I just figure: best students will go to the best university.

Also this is only probably decent for the very top universities, once you get lower peoples attitudes change and they start to include other factors more e.g. nightlife so depends what you're looking for in a university, if it's strictly the best place academically then I don't think you can go wrong with just using UCAS average tariff as a measurement because best students will go to best universities.

[The_Goose]

i tend to use the one where i look at where does my course and the websites. then i go look round and rank them on which I liked the best.

[lady_leon]

As Bristol is right next to York on the league tables and I'd say York is much more lenient in letting people in when I'm pretty sure Bristol isn't.

[0404343m]

What's your point?

They're based on a number of criteria, which they set out quite clearly. UCAS tariff, research score, satisfaction etc- they all use different things and assign more or less weight to certain criteria, hence different results. As has been shown with the Independent table, if you tinker with how much weight you put on things like entry standards etc, you can get virtually any university currently ranked in the top 30 into the top 15, and any university currently ranked top 10 as low as about 30th, with only a couple of exceptions. The gap between universities at the top end is minute. Bristol may be more fashionable and thus more competitive than a Liverpool or Queen's- but I don't buy for a second that the quality of education is noticeably different on the whole, nor will a like-for-like graduates career prospects differ much.

Universities have been around for decades, or in some cases, centuries. League tables are about seventeen years old, and are basically a way of selling newspapers. They're largely meaningless.