University 'prestige' means nothing beyond TSR

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In terms of a political career, (which I personally am interested in), virtually 90% of MPs went to Oxbridge or another top 10 university.

Reply 21

bishbash72

Look at any university league table, then look at the column marked 'graduate prospects'.

Yes, it does matter.

Reply 22

PatrickD

As you've proven with your post, prestige is often largely subjective so there isn't going to be many reliable sources of information indicating (or disproving) a correlation between 'prestige' and career progression.

Also, career prospects is often a factor in judging the prestige of a university, so it may, in fact, work in reverse.

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 23

Muscovite

Prestige is more about personal kudos than career progression for most people imo

Reply 24

Rancorous

matters little except for a few places like ibs. but sane people wouldn't want to work there anyway.

Reply 25

maturestudy

It's true, there is little meaning to so-called university 'prestige' outside of academic circles. University may have some influence when applying to your first job after university, for example a graduate entry scheme, but this is largely because we have very little else to go on when looking at candidates. I can honestly say that when considering people who are already employed in a relevant position, which university they went to has never even been discussed by any interview panel I have sat on. Maybe I've just been lucky enough to have worked for some very down to earth companies and there could very well be university snobs out there who I remain blissfully unaware of. However, given the blue-chip nature of most of my past employers, this seems like a remote possibility to me.

Reply 26

arbaaz

prestige matters for law.
if you look at the trainees recruited by magic circle firms then they are all from the top 10 unis.... oxbridge, ucl, kcl, lse, warwick, etc...
you wont see any1 from oxford brookes, or nottingham trent there.

Reply 27

maturestudy

Original post by Callum828

Look at any university league table, then look at the column marked 'graduate prospects'.

Yes, it does matter.

This is very sloppy thinking that (apart from mistakenly equating prestige with graduate prospects) ignores all kinds of artefacts in the statistics. Some institutions, especially in areas of high social deprivation, take a high proportion of local students who are statistically less likely to find work than those of universities whose intake is more middle class. Furthermore, some universities offer more courses in subjects that, overall, tend to have worse employment prospects than others - e.g. creative arts, business studies and ICT (off the top of my head).

It matters little that few former students of 'under water basket weaving' went on to find graduate employment if you are studying something more marketable. Look at any former poly with questionable graduate prospects and you may find that its healthcare-related courses have a near 100% employment record, for instance.

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 28

Chwirkytheappleboy

Original post by chrislpp

It seems that they are looking for high achievers, maybe they think marks are inflated at lower ranked unis and find that those graduates can be less hard working in general?

It's possible that plays a part but I think there were a few reasons for it. Firstly they like people to have long track record of high achievement and typically those that do well throughout school end up going to the more prestigious Unis. Secondly they like to come across to their clients as being elite, and one way of doing that is to be able to say "our Consultants are all graduates of elite Universities". Thirdly I guess it's a bit of a culture thing. The founding directors were Oxbridge and I think they liked to be around people with similar educational backgrounds

If you worked there where were people from? And from what subjects? If you can remember.

This excludes admin staff who had different requirements, but of the Consultants probably about a third to a half were Oxbridge. The rest were mostly a mix from Durham, Warwick, Imperial, UCL, King's and Bristol, and then a few internationals from places like Cape Town, Harvard and a couple a little closer to home like Edinburgh, Strathclyde, St Andrews etc. Subjects really were very varied - they're not kidding when they say they take on graduates of any discipline. There were philosophers, musicians, geographers, mathematicians, physicists, biochemists, engineers, classicists, computer scientists etc. One of the associate directors had studied Jurisprudence. There was really a very wide range of subjects represented. I myself had done Maths & Physics at Durham, which was considered fairly standard

Reply 29

Nitebot

Hmm. Interesting discussion. I can see why students get wrapped up in university rankings and elitism. Many universities which do well in the rankings, and that includes former Polys and HE college who now 'beat' long standing universities on some courses, actively promote them.

I don't recall in my day (we're going back quite a few years ! :biggrin:

) people having serious arguments about whether Imperial was better than UCL or people saying that quality red brick universities like Manchester and Birmingham were not good enough for them! And the ex Polys get rubbished out of hand even though some of them, such as Coventry Poly, took over the local arts college, which had degrees like automotive design with a global reputation. But you get that on TSR. What has the world come to?! :smile:

Reply 30

suffocation1992

Original post by jumpingjesusholycow

In terms of a political career, (which I personally am interested in), virtually 90% of MPs went to Oxbridge or another top 10 university.

