Do some universities give out too many firsts?

I literally said excluding banking, and you start going on about banks. Besides, not everyone wants to work in FO, or in the MC. Just stop it. I don't think the link between alma mater and high-end employment is causative, anyway.

A mid range 2.2 from Cambridge is better than a first from a lot of ex-polys. A 2.1 from Cambridge is as good as a first at most Russell group universities. People can deny this until they are blue in the face but the fact is that at Cambridge plenty of people who receive 4A*s at A level get 2.1s and even 2.2s. A levels are an excellent predictor of degree classification and the vast majority of these people would be getting firsts elsewhere. I read somewhere that the proportion of people who get awarded firsts in maths is the same at Nottingham trent as it is at Cambridge which is simply laughable given the comparative standards of the students upon entering university. I'd go so far as to say a third in Cambridge maths is a hard as a first in maths at many other universities. I say this as someone who thinks Cambridge awards way too many firsts. Firsts should be awarded to the top 10% imo at all universities and employers will view it wrt how hard the exams are. I know a person who got AAA at A level who was not especially clever and who always asked for help on stupid questions who now get 80% at university in economics at Exeter. By his own admission he does a lot less work than I do. I got 4A*s and study at Cambridge and 80% is simple unachievable. The person who tops the year and is therefore arguably the best student for the age group in the subject in the country doesn't get 80%.

This is where you are very wrong. It may not be explicit but Oxbridge is favoured by virtually all top employers. Law has a very strict Oxbridge preference whereas banking has less of an Oxbridge preference than you might expect. The fact that lots of banks have tons of Oxbridge grads is more about self-selection and Oxbridge graduates just being more dedicated and likely to be better at their job. Roles in economics for government think tanks and the civil service strongly prefer Oxbridge graduates. The Bank of England hires a huge proportion of its graduates from Cambridge. In management consultancy there is an extreme preference for Oxbridge grads too - some only hire Oxbridge grads. It is quite rational for employers to be biased towards grads from better universities for certain professions so stop feeding yourself the bull**** that Oxbridge, or any other top university for that matter, is not an advantage in employment. A lot of the people hiring at the very top firms went there themselves so they will be biased.

Liverpool in particular gets a lot of **** from holier-than-thou, public school types, for reasons that are mostly (read: entirely) cultural and related to a time before they were even born. Not too dissimilar to QUB (which is also an excellent institution).

I just wanted to hammer this point home: It is more than likely, unless you expressly insert yourself into these professional spheres, that no one will ever care where you went to university. Stop circlejerking.

And before you accuse me of being some 'ex-poly' dullard, I went to a university in your precious Russell Group, so just stuff it.

Liverpool in particular gets a lot of **** from holier-than-thou, public school types, for reasons that are mostly (read: entirely) cultural and related to a time before they were even born. Not too dissimilar to QUB (which is also an excellent institution).

I just wanted to hammer this point home: It is more than likely, unless you expressly insert yourself into these professional spheres, that no one will ever care where you went to university. Stop circlejerking.

And before you accuse me of being some 'ex-poly' dullard, I went to a university in your precious Russell Group, so just stuff it.

Liverpool in particular gets a lot of **** from holier-than-thou, public school types, for reasons that are mostly (read: entirely) cultural and related to a time before they were even born. Not too dissimilar to QUB (which is also an excellent institution).

I just wanted to hammer this point home: It is more than likely, unless you expressly insert yourself into these professional spheres, that no one will ever care where you went to university. Stop circlejerking.

And before you accuse me of being some 'ex-poly' dullard, I went to a university in your precious Russell Group, so just stuff it.

Are they?

Yes. http://www.suttontrust.com/public/documents/sat-report-final.pdf. UMS is the best predictor of degree classification at Cambridge and I would assume it is the same elsewhere. I can't be bothered to search for this result but there is a paper if you want to look for yourself.

Also less than convinced by this, at least as far as law firms are concerned.

So much ignorance here. Parking this to expand on later...

To be honest this is all just anecdotal ranting.

Is there any data for this? Otherwise it's just a rant based on anecdotal evidence. I actually remember seeing statistics which indicate the opposite. I'll see if I can find them.

A student in the graduate sample with average attainment at a university with an average UNIdiff value (e.g.Loughborough) has a ten per cent probability of obtaining a first class degree. By comparison a student with the same prior attainment at a university with a UNIdiff value of above 80 per cent (e.g. Bristol or Imperial College) has less than a five per cent probability of obtaining a first.

It suggests that due to the large number of very able students competing for first class honours, it is more difficult to obtain this classification in highly selective universities than in less selective institutions.

I didn't say lawyers all come from Oxbridge but it is well known that there is a bias. You can research it in detail if you wish to spend time doing so.

I would be more inclined to believe that ex-polys get a lot of Firsts because they are more teaching based, rather than research based. Since anecdotes appear to be in full swing, I'll use mine: I attend Nottingham Trent uni, but I went to a week long partners course for Newcastle.This might no be a great comparison I admit, but the difficulty of the content seemed the same, but Nottingham Trent lecturers are much better at teaching- the lecturer at Newcastle actually told one of the other people on the partner scheme week he was stupid, even though the lecturer had mis explained a question.

It's not just anecdotal ranting.

This report from the Sutton Trust says:



Now what I'm going to type next is anecdotal ranting, sort of .

University standards are hugely, hugely disparate. I know 3 people who got a 2.2 in Cambridge and went on to do a masters at a different uni.

The first guy got a 2.2 in maths, went to Warwick for a stats masters, and came top of the year. Not only that, he killed the course - got something like 91% average. This from a 58/59% score at Cambridge.

The second guy got a 2.2 in maths, went to KCL, and came top of the year. He was the only person on his course to get a distinction.

The third girl got a 2.2 in bio natsci, went to Edinburgh, and - you guessed it - came top of the year. She's now doing a PhD there.

Anecdotal, yes, but that is genuinely the full sample of people I know who did masters at another uni after getting a 2.2 at Cam - it's not just a cherry-picked few.

Wow you must know a lot of people.

Its either that or you strategically acquainted yourself with precisely 3 people with 2:2's from Cambridge who just happened to come first at all other Universities after graduating from Cambridge, in the event that you were unfortunate enough to ever have to debate the imbalance in the difficulty of specific courses at various Universities in the UK.


There is also the possibility that you are simply a bull****ter. (Very unlikely though )

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I don't know why I said a third when I meant 2.2. I think it genuinely is true for a 2.2. Not for all universities but certainly for many of them. And it probably is true for a third as well. What are you talking about nobody gets a third at Cambridge maths?

I knew pretty much everyone in my year doing science subjects at my (fairly large) college. The overall 2.2 rate for most science subjects is between 20-40% so I'm bound to know a fair few who end up with that .

I don't agree with this. As I mentioned earlier, in maths Nottingham Trent gets a similar proportion of firsts to Cambridge. This is despite the fact that virtually all the best mathematicians in the country go to Cambridge. It is the place to study maths. Cambridge has excellent teaching in Maths. I'm willing to bet it offers a LOT more lectures than Nottingham Trent in maths. Just because academics are research focused they still put a lot of effort into teaching. After all they are paid to do so. All students at Cambridge get a lot more teaching then they would elsewhere in small supervision groups of 2-3 people with academics. There is simply no way the lectures can handle the difficulty of the problems maths students face in the same way that supervisions of 2-3 people can. Despite all this, Trent students get the same proportion of firsts as Cambridge students in maths.

Also, I attribute very little success in my degree to teaching. Most of it is about working hard. I don't bother with lectures at all and managed fine. The person who topped the year in my course last year was never seen in a lecture.