Will any university in the UK ever be comparable to Oxbridge?

Because there are only two countries in the world, US and UK.

The fact that students from other countries DO NOT queue up for St. Andrews doesn't count.

In terms of reputation/prestige, etc., will any universities ever be on par with the famous Oxbridge? There seems to be such a gap between them with other top uni's such as UCL, LSE and Imperial - buy why?


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They tend to think that because generally speaking, that's how reputation works. Oxbridge attract the best because it's the best institution out there because historically it always attracted the best for over 800 years back when Oxbridge (& Scottish unis) were the only places for educated to go to and most people spent their time covered in their own ****, farming potatoes. A uni needs notability and the one surefire way of getting it is to merely have been around for a bloody long time (also fun fact, look at how St Andrews went from being one of 20-odd top universities to go to, to basically being a top-rated Scottish Oxford the moment Prince William went there).

Saying that though, you're a bit delusional if you think unis like Warwick or York are underrated. Maybe to someone with absolutely no grasp of what the pecking order of universities is, but those people are unlikely to recognize anything but Oxbridge.

Because there are only two countries in the world, US and UK.

The fact that students from other countries DO NOT queue up for St. Andrews doesn't count.

He never said that only 2 countries in the world matter. You assumed that by mentioning the US and not every other country in the world that he only thinks 2 countries in the world are important.

Really? You so sure? There were a hell of a lot of Japanese, Chinese and European students (as a proportion of the small student population) studying there when I was a student there and that was before it became really popular due to the 'Prince William' effect.

However, the links St Andrews has with the US are special (it used to share a very strong link with Princeton in particular) and so its reputation in the US is much greater than it might first appear, for such a small university.

I would suggest that you in fact know very little about my alma mater and are just making assumptions. This seems to be a common problem with St Andrews on TSR, probably related to the fact that so few people get an opportunity to study there.

Edit, according to the university websites St Andrews has almost 1/3 of its students having an international background - the same as Oxford with a higher percentage (20% vs 14%) of its undergraduates being international. 15% of the St Andrews student population hail from North America.

When it comes to business, management, economics, maths and statistics, Warwick, LSE and Imperial aren't really far from Oxbridge. In the long run, maybe the prestige of these three unis will intensify and become a solid peer of Oxbridge.

When it comes to law, UCL and LSE are the next best thing to Oxbridge. For medicine, UCL, Imperial and Edinburgh are really competitive, and are best alternatives to Oxbridge.

For engineering, Imperial has almost the respect that Cambridge has.

For the humanities, I think there is still a sizable gap between Oxbridge and the nest best uni for those subject areas.

Can't say about other nationals but as far as the Far East in concerned, the top students; top destinations tend to be Imperial (not surprising as most of them study sciences) and LSE (for finance).

I'm going to go out on a limb here and question whether it could be that the Far East students have too many cultural differences going on to pass the interview and really fit at a place as posh and quintessentially British as Oxbridge and so they consequently gun for LSE/Imperial where merely having the top grades will get you in a lot further than it will at Oxbridge (knowing someone who got rejected with 5 A*'s).

Just hypothesizing because while LSE/Imperial might be just as good as Oxbridge, I can't think of many people who'd honestly choose them over Oxbridge if actually given the choice.

Can't say about other nationals but as far as the Far East in concerned, the top students; top destinations tend to be Imperial (not surprising as most of them study sciences) and LSE (for finance).

London is always going to be a big draw for students from further afield as much to do with the reputation of the city as much else, universities that have the fortune to be based there reap the rewards of that.

However, the fact still remains that St Andrews does very well in attracting such a high percentage of foreign students, for such a small place in the middle of nowhere.

My impression was that St Andrews was always highly regarded. Obviously Prince William going there attracted more applications but it's not like it was an unknown entity for the other few centuries it had been around.

My impression was that St Andrews was always highly regarded. Obviously Prince William going there attracted more applications but it's not like it was an unknown entity for the other few centuries it had been around.

St Andrews had been chasing American students since the 1970s at a time when they paid the same fees as British ones. The only reason for that was that it couldn't attract enough demand from Scots. Furthermore, it chased Americans because in the absence of schools of law, medicine and engineering, it wasn't very attractive to Africa and Asia. That didn't matter to American brought up on the liberal arts tradition who also had the name recognition through golf.

Just spotted that. St Andrews has a thriving school of medicine.Also the links with the US go back much further than the 1970s.