Which UK universities apart from Oxbridge are comparable to the Ivy Leagues?
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Original post by Zenomorph
What do you mean fading fast ?
It's not the university it once was, other unis are progressing a lot faster.
Original post by funkydee
i hope you realise LSE don't do engineering? its a social science institution
**** me, they don't?
... In trying to call me out as the idiot, you've just made yourself look one.
Elite American universities known globally for their selectivity, research and Nobel prize winning and glittering alumni;
Harvard, Yale, Chicago, MIT, Stanford, Columbia, Cornell, Caltech, UPenn, Princeton, Dartmouth, Brown, Berkeley, Johns Hopkins.
Elite American Universities which although "world-class" are perhaps not the global heavyweight names as those mentioned above but certainly prestigious within the US;
UCLA, NYU, Texas A&M, UNC; Chapel Hill, USC, UVA, Pittsburgh, Duke, Rice, Georgetown, Michigan, University of Texas Austin, Uniersity of Miami Ohio, Notre Dame, Rutgers, Penn State, Vanderbilt, College of William and Mary, Nothwestern.
Elite UK universities known globally;
Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, UCL, King's College, Edinburgh
World Class universities with more of a national rep than a global one;
Durham, Bristol, Glasgow, Exeter, York, Warwick and then possibly Manchester and Leeds and St Andrew's
The Ivy Leagues in the US are not necessarily the best 8 in the US but they are certainly amongst the most selective and the oldest in the country hence why the term Ivy League is often associated with academic excellence. All eight of the Ivy Leagues are known world wide as are the rest of the elite US Universities. I mean I would plump for a place at an Ivy League or MIT/Chicago/Stanford over most UK universities perhaps except Oxford or Cambridge.
UCL has produced a number of high profile alumni as has King's and both have world-class reputations for medical research as does Imperial. LSE is second to none really for politics and finance etc. Edinburgh has always had a strong reputation in most fields, has produced PMs, world-class medical faculty which was the inspiration for UPenn's medical school and was part of the "age of enlightenment" which led to Edinburgh being labelled as "The Athens of Northern Europe".
Manchester has had much association with Nobel prize winners but not produced many of their own (i.e. mainly faculty) and Manchester has only reccently come onto the radar through the merger in 2006 but will certainly be up there in the future although I doubt the top 5 will ever change from Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, LSE, UCL. Then perhaps Edinburgh and King's then Warwick then Manchester.
Harvard, Yale, Chicago, MIT, Stanford, Columbia, Cornell, Caltech, UPenn, Princeton, Dartmouth, Brown, Berkeley, Johns Hopkins.
Elite American Universities which although "world-class" are perhaps not the global heavyweight names as those mentioned above but certainly prestigious within the US;
UCLA, NYU, Texas A&M, UNC; Chapel Hill, USC, UVA, Pittsburgh, Duke, Rice, Georgetown, Michigan, University of Texas Austin, Uniersity of Miami Ohio, Notre Dame, Rutgers, Penn State, Vanderbilt, College of William and Mary, Nothwestern.
Elite UK universities known globally;
Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, UCL, King's College, Edinburgh
World Class universities with more of a national rep than a global one;
Durham, Bristol, Glasgow, Exeter, York, Warwick and then possibly Manchester and Leeds and St Andrew's
The Ivy Leagues in the US are not necessarily the best 8 in the US but they are certainly amongst the most selective and the oldest in the country hence why the term Ivy League is often associated with academic excellence. All eight of the Ivy Leagues are known world wide as are the rest of the elite US Universities. I mean I would plump for a place at an Ivy League or MIT/Chicago/Stanford over most UK universities perhaps except Oxford or Cambridge.
UCL has produced a number of high profile alumni as has King's and both have world-class reputations for medical research as does Imperial. LSE is second to none really for politics and finance etc. Edinburgh has always had a strong reputation in most fields, has produced PMs, world-class medical faculty which was the inspiration for UPenn's medical school and was part of the "age of enlightenment" which led to Edinburgh being labelled as "The Athens of Northern Europe".
Manchester has had much association with Nobel prize winners but not produced many of their own (i.e. mainly faculty) and Manchester has only reccently come onto the radar through the merger in 2006 but will certainly be up there in the future although I doubt the top 5 will ever change from Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, LSE, UCL. Then perhaps Edinburgh and King's then Warwick then Manchester.
(edited 11 years ago)
Original post by Zenomorph
So what? a newspaper anointed UK ' ivy ' is not the same as the US version. Clearly a ridiculous notion. Ivy is an US tradition, we have our own and it's not the same.
