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To what extent does degree difficulty vary between universities?

Reply 140

Neville 'Facking' Bartos

12

Do extra work and stop whining about it.

Reply 141

Staker

9

Unfortunately that is how it generally works. Those who go to a place where high level students are the norm will have higher standards, those places with average standards will have average standards.

Reply 142

GodspeedGehenna

3

The standard of your education is what you make it.

Reply 143

yoyo462001

16

If I remember correctly accountancy degrees have to be accredited which means there probably isn't too much difference between uni that offer this since they must all ahdere to a certain standard.

cruciform

I am going to a middling university to study an accountancy degree. However, I am finding it unfair that the degree won't be the same standard as the degree in higher universities? The reason is, you won't develop academic ability at the same rate as those at the better unis if their version of the degree is more demanding. This means there will be a further divide in academic ability between the top grads and the average grads.

What university are you attending, and what evidence do you have to suggest that your degree won't be of the same quality as that of 'higher' universities?

Reply 145

Nichrome

18

Does this mean Oxbridge are actually failing to attract the brightest and best students then? I mean, with so many other students getting firsts and 2.1s at other institutions, if Oxford and Cambridge really did attract the best then surely they would be giving out very high percentages of firsts? Their admissions system must be very flawed as at Cambridge at least, even subjects where there are traditionally a lot of firsts (sciences) the percentage is lower than elsewhere.

Reply 146

py0alb

3

Nichrome

Does this mean Oxbridge are actually failing to attract the brightest and best students then? I mean, with so many other students getting firsts and 2.1s at other institutions, if Oxford and Cambridge really did attract the best then surely they would be giving out very high percentages of firsts? THere admissions system must be very flawed as at Cambridge at least, even subjects where there are traditionally a lot of firsts (sciences) the percentage is lower than elsewhere.

What? Cambridge and Oxford give out a higher % of firsts then any other university in the country.

and yes, believe it or not, but many bright people capable of getting in to Oxbridge actually choose to go elsewhere of their own volition!!!

Reply 147

Nichrome

18

py0alb

What? Cambridge and Oxford give out a higher % of firsts then any other university in the country.

and yes, believe it or not, but many bright people capable of getting in to Oxbridge actually choose to go elsewhere of their own volition!!!

Well I know Oxford give out a lot of firsts (50%) but Cambridge was only 30%. In fact the 1st, 2.1 and 2.2 sizes were all more or less equal. Is there anyway of being able to see these stats for individual subjects as I'm just not convinced that they do. I know the good honours stat in the university guide is across all subjects and that's gonna skew things as arts obviously give out near enough 90%+ 2.1s and above.

And yes of course I know lots of bright people choose to go somewhere else, but still I'm sure there are more who have a go and don't get in who choose to go somewhere else and do really well. Does this mean Cambridge are really failing to get the best in who apply?

Reply 148

py0alb

3

Nichrome

Well I know Oxford give out a lot of firsts (50%) but Cambridge was only 30%. In fact the 1st, 2.1 and 2.2 sizes were all more or less equal. Is there anyway of being able to see these stats for individual subjects as I'm just not convinced that they do. I know the good honours stat in the university guide is across all subjects and that's gonna skew things as arts obviously give out near enough 90%+ 2.1s and above.

And yes of course I know lots of bright people choose to go somewhere else, but still I'm sure there are more who have a go and don't get in who choose to go somewhere else and do really well. Does this mean Cambridge are really failing to get the best in who apply?

I think you are exaggerating the arts results. I have never heard it said that 90% of people get 2:1s before, I find that very unlikely.

The average % of a given year getting 1sts ranges from about 5% in a lower ranked uni up to about 15% at a top 10 uni. So the fact that Cambridge roughly doubles that rate shows both how well they recruit students and how well they teach them.

But in answer to you question, both Oxford and Cambridge acknowledge that it is becoming harder and harder to select students. Given that AAAA is an expected result for a bright school leaver, then they are forced to look at factors such as interview skills, the personal statement, the STEP paper, and extra-curricular activities, which basically gives a huge advantage to the privately educated applicants who are intensively tutored in these things.

Nichrome

Is there anyway of being able to see these stats for individual subjects as I'm just not convinced that they do.

py0alb

I think you are exaggerating the arts results. I have never heard it said that 90% of people get 2:1s before, I find that very unlikely.

The average % of a given year getting 1sts ranges from about 5% in a lower ranked uni up to about 15% at a top 10 uni. So the fact that Cambridge roughly doubles that rate shows both how well they recruit students and how well they teach them.

