[high]

I didn't know where to put this so I thought I'd just put it here.

I was recently looking at University rankings and discovered that it is almost impossible to compare universities unless there is a big gap.

This problem doesn't occur with colleges and secondary schools because you can just look at exam results which are standardized. So then I thought why aren't exams standardized? Wouldn't it be better if all university students sat the same exam? This would mean you could easily compare universities by looking at the results. However this is not the only advantage.

Another advantage is that there would no longer be as much of a discrimination in terms of where you went. If for example there were both had a 1st. One from Lincoln one from Cambridge and they were both competing for a job the person from Cambridge would obliviously stand out more and will probably get the job. If we however implement standardized exams they are both competing on an even playing field as they both had the same exam and got the same result. The university they attended isn't as relevant.

It would also create the opportunity for people who can't afford to attend university to still get a degree. This narrows the gap between the rich and the poor.

So basically to me it just makes sense to have standardized exams. I am probably wrong but these are just my thoughts

TL;DR version
Every university has the same exams (very much like GCSE and A-Level).
This makes which university you come not as relevant and creates an even playing field.
People who can't attend university due to fees etc. Can still get a degree.
You Can compare people and universities more efficiently.

EDIT: After reading your arguments I have came to the now clearly sensible conclusion that university exams should not be standardised. Thank you.

[TenOfThem]

The content of a degree course is based around the knowledge and skills of the professors

Different university courses have vastly different foci

When there is a standardised "curriculum" this is when external bodies are recognising the qualification (e.g. medicine)

Why do you want to bring universities to the lowest common denominator

[high]

(Original post by TenOfThem)
The content of a degree course is based around the knowledge and skills of the professors

Different university courses have vastly different foci

When there is a standardised "curriculum" this is when external bodies are recognising the qualification (e.g. medicine)

Why do you want to bring universities to the lowest common denominator

Don't you think it's fairer? At the moment it seems its where you go rather then what you get.

[TenOfThem]

(Original post by high)
Don't you think it's fairer? At the moment it seems its where you go rather then what you get.

No I do not think it is "fairer"

Some universities offer a different "level" of degree

People with degrees from some universities are better placed than people from others

Why is this an issue

[Sisko_197]

As long as there is an outside system of marking I don't see that this is an issue.

[OMGWTFBBQ]

Standardisation brings everyone down to a lowest common denominator.

This is why where you go matters just as much as what you study. One piece of information without the other is pointless.

EDIT: Damn, beaten to the LCD comment already!

[Quady]

(Original post by TenOfThem)
No I do not think it is "fairer"

Some universities offer a different "level" of degree

People with degrees from some universities are better placed than people from others

Why is this an issue

It hasn't worked with schools, why would it with unis?

Also why should Oxford's Computer Science course be brought in line with the Digital Media course at South Bank?

[Sisko_197]

In terms of the marking they should be marked to the same standard!

[Mbob]

(Original post by high)
I didn't know where to put this so I thought I'd just put it here.

I was recently looking at University rankings and discovered that it is almost impossible to compare universities unless there is a big gap.

It is possible to 'compare' universities, it's just that the league tables aren't a particularly good way to do it.

This problem doesn't occur with colleges and secondary schools because you can just look at exam results which are standardized. So then I thought why aren't exams standardized? Wouldn't it be better if all university students sat the same exam?

You're thinking of Universities like they are schools, just teaching a slightly harder set of subjects. When in reality they are very different and perform a distinct role. They are not just 'exam factories', designed to get their students to pass a set of tests. They are about providing immersion into an academic environment where people can begin to think and learn independently. They provide a 'cultural' experience as well as an educational one. Universities have developed their own distinct personalities largely because of the amount of freedom and lack of state control that they have.

A common syllabus would also reduce the range of teaching that could be offered. Universities offer a huge diversity of courses, no two 'physics' degrees are exactly the same despite accreditation processes. Universities have the freedom to innovate and adapt the courses as they see fit. If they were forced to adopt a common syllabus, all of this would be lost. Instead of university lecturers trying to inspire their students, they would be reduced to mere teachers of a government planned curriculum. The best universities would no longer be able to push the brightest students by introducing them to cutting edge material, and the Universities which cater for less able students would no longer be able to structure their courses accordingly.

