What's better - a 2.1 from Oxbridge or a first from Aston?

I mean't that generally. I mean there are people who look at other things other than prestige and rep. But on average those who do end up in Oxbridge generally do have better grades. If you look into Aston, you will get mixture of grades, from average to very high grades which I guess you have.

But do you not think this has a deteriorating effect on the learning process in that students with lower A level grades tend to be more the party kind and therefore the average course content / load tends to be dragged down at the expense of high achievers ?

I didn't fully understood what you meant there. But how is people with lower alevel grades tend to be 'more the party kind'? We're talking about their degrees in their repective unis not their personal attributes.

Hmm, seems to be a lot misunderstanding of one kind or another here and grammatical / spelling errors too.

To your question:

' How is people with lower alevel grades tend to be 'more the party kind'? '

How about those who work harder and party less tend to achieve higher grades than those who do the opposite ?

Ofcourse there is misunderstanding when I have explicitly stated that I do not fully understand your statement. So you could have just cleared things up a bit rather than seek grammatical and spelling mistakes don't you think?

It really seems to me that you are confused about academia and social life. If someone has a better social life, it doesn't mean in the slightest that they are poor achiever and vice versa. So your statement, "How about those who work harder and party less tend to achieve higher grades than those who do the opposite ?" cannot be proven otherwise, however if we go back to the main point of my original post, that Oxbridge students generally have higher grades can be proven, you'd just have to look at the average grades of the uni for every course. This can be measured. Whereas you can't measure the extent of how much a person party.

1st from aston... a 2:1 from Oxford may be looked down upon (many might think "oh so he got to Oxford but he only got a 2:1?" It really depends on your employer and how prejudice they are

Since when did a 2:1 become a bad degree? In humanities subjects, it can be pretty difficult to get a 1st.

Blanket statements just can't be made about degrees, they're definitely not comparable in the same way A-Levels from different boards are.

Ah the student room. Where opinions are strictly forbidden.

I completely agree, both of my parents received 2:1's and if i had one i would be ecstatic however it still doesn't take away the fact that certain employees can be prejudice.

In my own personal opinion. a 2:1 is a 2:1 and a first is a first. No matter what university you attended. Simple as that.

Especially stupid ones.

RG1:

ICL
UCL
LSE
KCL
Edinburgh
Bristol
Durham
Possibly Exeter

That doesn't mean they are any good, you don't really think the best Oxbridge academics aim for RG2 institutions o you ?

And surely you are being a little hypocritical ? You dislike the snobbery from Oxbridge or RG1 yet you gladly push the term RG to differentiate your self from non-RG institutions.

There's an RG2 in the sense that anyone might want it to be one ( just look at the tables and a clear demarcation is revealed between RG1 and 2 )

O yeah right and you're a mind reader are you, in any case if I was starting over again with my AAA I'd be damned if I were to end up in an RG 2.

FACT: no non RG1 university is a target for MS. end of, lexis or not whatever the hell that is.

So did you graduate Cantab or not ? and if so, why are you arguing with me ? Surely we are in agreement

Everyone knows law is an extremely prestige conscious profession, why would someone with Maths @ cantab do law @ BPP ? That'd be like shooting yourself after you win the lottery.

I completely agree, both of my parents received 2:1's and if i had one i would be ecstatic however it still doesn't take away the fact that certain employees can be prejudice.

In my own personal opinion. a 2:1 is a 2:1 and a first is a first. No matter what university you attended. Simple as that.

The league tables aren't really a helpful source though are they? I mean it's not like the Premier League table with one absolute unquestionable table is it? One could argue that:
- There are many different league tables.
- They vary each year.
- There are subject specific league tables.
- Universities that do better domestically don't do as well in international league tables.

So it becomes very difficult to go by league tables. If a student is at a university ranked 7th, 12th, 16th and 18th across the four league tables they are likely to go around saying "I am at the 7th best university in the country". So I find league tables only as a very rough guide as to what the best universities are, rather than absolute positioning. To give you an example Lancaster and Bath are both above Imperial in the 2013 Guardian table. Which I've no problem with, but I assume you object to this?

The reality is, a) You've not got a degree from a top London institution, and b) you are a student at Sussex...which good for you! It is a good university. I just don't think its helpful coming on here spouting your troll nonsense. It's based on no solid grounds.


