Oxford beats St Andrews and Cambridge to reclaim Times Good University Guide top spot

Times Good University Guide 2023 rankings

"The University of Oxford has been rated the best in Britain, taking the top spot in a UK university ranking for the first time in 12 years and beating its rival Cambridge.The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2023, published online today, places Oxford at the top of its league table of 132 universities after the university excelled across the board in the academic measures used to compile the rankings, including demonstrating high-quality research and strong graduate job prospects.The university, renowned for its intimate style of teaching in which undergraduates have tutorials with a don and up to two other students, had by far the lowest student-to-staff ratio of any UK university, with 10.5 students to every member of staff. Unlike many institutions, which have expanded hugely, Oxford has declined to enroll more undergraduates every year.
For eight of the past ten years, Cambridge has topped the league table. Last year St Andrews beat Oxford and Cambridge to first place. This year St Andrews is in second place, ahead of Cambridge in third."

Reply 1

Supermature

Good morning. Just saw this as I was spreading my Frank Cooper's Oxford Marmalade on my humble slice of toast!

You and I have had our differences in this forum when debating Oxbridge admissions and private schools but I suspect we shall be very much in agreement here. It doesn't really matter what the rankings say, everyone knows that Oxford and Cambridge are the 'best' universities in the country and are likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. Not only have they been around for so long, they enjoy financial resources greater than all other universities put together. As it says in your extract, Oxford has by far the lowest staff-to-student ratio of any university in the country. With a don and up to two other students, how could a bright, hard working, well motivated student not succeed? It's just a matter of how to select those privileged students - but that's another debate entirely.

The UK has a number of very fine universities, including St. Andrews. There are also many reasons why the most academically gifted school leavers might not wish to apply to Oxford or Cambridge. But it is right to celebrate the pre-eminence of two institutions that are so much a part of our history and are renowned the world over for their scholarship and their traditions.

For anyone interested in cutting through the endless arguments about rankings I strongly commend, once again, the following article, which is still the definitive piece of research in this area:

Are there distinctive clusters of higher and lower status universities in the UK?
Vikki Boliver, Oxford Review of Education, Vol 41 Issue 5, Pages 608-627 | Published online: 30 Sep 2015

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03054985.2015.1082905?journalCode=core20

Reply 2

Yat Yat

If there is leeway for (a little bit) meaningful curiosity, that may be the reasons, occasionally, St Andrew could beat Oxbridge to be No.1 or at least beat Cambridge to be No.2.