It would also create the opportunity for people who can't afford to attend university to still get a degree. This narrows the gap between the rich and the poor.

Given that University is essentially free at the point of delivery, such people do not exist, unless they have a particular unusual set of circumstances. In any case, the Open University essentially fills this role at the moment.

You Can compare people and universities more efficiently.

When employers are deciding who to take on, their exact grades in qualifications aren't really that relevant; there's no particular reason to employ someone who averaged 68% over someone who averaged 64%. So being able to exactly compare the grades of two people isn't important.

And again, comparing two universities on the basis of the average grades that their students get would be a pretty poor way of doing it.

[py0alb]

(Original post by high)
I didn't know where to put this so I thought I'd just put it here.

I was recently looking at University rankings and discovered that it is almost impossible to compare universities unless there is a big gap.

This problem doesn't occur with colleges and secondary schools because you can just look at exam results which are standardized. So then I thought why aren't exams standardized? Wouldn't it be better if all university students sat the same exam? This would mean you could easily compare universities by looking at the results. However this is not the only advantage.

Another advantage is that there would no longer be as much of a discrimination in terms of where you went. If for example there were both had a 1st. One from Lincoln one from Cambridge and they were both competing for a job the person from Cambridge would obliviously stand out more and will probably get the job. If we however implement standardized exams they are both competing on an even playing field as they both had the same exam and got the same result. The university they attended isn't as relevant.

It would also create the opportunity for people who can't afford to attend university to still get a degree. This narrows the gap between the rich and the poor.

So basically to me it just makes sense to have standardized exams. I am probably wrong but these are just my thoughts

TL;DR version
Every university has the same exams (very much like GCSE and A-Level).
This makes which university you come not as relevant and creates an even playing field.
People who can't attend university due to fees etc. Can still get a degree.
You Can compare people and universities more efficiently.

They are standardised across equivalent courses as much as possible. Thats what UUK and the QAA exist for. A 1st in physics is a 1st in physics. It doesn't matter where it comes from.

[L-x]

(Original post by high)
Don't you think it's fairer? At the moment it seems its where you go rather then what you get.

Having looked at past exam papers from other universities, I can tell you that, at least in STEM, there'll be even more of a premium on having gone to Oxbridge if the exams are standardised. Oxbridge students will either all get firsts (if the level is set at the "average" degree difficulty) or, if everybody sits Oxbridge-level finals, most students will leave university with a 2.2 or 3rd.

The standard "applicants should have achieved or be expecting to achieve a 2.1" would, under a standardised system, translate at "We only recruit from Oxbridge".

[py0alb]

(Original post by L-x)
Having looked at past exam papers from other universities, I can tell you that, at least in STEM, there'll be even more of a premium on having gone to Oxbridge if the exams are standardised. Oxbridge students will either all get firsts (if the level is set at the "average" degree difficulty) or, if everybody sits Oxbridge-level finals, most students will leave university with a 2.2 or 3rd.

The standard "applicants should have achieved or be expecting to achieve a 2.1" would, under a standardised system, translate at "We only recruit from Oxbridge".

Except that Oxbridge students already do get all the firsts, because the exams already are approximately standardised. You have 10 times the probability of getting a first at Oxbridge than at a significantly lower ranked university.

[Sternumator]

There is disagreement among academics about what is right. Moving from A level economics to degree I have been taught models that say a lot of the stuff I learnt at A levels is wrong. Both may be true with their own assumptions but there isnt time to teach everybody every model so the lecturer has to decide what stuff to teach and that is going to impact very heavily on the line of research people graduating will take. If someone got to decide what everybody studied then there would be a really limited range of research carried out by the students once they graduate. I am only in first year and already part of our course is a theory that the lecturer himself came up with. As I move through the years and into more specilist courses I am sure what we are taught will only be the course leaders view of what academics don't agree on.The difference is universities don't exist to teach people things that are accepted as fact, they are for discovering new things.