Students coming from the London universities aren't taught in their degrees once they graduate to come on student forums and tell others how rubbish their universities are. In fact, any LSE lecturer would be pretty ashamed if his students were doing this.


I'm at a non Oxbridge/London Russell Group and I've had Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan coming to the university personally recruiting. We've also had Big Four accountancy firms and magic circle law firms recruiting here. Another myth that a very small proportion of London students believe that it is only their universities that are targeted, it isn't.

Again another silly claim. Most Cambridge students don't take your snobbish view. It isn't a case of if you are at Cambridge you are smart and everyone else is dumb. If you are at a Top 20 UK University you are really really smart. If you are at Cambridge, maybe you are unbelievably smart. The key is that (thankfully) most Cambridge students don't share your views.

Again, what a silly claim! And for someone up to his eyeballs in prestige worries I find it odd you think like this. Law is clearly one of the most prestigious career paths one can take (at least, this is the view a lot of students hold). If you haven't done law at undergraduate, you almost certainly will have to do a law conversion course at either The College of Law or BPP. They are both very prestigious and will both hold you in good stead.

Or are you so snobbish you believe law firms only take Law Undergraduate degrees? They don't, they consider a different discipline plus a conversion course to be just as good, if not better.

Bottom line is that most if not all TSR readers use the tables regularly and so do you because otherwise you would not be so pissed off for it ranking your RG2 so lowly.

The reality is that you wish and pray that I don't have a degree from an RG1 which I do - LSE , which goes to show how badly you really feel about your own university ( let me guess you're from either Manchester, Bham or Nottingham ? ).

I graduated years ago and now am doing a PG certificate at Sussex and no it is not a good institution but don't let that comfort you too much because it is probably on the same level as the place you are at now.

And yes, I have had the misfortune of sampling so called RG2 courses and I must say they are pretty dire.

And yes also I will not put up with crap and will be doing something about Sussex. Exactly what that will be is none of yours and anybody else's business since that is no relevance to the topic at hand.

You have no knowledge what Students coming from the London universities are or are not taught unless you are suddenly morphing into a London 3 student.

On the other it is our duty to stop any institution from passing itself off as an Oxb or RG1 when they are not.

Anyone with a 2.2 can get back office jobs from and bank including ex poly students as well, certainly no need to go to an RG2.

What you can't do with an RG2 degree is be a target place for a top bank. Search and read TSR is choc full of threads on this but you should be notified that it will make painful reading for you.

You don't really think the best Oxbridge academics aim for RG2 institutions do you ?

You conveniently left out this bit which I suspect embarrasses you tremendously so I will reinstall it just for you:

Try Oxbridge / Harvard/ Yale / Princeton - you forget that a good Oxbridge degree opens doors world wide.

The same most definitely cannot be said of say a 1st from Leeds.

As for the rest of it, I cannot tell what point you are making as it seems you are just regurgitating everything I said which is quite typical of the RG2.

I notice that you study politics rather than a science subject, so it's likely that your experience will be different than Derrick's. In arts subjects such as politics it's generally the case that it's rather easy to get a 2.1 but very hard to get a first wherever you go as it's marked on a narrow scale, and in this case there is going to be much less of a difference in difficulty between arts courses between Oxbridge and the rest. However Derrick's experience is with maths, where there is a very large difference in difficulty between Oxbridge and the rest. What Derrick is saying about the difference in difficulty isn't snobbery, it's simply the truth, Cambridge's papers are far harder than elsewhere. He said nothing about the quality of students at either institution.

I myself put my money where my mouth was, I was struggling to hit the 2.1 mark so transferred to another RG uni (UCL) as I was convinced the course would be less demanding and I could get a much better grade. This turned out to be the case, and I walked away with a very high first (over 80%). This isn't snobbery, but recognising that different courses have markedly different differences in difficulty, and it may well be worth a prospective students while to go somewhere 'less prestigious' and get a better class of degree.

Zenomorph however is just a troll who is spouting nonsense and should be ignored.

So few people are getting this 'Micro Debating' thing. Scroll up, look what forum you're in

What doors does an Oxford 2:1 open that a Leeds 1st doesn't? I'd be looking for facts and empirical evidence here not just 'Morgan Stanley don't hire from Leeds'.