But in answer to you question, both Oxford and Cambridge acknowledge that it is becoming harder and harder to select students. Given that AAAA is an expected result for a bright school leaver, then they are forced to look at factors such as interview skills, the personal statement, the STEP paper, and extra-curricular activities, which basically gives a huge advantage to the privately educated applicants who are intensively tutored in these things.

Ok, fair enough if those figures are true. I'm not sure the QAA's standards are as rigid as you make them out to be, but I don't really wanna argue any more on this. My masters will be somewhere else so I guess I'll see for myself if there is any actualy difference in the relative difficulty of degrees :eek:

Reply 151

Jack.O

Nichrome

Ok, fair enough if those figures are true. I'm not sure the QAA's standards are as rigid as you make them out to be, but I don't really wanna argue any more on this. My masters will be somewhere else so I guess I'll see for myself if there is any actualy difference in the relative difficulty of degrees :eek:

I think your argument that Oxbridge tends to attract high calibre students is correct, and that on average, less popular universities usually don't reel in many high fliers. Where it becomes implausible is to then assume that everybody at any university which is not looked upon favourably by the newspaper league tables is not capable of noteworthy academic achievement. Some students may find that they come into their own at university in a way that their schooling didn't stimulate, and as py0alb points out, many students opt away from the 'top' universities for reasons other than entry requirements. Whilst I obviously considered the performance of DMU's faculty, I also considered its location and the fact that they were offering me an academic scholarship for applying with a higher tariff than they usually ask for, for example.

Personally, I know that my university isn't as high up on the tables as compared to others, but that doesn't make me question the difficulty of its courses. Just 2% of the English Literature graduates last year at my university were awarded firsts. I think that figure speaks for itself!

Reply 152

0404343m

17

I have did a bit of tutoring for struggling students at a 1960s university currently ranked roughly mid-table. I attended a Scottish Russell Group University and one half of Oxbridge. I'm sure those of you will know which institutions I speak of. I had offers from others, Durham and St Andrews, and undertook research for a while at the other half of Oxbridge as well as another couple of RG universities, and will be teaching at an ex-poly next year as well as a Russell Group university as a graduate teaching fellow. I think I know the course structure and assessment very well at three universities, from those regarded on here as middling to very good to the world's best, and know the standards fairly well at another three or four.

My experience has been:

The difference in standards have been exagerrated on here. From Oxford/Cambridge to bottom, there will be a significant gap- I know that one university asks for a dissertation of half the length of another, has fewer hand ins, fewer exams and no assessed presentations. The gaps in the middle, from the Russell Group to Oxford/Cambridge, from top 20 to top 2, is very, very small. Most students will be amongst the best in their high school year, most will have at least AAB or equivalent at the end of school, most will be able students. The difference is in the outliers. There are some extraordinarily talented students at both institutions, but some of the real geniuses go to Oxbridge. Similarly, the tail of poorer students is shorter there. This isn't to say a tail of poorer students that I think would struggle elsewhere don't exist, or that this tier of exceptional students makes up more than 2-3% of the total. The tail was longer again at the 1960s university, but still the minority, and they still weren't bad, and I found the material they were teaching to be pretty good.

In terms of standards, they're rigorous from what I can see, but different. One puts all the emphasis, or at least virtually all of it (barring the dissertation), on a series of final exams, sometimes two a day for five days, and your degree is based on that alone. The other put 65% of the emphasis on exams, but 20% on coursework and 15% on the dissertation, and the exams were sometimes two a day but no more than six in a week. The student at one might find one system harder than the other- with continuous assessment over two years you can't afford a string of bad grades- if the 35% that isn't on exams ends up with 2:2 scores, you simply will not get a first, so you have to be on form for two years solid. Again, some put less again on exams- at the other university there was only a half on exams- but this meant you couldn't afford more than a couple of bad bits of work if you wanted a first.

This brings me to point. You cannot say a first at one university is less than another, because they're often different, and the student is still getting top marks based on the criteria set out by the university. Who is to say they wouldn't have got those marks elsewhere. The difficulty of entrace is a non-issue. In the St Andrews forum the other week I was told by someone that her tutor had given her the paper he himself had sat at St Andrews in the 1990s as a practice exam- but back then it was BCC to get in and now it's AAB. The difficulty is still the same, as are the expectations. You would rightly expect more students to do well as the standard of entrant goes up though. It doesn't mean the graduate of the 50th ranked university is weaker than the graduate of the 5th. At one point, I was thanking my lucky stars that I had a string of good coursework grades before I went into the exam- knowing I had a high first for 20% was a good buffer to begin with. At another point at the other university I was happy that my string of near-misses didn't count for any marks, as it would all come down to the exams, and luckily that also went well for me. It's too hard to draw any more specific conclusions than that.