Erm, no. More like 90% of cabinet members (i.e. Minsiters in government). Many MPs did not even go to university.

Reply 31

Nitebot

Original post by jumpingjesusholycow

In terms of a political career, (which I personally am interested in), virtually 90% of MPs went to Oxbridge or another top 10 university.

Original post by suffocation1992

Erm, no. More like 90% of cabinet members (i.e. Minsiters in government). Many MPs did not even go to university.

Yes, Labour members would be insulted by the accusation that so many of them went to Oxbridge! :biggrin:

Reply 32

Joinedup

I've been to (what's now called) a member of the russell group and I've been to an ex poly.
Tbh they're all incredibly similar and all operate on the fully mechanised sausage factory principle as far as undergraduates are concerned.
Possibly oxbridge operate on a high-class gourmet sausage factory principle where a person still ties the knots by hand.

Reply 33

srascal8

Yes, prestige doesn't count for much, but when most graduate schemes at major firms ask for a minimum of 320 tariff points or ABB at A-level, it implies that you went to a good/very good university. So it doesn't exactly 'count for nothing', going to a top 25/ RG/ 94 Group uni indicates that you are what they are looking for.

Reply 34

jumpingjesusholycow

Original post by suffocation1992

Erm, no. More like 90% of cabinet members (i.e. Minsiters in government). Many MPs did not even go to university.

Fair enough, I can't say I know the statistics on MPs in general, though I'd really like to.

That said, the far, far, far majority of MPs DID go to university, and I would take an educated guess and say that that the majority of those did indeed go to at least a top 20 university if not top 10.

Reply 35

wanderlust.xx

The fact is that it highly depends on the degree and the job they're applying for.

Previous experience, ability to communicate, motivation, involvement in university life, how well they come across during the interview are all way, way bigger factors than the university that a candidate came from.

Who honestly thinks that any employer looks at a CV and actually judges people and their competency as an individual from the university they attended? If they did that then I'd be surprised if their company was making any money... Geniuses and brilliant minds come from all backgrounds. They're not all oxford maths graduates or durham historians.

Reply 36

SpicyStrawberry

Some employers/postgraduate courses require a first or a 2.1 from a "good" university, but this isn't exactly helpful. What does "good" mean? Oxbridge standard or top 50? It really depends on the admissions/recruitment teams preferences. In my experience the uni you went to isn't regarded as a priority.

The issue some people face is the university overall may be ranked fairly low but for their particular course it's highly regarded.

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 37

nulli tertius

Original post by jumpingjesusholycow

The Sutton Trust has published this data. 90% of MPs went to university. 63% went to a Russell Group or 1994 Group university. 28% went to Oxbridge (those 28% are of course also part of the 63%).

Of those attending cabinet (this data ignores cabinet reshuffles after May 2010) , the report says that 20 went to Oxbridge, one did not attend university, four attended other RG/1994 Group universities and four more attended "others".

However when looked at more closely the data for cabinet is misleading. In reality five attended RG/1994 Group universities (the omitted one seems to be "London" which is a pure technicality). The three remaining "others" were College of Law, Staffordshire College of Agriculture and Leeds Poly. Looking at those, it seems arbitrary to treat Ian Duncan Smith as having no higher education when he attended Sandhurst.

These tables also ignore post-grad education where there is more variety.

Interesting, all of the non-Oxbridge cabinet attenders were Conservatives.

Reply 38

BO'H

Original post by wanderlust.xx

I agree with this. Typos/poor grammar on a CV (both remarkably common) make more impression - and not a positive one - than the Uni attended.

A 'good' Uni and a 2:1 are just ways of filtering the applicant pool for certain jobs. Employers for whom this is less of an issue will use other criteria.

Reply 39

fluttershy

The quality of the degree will count for something too. Does anyone really think that an employer would pass over someone with a 1st from a New University for someone with a basic Pass from a Russel Group? Experiance can also be a big factor, most employers are going to prefer a New University graduate who's done a years work experiance with them or another similar company than a Russel Group graduate who's only work experiance is a bit of shelf stacking or bar work. For many jobs the subject will be important too, especially those requiring professional registration. You might have a 1st from Oxbridge, but if it's not acredited by the correct body then you will not be working in that field. You might stand a good chance of getting funding for relevant postgrad study, but the person with the acredited degree doesn't need that.
At the end of the day the big issue tends to be the sort of work you want to do. If you want to work for top companies in top positions, then yes, where your degree is from is important. For the majority of graduates though, it really doesn't matter much.