Its also for the same reason they have higher and lower tier papers at GCSE. You can't push the best in the country to their limits and without the worst getting completely lost. If you gave students at Lincoln cambridge maths paper they would probably not get it at all and fail so it would be useless in distinguishing between lincoln students. Similarly, if you gave cambridge students a lincoln paper they would all breeze it and you wouldnt be able to distinguish between the people at cambridge. All we would learn from doing this is that cambridge students are better than lincoln but we knew that already so we havent gained much. You could meet the papers half way but what is the point? You may as well just give them a paper that suits their abilities.

[superwolf]

I'd like to see you standardise one of the modules I took last semester, which in essence revolved around Soviet popular music (unexpectedly awesome and far, far too catchy). A good part of what confirmed my decision to do my studies at Manchester, laying aside location, nightlife and all that stuff, was the range of modules offered for that course which are unique to that university because they're taught by lecturers choosing to educate about their specialist areas of research. Impossible to standardise, and I reckon an integral part of going to a uni and studying a subject and particular areas within it that you find interesting.

[Mbob]

(Original post by py0alb)
Except that Oxbridge students already do get all the firsts, because the exams already are approximately standardised. You have 10 times the probability of getting a first at Oxbridge than at a significantly lower ranked university.

I'm sorry, what? Percentages of students getting firsts at Oxbridge may well be slightly higher than at other universities, but it's nowhere near 10 times the amount. About double in fact compared to the UK average.

[py0alb]

(Original post by Mbob)
I'm sorry, what? Percentages of students getting firsts at Oxbridge may well be slightly higher than at other universities, but it's nowhere near 10 times the amount. About double in fact compared to the UK average.

Yeah, some Oxbridge courses the number of 1sts handed out is 30-40%. Several of the lower ranked universities who do similar courses only give 1sts to 1 in 20 students.

Look at the stats if you don't believe me. Getting a 1st from a lower ranked university is rock hard.

[Frankie]

(Original post by py0alb)
They are standardised across equivalent courses as much as possible. Thats what UUK and the QAA exist for. A 1st in physics is a 1st in physics. It doesn't matter where it comes from.

So you honestly think that getting a 1st in physics from, for example, the University of Strathclyde (a 4 year full time course with A level entry requirements: ABB-BBB) is just as hard as getting a 1st in physics from the University of Oxford (a 4 year full time course with A level entry requirements: A*AA)?

If all university exams were standardised then entry requirements would be the same for a course at all universities as theoretically the course should be of exactly the same level of difficulty. This is obviously not the case.

[py0alb]

(Original post by Frankie)
So you honestly think that getting a 1st in physics from, for example, the University of Strathclyde (a 4 year full time course with A level entry requirements: ABB-BBB) is just as hard as getting a 1st in physics from the University of Oxford (a 4 year full time course with A level entry requirements: A*AA)?

If all university exams were standardised then entry requirements would be the same for a course at all universities as theoretically the course should be of exactly the same level of difficulty. This is obviously not the case.

Obviously? You would find its not so obvious at all if you actually had any experience of being involved in the standardisation process.

The standard of work required to achieve a 1st in any given subject is the same across all UK universities. This has been the case since the early 90s.

Entry requirements are a product of supply and demand. There is no correlation between entry requirements and graduation requirements, why on earth would there be?

[Joinedup]

The government wants universities to be innovative in setting up their courses. It's pretty much the opposite of the doctrine for schools where they want everything to be highly standardised from the top down.
It's on that bbc programme about the 70s fwiw... Thatcher thought local authorities (who used to set their own curriculum and school inspection) were full of 'loonies' and teachers were communists out to indoctrinate pupils to accept homosexuality etc. Labour kept the same riff going cos they were control freaks too.

[Quady]

(Original post by Frankie)
So you honestly think that getting a 1st in physics from, for example, the University of Strathclyde (a 4 year full time course with A level entry requirements: ABB-BBB) is just as hard as getting a 1st in physics from the University of Oxford (a 4 year full time course with A level entry requirements: A*AA)?

If all university exams were standardised then entry requirements would be the same for a course at all universities as theoretically the course should be of exactly the same level of difficulty. This is obviously not the case.

Yes, which is why far more people get a 1st in Physics at Oxford (as the intake are brighter).

Do you honestly think someone with A*A*AA who goes to Strathclyde couldn't get a 1st?