And how can it be ' stupid ' to assume a Warwick student links from a Warwick page ? Be stupid to imply otherwise wouldn't it ?
And how can it be ' stupid ' to assume a Warwick student links from a Warwick page ? Be stupid to imply otherwise wouldn't it ?
I'm not saying it's valid, just that those posting it are not necessarily from Warwick.
If you Google the OPs query, the top results are the link people are posting from Warwick, as well as the source link at Sunday Times online, behind a paywall.
It's stupid to assume that their from Warwick because the 5 or so people that posted the link probably just Google'd the query, as I did to find the source link.
They they didn't post a link which 95% of viewers wouldn't be able to read, choosing instead an article that cited the original, that all can view.
Yes, it is stupid to assume someone links only to pages which they are associated with.
Original post by fudgesundae
I'm saying that it is really the only thing comparable to the Ivy League in this country. Both are a group of elite academic universities. Although in both countries there are other top universities not part of these groups.
Right, so we're actually in a rather heated agreement.
Original post by FO12DY
Right, so we're actually in a rather heated agreement.
Right, so we're actually in a rather heated agreement.
haha, thats good. I think?
Original post by fudgesundae
I know the one you're referring to as it's the one I'm referring to, and I'm pretty sure that it had Manchester on top.
Anyway we're deviating from the original point I attacked, which is your assertion that "any graduate employer would love to recruit from there [Oxbridge]". I'm going to ignore Harvard law and focus on the UK and say that I highly doubt that any graduate employer is barred from recruiting from those universities, and that if they wanted to set up a stall at a careers fair there they'd be more than welcome to. And most large graduate employers handle their applications online anyway so this doesn't particularly matter ... I know first company I interned with only attended one university's careers fair, but when I met their graduate intake they were not just from said university. "Targeting" doesn't mean much...
Maybe it depends on the sector. I know that in Finance, Law, Tech (F500 tech companies), Consulting HR only do the very initial screening. They weed out the people without a 2:i or higher (if this is a requirement), the actual looking at people's experience and deciding who to invite to interviews is not done by HR.
Okay but as I'm sure you're aware of by now I'm not talking about those sectors and have no experience of them.
Well in my post I stated that they had some of the most competitive graduate training programs and the intake in some of these sectors is among the largest of any sector for graduates. So yes, it seems a lot of people do care about these places.
They're amongst the most competitive ... yet they have some of the largest intakes?
I'm assuming you're trying to argue that your university has little or no bearing on your job prospects. Seeing as I am arguing the opposite, and you quoted me, I assume you to be trying to prove me wrong in that respect.
I cannot argue that your university has little or no bearing on your job prospects because I was actually offered a job from a company that only recruited from two universities. What I am trying to argue is that these jobs are in the small, small minority (and have evidence to back this up - look at the graph) and the vast majority of graduates will be getting jobs with companies who don't care... and people that go to universities that exclude them from certain careers probably don't care anyway or else they'd not have went to that university in the first place.
I've attended Warwick for undergrad and Brown for grad education. This is what I can say:
Though Brown has more resources, as it is richer and more well-endowed, the quality of teaching standard at both unis is almost the same. There is also not much difference when it comes to student quality, though I can see how Warwick students are a little more preppy and reserved, whilst Brown students are somewhat care-free as many of the students at Brown are liberal.
That said, if Warwick is comparable to Brown, and Warwick is just as good as Durham, Bristol, UCL, St Andrews and Edinburgh, I think I can make the same claim for those UK unis to be comparable to at least, one Ivy League school. In the US, Brown is regarded as good as Dartmouth, Cornell and Penn. So, to answer the OP's question:
Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, LSE, Warwick, UCL, Durham, St Andrews, Bristol and Edinburgh.
Though Brown has more resources, as it is richer and more well-endowed, the quality of teaching standard at both unis is almost the same. There is also not much difference when it comes to student quality, though I can see how Warwick students are a little more preppy and reserved, whilst Brown students are somewhat care-free as many of the students at Brown are liberal.
That said, if Warwick is comparable to Brown, and Warwick is just as good as Durham, Bristol, UCL, St Andrews and Edinburgh, I think I can make the same claim for those UK unis to be comparable to at least, one Ivy League school. In the US, Brown is regarded as good as Dartmouth, Cornell and Penn. So, to answer the OP's question:
Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, LSE, Warwick, UCL, Durham, St Andrews, Bristol and Edinburgh.
