Which university has the best international brand name after Oxbridge?

Poll

Which university has the best brand name after Oxbridge?

LSE Imperial UCL Other

Jedbrien

Which UK university has the most well known brand name/reputation after Oxford/Cambridge

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Reply 1

CEKTOP

LSE. Without a question. It's extremely well-known in the financial sector.

Imperial/ LSE

I have very little idea because I have very little evidence. I would suggest that that is probably the case for most people who respond to this.

Reply 4

Origami Bullets

The Americans are obsessed with Edinburgh and St Andrews. Try suggesting UCL to most of them and the response won't be one that suggests they've heard of it before...

Reply 5

{Unregistered}

Depends on which region you're asking about.

In the subcontinent, it would probably be LSE.
In places like Hong Kong and China, it would most definitely be Imperial.

Reply 6

Joinedup

Globally, it's probably lse.
Reason: Politicians are generally more well known than scientists and engineers.

Reply 7

squeakysquirrel

Original post by Jedbrien

Which UK university has the most well known brand name/reputation after Oxford/Cambridge

Given the amount of publicity it has had and the sheer amount of students from overseas - I would say London Met :biggrin:

Reply 8

Rooster523

St Andrews, Edingburgh, Kings College, London (Kings has a really good reputation abroad for some reason...)

Reply 9

River85

Original post by Joinedup

Globally, it's probably lse.
Reason: Politicians are generally more well known than scientists and engineers.

Mmm...debateable.

But LSE hasn't really produced many well known politicians anyway?

Reply 10

nexttime

Honestly? In my experience, St Andrews (purely due to Kate Middleton) and "London" because its a big city they tend to assume has a university!

Which is the most famous to the people that actually matter is a different question entirely.

Reply 11

The BigET

Most people outside of the UK have only heard of St Andrews. I know lots of people who don't even know about Cambridge. Only if you're involved in politics or science have people heard of UCL, LSE and Imperial. In fact, I've heard more people know of KCL than all of those.

Reply 12

Joinedup

Original post by River85

Mmm...debateable.

But LSE hasn't really produced many well known politicians anyway?

34 heads of state (according to wiki) in 110 years.

They're probably household names in their home countries :unsure:

Prodi of Italy and papandraou of greece were of course working that old lse magic on their respective economies till recently.

Reply 13

cl_steele

Imperial/ucl I've yet to run into anyone who knows what lse is, even a nice gentleman who works for Goldman who I ran into had absolutely no idea what it was.

Reply 14

hannah60000

Original post by cl_steele

Imperial/ucl I've yet to run into anyone who knows what lse is, even a nice gentleman who works for Goldman who I ran into had absolutely no idea what it was.

Maybe if you said London School of Economics (and Political Sciences) perhaps?

My aunt and dad where not aware of the LSE abbreviation, but when I said the full name their reactions were "oh I know/heard of it" and they are far from academia specialist!

Reply 15

AspiringGenius

LSE/UCL/Imperial/St.Andrews/Edinburgh/Durham I've probably missed a really big one.

Reply 16

cl_steele

Original post by hannah60000

Oh no I told him the full name and that it was a big school in regards to getting into the city but he nor his friend had the foggiest what it was. To be fair though they have the likes of Wharton and Harvard they have no need to know about lse:L

Reply 17

munazic483

I wouldn't read too much into stuff like this. Those who care what university you went to will have heard of all those mentioned.

Reply 18

River85

Original post by Joinedup

34 heads of state (according to wiki) in 110 years.

Yes, which isn't a great deal more than some other universities. Some of have probably produced heads of state who are internationally better known.

For example, Edinburgh, which has produced British Prime Ministers (most recent being Gordon Brown) and its fair share of royalty.

Plus I'm not sure whether people are really aware of the educational backgrounds of many politicians. Certainly in the country. You'll probably be surprised at how few know Gordon Brown attended Edinburgh, for example. The university a person went to is quite irrelevant.

Conversely, though many scientists might not be as well known, often they are more closely associated with a university as it is here that they work and make discoveries.

Those who are aware of, say, Sir Peter Mansfield (MRI technology) will likely know he was an academic at Nottingham. Or Keith Campbell and colleagues cloned Dolly the Sheep at the Roslin Institute (affiliated with Edinburgh).

Reply 19

CEKTOP

Original post by River85

For example, Edinburgh, which has produced British Prime Ministers (most recent being Gordon Brown) and its fair share of royalty.

Edinburgh's entry requirements recently went through the ground, I know people who got in with BCC and in my college it gave offers to anyone who applied there. So I don't really know why everyone is so hot about Edinburgh.
Plus "royalty" is bull**** nobody cares about.