Are UK University league tables misleading?

Why did you make this thread? This is not an educational debate. You are just writing your opinion as a fact.

There are facts stated in the opening post. You have confused yourself!

I don't think people realize how misleading they can be... ESPECIALLY for international students. I had a conversation recently with an acquaintance of mine, who apparently chose Surrey over the likes of Manchester, Glasgow etc. just because it is a "top 10" university according to the domestic tables.

Just for the record, UK league tables are rubbish. World rankings are the future.

Not really, Juichiro is completely correct. Your main argument doesn't make a lot of sense - you're just listing a bunch of things you think are right - and then you give a completely unsubstantiated "UK league tables are rubbish. World rankings are the future".

Urmm what? World rankings have even worse methodology, you could reasonably accurately predict them with 1) have you heard of this university? 2) have you heard of the city the university is in?

Did you read the first post properly? I said no university in the top 10 other than Cambridge offers the big 3 subjects?
As for the second post, why have you brought that into the equation when when it was the first post that was being questioned?

Urmm what? World rankings have even worse methodology, you could reasonably accurately predict them with 1) have you heard of this university? 2) have you heard of the city the university is in?

I have absolutely no idea why what you're saying in your first post means that UK league tables are misleading. All I'm seeing are a bunch of pretty snobbish statements that seem to completely ignore the bigger picture. Why on earth is it relevant if not all universities have a Medical school, a Dentistry school and a Veterinary school? It's not as if they could all have them if they wanted to, there simply isn't enough demand?



Yep, exactly. There's a huge amount of snobbery on TSR - it's amazing how angry some people on this website get when The Guardian ranks universities like Surrey anywhere near their beloved Oxford and Cambridge - yet a lot of these people seem to completely forget that all of the metrics used in international league tables are generally irrelevant for undergraduate students. For most students, metrics like student satisfaction, value-added and employability are going to be vastly more important than how old somewhere is, how prestigious various academics think a university is, or what proportion of the teaching staff are internationals. For students who actually live in the real world, rather than ranting about how much they love Cambridge on TSR, UK league tables are generally going to be a lot more useful.

Go back and read the first post again properly. There are more facts stated in there than you have realised.
As for the talk of Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine, if a university offers two or more of these subjects, given that it costs £300k to educuate each student for the full 5 years, of course these substantial costs will drain resources from universities like Bristol and Manchester, leading them to drop in the UK league tables. Whereas the lesser universities can spend this money on their lesser courses to beef them up in the league tables.

The top 5 unis in UK are Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial, LSE, UCL.

So what? Why on earth are you calling non-medicine courses "lesser courses"? First of all, you don't have any evidence to support the claim that universities are diverting money away from other universities to fund medicine but even if that is the case, I don't understand why you think this means UK league tables are misleading? UK league tables rank universities by a certain set of criteria, such as average entry tariff, employability, student satisfaction, etc. The league tables aren't lying about those statistics and those are the only metrics taken into consideration. So once again, how does your argument mean that the league tables are misleading?

I think you will find that many universities (Bristol, Manchester, Nottingham, Glasgow, Edinburgh, KCL etc) in the Russell Group that offer two or more of these subjects have fallen in the UK rankings in recent years, as government cuts to university funding have taken a hit. Those offering these incredibly expensive courses have felt the hit hardest.

So what? Why on earth are you calling non-medicine courses "lesser courses"? First of all, you don't have any evidence to support the claim that universities are diverting money away from other universities to fund medicine but even if that is the case, I don't understand why you think this means UK league tables are misleading? UK league tables rank universities by a certain set of criteria, such as average entry tariff, employability, student satisfaction, etc. The league tables aren't lying about those statistics and those are the only metrics taken into consideration. So once again, how does your argument mean that the league tables are misleading?

- Average tariff points - this favours smaller universities, and hurts those like Edinburgh and Bristol, who actively recruit students from poorer backgrounds on 1-2 grades less than their richer peers.
- Employability - this is raw data that unversities generate from mass phone canvassing their alumni graduates. So who is to say that these graduates are lying, or just working as a toilet cleaner to make ends meet?
- Student satisfaction - this is far too subjective to be in league tables. The scandal involing Kisngton university comes to mind.
- REF - Many smaller universities go for a high GPA by only submitting their small pool of top researchers. The larger RG universities tend to submit many more staff, and go for reserach power. The league tables only include data for the GPA, thus punishing the larder universities looking for a bigger paycheck from the government that a stronger research power provides. A good GPA core doesn't bring extra cash, it just adds trophy vale in UK league tables.