(edited 11 years ago)
Original post by Mierder
I'm currently an international student interested in applying to both sides of the atlantic for university. I was wondering apart from Oxbridge, which British universities can compete with the Ivy League schools in terms of:
-Teaching Quality
-Job prospects (in general)
-International Prestige/Reputation/wow factor (whatever you wanna call it)
-Teaching Quality
-Job prospects (in general)
-International Prestige/Reputation/wow factor (whatever you wanna call it)
Which course OP?
apart from Oxbridge, arguably Imperial too, the UK doesn't really have world-reknown universally Ivy league-comparable courses.
I mean, some people would agree that LSE could be compared to Ivy League for Economics. Perhaps not so for Law though.
It all depends on the course. Universities are more specialist in certain fields than they are in others.
Original post by Smack
I cannot argue that your university has little or no bearing on your job prospects because I was actually offered a job from a company that only recruited from two universities. What I am trying to argue is that these jobs are in the small, small minority (and have evidence to back this up - look at the graph) and the vast majority of graduates will be getting jobs with companies who don't care... and people that go to universities that exclude them from certain careers probably don't care anyway or else they'd not have went to that university in the first place.
This is sloppy journalism and sloppier interpretation. The graduate recruitment survey only says that 7% of employers consider going to particular universities a minimum requirement. That doesn't mean that for 93% of employers university name is no factor at all in an application. A company that reads CVs from London Met and would in principle invite an exceptional candidate to interview, but in practice hires almost exclusively from Top 5 could honestly answer "no" to that question. That doesn't mean that "your university has little or no bearing on your job prospects" in that case.
I'm actually amazed that even 7% of employers admit to auto-filtering CVs based on university name alone.
(edited 11 years ago)
UCL
Imperial
LSE
Birmingham
Imperial
LSE
Birmingham
Original post by DynamicSyngery
This is sloppy journalism and sloppier interpretation. The graduate recruitment survey only says that 7% of employers consider going to particular universities a minimum requirement. That doesn't mean that for 93% of employers university name is no factor at all in an application. A company that reads CVs from London Met and would in principle invite an exceptional candidate to interview, but in practice hires almost exclusively from Top 5 could honestly answer "no" to that question. That doesn't mean that "your university has little or no bearing on your job prospects" in that case.
I'm actually amazed that even 7% of employers admit to auto-filtering CVs based on university name alone.
I'm actually amazed that even 7% of employers admit to auto-filtering CVs based on university name alone.
So, lemme get this one straight. We're back to guessing again? When arguments degenerate into hypotheticals of companies that read a CV from London Met but hire from Oxford and Cambridge and what someone reading the CV might or might not think about the quality of that institution, it sounds to me like it's time to call it a day. This thread has been going on and on about what people from far away might think about our universities and what we think about theirs. It's been short on evidence of any sort, but full of weasel words about 'wow' factor and what the layman thinks. Then, when a study comes up that has something approaching statistics, we criticise one interpretation of it and replace it with one of our own that actually is plucked from somewhere in the ether and dictates what people ought to do in that situation? Give me a break.
For everyone else:
The secret here is: graduate employment is complex. People are complex. Not all jobs are the same, or for everyone. Trying to reduce the argument what a recruiter would do if he had the extreme ends of the university spectrum in front of him or her tells us exactly nothing. In practice it a) isn't often that close between candidates if they're looking for someone specifically suited to a job (we had to readvertise for a marketing position because we only felt one of the interviewees appointable, and they took another offer. As impressive as some of the CVs were, they weren't right for our job) and b) isn't often between Oxford and London Met. There are hundreds of thousands of graduates annually, and the top and tail make up 5% of the pool.
When you're buying a car, you're not going to be thinking about buying a two seater convertible sports car or a seven seat people carrier. You're thinking of what is the best at the job you want it to do. Arguing, as this thread does, about the Harvard Law grad and the London Met student going for a position at Clifford Chance just sounds like the ramblings of a bunch of children in the playground. We should all give it a rest.
In short: For a very small number of jobs, degree name matters. That doesn't mean you'll get the job with that degree, it'll just shorten the odds from very very long to long. Chances are, that won't apply to you. Chances also are that you won't ever be in a situation where it's you and someone else and you lose out on degree name. If the point only holds together when we compare the very top and the worst one we can think of, imagine how stupid it sounds when it's Edinburgh against Liverpool.
Original post by 0404343m
Who is guessing what?
I made no positive claim - only pointed out that the evidence he provided doesn't support the claim he made.
When arguments degenerate into hypotheticals...
I think you need to re-read my post. I didn't say that employers actually do favour Cambridge over London Met when they read CVs, only that they could do so and still give the answer to the GRS that Smack thinks means they don't care about university reputation.
