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Guardian ranks

Why is St. Andrews the top ranked institution for mathematics? Anyone fancy explaining...

Posted from TSR Mobile

Because league tables are nonsense.

Both Oxford and Cambridge don't have a score for "Spend per student/10" but in reality both would be 10/10 (they both easily spend much more on each student than any other university thanks to the tutorial/supervision system). You know the league table is a load of rubbish when you see Bristol ranked 24th, when in reality it has the 5th/6th best mathematics course in the UK (I mean seriously, they've somehow managed to rank Birmingham, Exeter, Portsmouth, Heriot-Watt, Lancaster, Swansea, Surrey, Leicester, Oxford Brookes, Leeds, Coventry, QMUL, Stirling Hallam and Southampton all above Bristol?!?)

Funnily enough, their league table is significantly more accurate if you get rid of their own nonsense metric and purely rank by the average entry tariff.

Reply 2

acontium

Apart from the odd exceptions yeah I can see that. :smile:

I looked on the overall league table and when I saw Surrey that high up that's when I didn't trust it..

Reply 3

ChoccyPhilly

According to the table Leeds trinity is better at biology than Leeds itself, which is utter nonsense

Reply 4

acontium

Also the value added for Warwick and Cambridge are below 5.. But Portsmouth is 10... Confused.. Aha

Reply 5

rayquaza17

I don't understand the point of this value-added score?
How does it show how effective teaching is?

Reply 6

acontium

Also where do they get the data..

Reply 7

rayquaza17

Original post by acontium

Also where do they get the data..

Some of it is from the NSS.
I believe value-added score is just something they made up. :laugh:

Reply 8

acontium

I think so haha! Such a stupid category!

Reply 9

ChoccyPhilly

Comparing the Times world rankings for top british unis in the top 100 and the guardian ranking:

Times:
Oxford (3)
Cambridge (5)
ICL (9)
UCL (22)
LSE (34)
Edinburgh (36)
KCL (40)
Manchester (52)
Bristol (74)
Durham (83)
Glasgow (93)
And interestingly enough: QMUL (107)

Guardian:
Cambridge (1)
Oxford (2)
ICL (5)
LSE (7)
Durham (8)
UCL (11)
Edinburgh (18)
Glasgow (25)
QMUL (32)
Manchester (33)
Bristol (34)
KCL (40)

So KCL is 40th in the UK but simultaneously 40th in the world? lol