---
However it certainly does stand to reason that employers would favour candidates from better universities, since the competition for places indicates they are likely to be more intelligent, more hard working and more conscientious on average. When there are better, more direct measures of expected job performance like relevant work experience, it becomes much less important.
Original post by Deep456
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/sunday_times_reveals/ - According to the Sunday Times - This is the UK Ivy League.
Oxford
Cambridge
Durham
London School of Economics
Bristol
Exeter
Warwick
Imperial College London
University College London
Can probably add in Edinburgh and St. Andrews, omitted as they don't use A-levels.
Oxford
Cambridge
Durham
London School of Economics
Bristol
Exeter
Warwick
Imperial College London
University College London
Can probably add in Edinburgh and St. Andrews, omitted as they don't use A-levels.
It's all hype re Oxbridge.
In today's Sunday Times, there's an article on the Labour MP, Chuka Umunna.
It states he's bright and "nearly got into Oxford ....."
Why doesn't it mention which university he actually DID attend?
I would wager there's little difference in TEACHING QUALITY between the 'Ivy League' (and assorted other 'prestigious' universities in the USA) and the 'top' universities in the UK. What's ironic is that some of the universities that people are holding up as 'holding their own' against the Ivy League usually get slated in student satsifaction because of their poor teaching quality.
Original post by DynamicSyngery
Who is guessing what?
I made no positive claim - only pointed out that the evidence he provided doesn't support the claim he made.
I think you need to re-read my post. I didn't say that employers actually do favour Cambridge over London Met when they read CVs, only that they could do so and still give the answer to the GRS that Smack thinks means they don't care about university reputation.
---
However it certainly does stand to reason that employers would favour candidates from better universities, since the competition for places indicates they are likely to be more intelligent, more hard working and more conscientious on average. When there are better, more direct measures of expected job performance like relevant work experience, it becomes much less important.
I made no positive claim - only pointed out that the evidence he provided doesn't support the claim he made.
I think you need to re-read my post. I didn't say that employers actually do favour Cambridge over London Met when they read CVs, only that they could do so and still give the answer to the GRS that Smack thinks means they don't care about university reputation.
---
However it certainly does stand to reason that employers would favour candidates from better universities, since the competition for places indicates they are likely to be more intelligent, more hard working and more conscientious on average. When there are better, more direct measures of expected job performance like relevant work experience, it becomes much less important.
Sorry, my mistake. You're reasoning, not guessing. Your point thus stands.
Look, my graduate recruitment career isn't great, but it still trumps most of this thread put together. I interviewed candidates twice, once for an NHS grad scheme, once for a university marketing position. All in, we were taking on about 20 in the former scheme (22k starting, fairly standard), and two in the latter. One was 2.5 years ago, one was a couple of months back.
First scheme: Needed 2:1/ relevant experience. We shortlisted on that basis, and when interviewed the degree they had was not part of the decision. In other words, the person we liked in the room could be the 2:1 from London Met, it could be the first from Cambridge. We asked them about their ideas for the role, about health policy, about how they saw themselves and what they felt they could bring to the role. We asked ourselves who we thought would fit in with the ethos. We tested ideas. We didn't measure dicks for who had the best first from the highest ranked university. The people we took on were a diverse bunch, too.
Second scheme: Who can make us money. The salary is basic (19k), but had a commission on anything earned over target up to a cap of six months wages (9.5k). We wanted to find people that understood students, understood the companies that wanted to sell to students, and how we could get them to advertise through the university/pay to be involved with our events/design events that'd get them interested. The better we did, the better they did. Once again, it was about who could do the job best. It wasn't about picking the Ferrari to get the kids to school. It was our money going to someone to make us money. At heart, this is not dissimilar to a lot of graduate jobs. Again, it was heavily based on what they told us, not where they got their degree from.
I'm sure if you average everyone in a big pile, you'll find on the whole people with degrees from certain places get higher salaries more often. This is nevertheless the reverse of the argument that going to Oxford will get you the better job. People, like jobs, like universities, can't be averaged.
Original post by 0404343m
I didn't make that claim in the other post, hence the separation from the reply to you. Maybe if you took some time to read in your mad rush to be rude to strangers anonymously you'd actually understand what you're trying to respond to. I'm not going to bother reading the rest.
As for reputation it's a rather nebulous concept.
What I would wager here (wouldn't bet a house, but would bet my car) is that most people place far more on reputation than they need to. i would go further and say that a significant percentage here have no idea what they're talking about and are basing their ideas on hearsay, preconceptions and little actual knowledge rather than years of working in actual industries (there are some honourable exceptions). If you want to go to a university so that your grandparents can boast to the neighbours and you get a little ego boost every time someone goes 'wow you must be really smart', there's only a few universities in the world that will do that.
Universities are vastly different institutions that vary in so many things I think league tables are the absolute worst way of measuring 'quality'. I'm always amazed when people slag off universities because they are now 30th in a university league table that uses 3 very easily manipulated metrics as part of its methodology.
People always want to be the best, to be better than other people - it's much harder to admit that there's little difference between the 'top' universities than to argue for yonks about whether 'edinburgh is better than st.andrews' or the perennial favourite 'is UCL better than Imperial/LSE' because it's all about being the best.
What I would wager here (wouldn't bet a house, but would bet my car) is that most people place far more on reputation than they need to. i would go further and say that a significant percentage here have no idea what they're talking about and are basing their ideas on hearsay, preconceptions and little actual knowledge rather than years of working in actual industries (there are some honourable exceptions). If you want to go to a university so that your grandparents can boast to the neighbours and you get a little ego boost every time someone goes 'wow you must be really smart', there's only a few universities in the world that will do that.
Universities are vastly different institutions that vary in so many things I think league tables are the absolute worst way of measuring 'quality'. I'm always amazed when people slag off universities because they are now 30th in a university league table that uses 3 very easily manipulated metrics as part of its methodology.
People always want to be the best, to be better than other people - it's much harder to admit that there's little difference between the 'top' universities than to argue for yonks about whether 'edinburgh is better than st.andrews' or the perennial favourite 'is UCL better than Imperial/LSE' because it's all about being the best.
Original post by pipsi
In my opinion, which I'm sure many will disagree with. The top unis in the UK are Oxford, Cambridge and Durham, as well as possible LSE and UCL. Although I'm not a particular fan of the London based unis and in my opinion the Doxbridge three can offer a lot more.
It's often department specific though, Theology at Durham as been voted the best department year on year and few academics in Oxford and Cambridge will argue that Durham's department isn't better than theirs.
I'm currently a student at Durham, but I've held this view for many years before I even considered applying to Durham as a postgrad. I also considered Oxford and Cambridge but a number of reasons made me apply to Durham instead.
It's often department specific though, Theology at Durham as been voted the best department year on year and few academics in Oxford and Cambridge will argue that Durham's department isn't better than theirs.
I'm currently a student at Durham, but I've held this view for many years before I even considered applying to Durham as a postgrad. I also considered Oxford and Cambridge but a number of reasons made me apply to Durham instead.
lol Doxbridge
you did your undergrad at Swansea.
That cant even touch LSE or ICL.
(edited 11 years ago)
Original post by funkydee
lol Doxbridge
you did your undergrad at Swansea.
That cant even touch LSE or ICL.
you did your undergrad at Swansea.
That cant even touch LSE or ICL.
To be fair you haven't even started uni yet...
Original post by Smack
I know the one you're referring to as it's the one I'm referring to, and I'm pretty sure that it had Manchester on top.
It didn't have a ranking. Just listed the 5 universities that have the most companies recruiting at.
Anyway we're deviating from the original point I attacked, which is your assertion that "any graduate employer would love to recruit from there [Oxbridge]". I'm going to ignore Harvard law and focus on the UK and say that I highly doubt that any graduate employer is barred from recruiting from those universities, and that if they wanted to set up a stall at a careers fair there they'd be more than welcome to. And most large graduate employers handle their applications online anyway so this doesn't particularly matter ... I know first company I interned with only attended one university's careers fair, but when I met their graduate intake they were not just from said university. "Targeting" doesn't mean much...
It wasn't just Oxbridge I was talking about. The OP was an international student looking at universities on both sides of the pond. So the point about OCR and the top colleges in the US was very relevant.
And as you have pointed out, targeting varies depending on the sector.
They're amongst the most competitive ... yet they have some of the largest intakes?
Precisely. Just goes to show how many apply to these sorts of jobs.
I cannot argue that your university has little or no bearing on your job prospects because I was actually offered a job from a company that only recruited from two universities. What I am trying to argue is that these jobs are in the small, small minority (and have evidence to back this up - look at the graph) and the vast majority of graduates will be getting jobs with companies who don't care... and people that go to universities that exclude them from certain careers probably don't care anyway or else they'd not have went to that university in the first place.
If 7% admit to it, think how many do actually use your university as a distinguishing factor? I know many companies which don't officially use your university as part of the process but in reality definitely do. I would wager that at least double that use university name as one of their criteria. That is pushing on to 1 in 6 or 1 in 5 graduate recruiters. I don't think it can be considered a very small minority either. Considering that thousands and thousands of graduates enter the industries I listed above, it is a fair bit more than a small, small minority.
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