Is Leicester really a top 20 university as they claim?

I am sorry if I upset you. I got back into the TSR after I started the MSc at UCL again. I got rejected for a PhD after they said I was beaten to it by better qualified candidates boasting degrees from Oxbridge and Imperial, and Ivy League etc.The MSc will get me in second time round.

Leicester claim to be top 20, and I am challenging it. They make that claim even at the train station.

Bath is incredibly overrated IMO as is St Andrew's. Leicester has always been a solid top 20 university and has a medical school, most of the decent universities have an attached medical school. Though not sure where Plymouth, Keele and now UCLAN would rank on the rating of top universities amongst the TSR elite.

The point is Leicester has never actually been viewed as inferior etc. the world rankings focus a lot more on research output and by that criteria Bath and Leicester are small research universities compared to say Manchester or Bristol. However on UK league tables they rank highly.

Many examples of prestigious universities worldwide that don't rank highly on the global rankings but are considered world class and very prestigious in their own countries; Georgetown, William and Mary, Dartmouth College, Amherst, Vanderbilt, Swarthmore, Waseda, Keio, Trinity College Dublin.

UCL rejected you for PhD? I got a masters from Cambridge graduated just a few marks off a distinction but still got rejected for further study so took the Ivy League offer as a backup.

As an aside, no freaking way is Leicester better than Bath. Bath is much more renowned for its courses, has higher grade requirements and thus a better calibre of students than Leicester. But Leicester is a good uni.

Well, in my view, and the view of graduate employers generally, Leicester just falls out of the top 25. If they join the Russell Group, that could change things for the better.

I'm not sure if the RG is going to expand again anytime soon and being an RG university doesn't necessarily make it prestigious or better. Whilst great universities Liverpool, Leeds and even Queen's Belfast wouldn't exactly be considered prestigious by any stretch of the imagination.

Furthermore there are plenty of great universities that would be worthy of RG status; Leicester, Aberdeen, Dundee, St Andrew's, RHUL, Lancaster and though I said it was overrated, even Bath. The danger if the RG expands is that there are far too many universities in the group that the tag begins to lose its prestige factor.

I'm not sure if the RG is going to expand again anytime soon and being an RG university doesn't necessarily make it prestigious or better. Whilst great universities Liverpool, Leeds and even Queen's Belfast wouldn't exactly be considered prestigious by any stretch of the imagination.

Furthermore there are plenty of great universities that would be worthy of RG status; Leicester, Aberdeen, Dundee, St Andrew's, RHUL, Lancaster and though I said it was overrated, even Bath. The danger if the RG expands is that there are far too many universities in the group that the tag begins to lose its prestige factor.

I think Leeds is quite prestigious in some respects.

Leicester, RHUL, Lancaster, Bath and St Andrew's could all plausibly be RG unis, but not Dundee or Aberdeen...

I wonder the same about Lancaster


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I think Leeds is quite prestigious in some respects.

Leicester, RHUL, Lancaster, Bath and St Andrew's could all plausibly be RG unis, but not Dundee or Aberdeen...

Yes but it depends in what we are defining as prestigious. If we are talking about universities reputed for academic selectivity then really the only ones that could be put in that list are Oxbridge then followed by LSE, Imperial and Durham and possibly UCL and maybe St Andrew's. Leeds is a very good university I never said it wasn't it just isn't considered as prestigious as the more reputable members of the RG like Oxbridge, LSE or even Manchester I would say.


Then again in terms of truly world class universities, I.e. Institutions which are known all over the world without the need to quote league tables or other data to backup the fact, what do we have aside from Oxford, Cambridge and the LSE? Imperial and UCL maybe but I feel they still lack a big prestige factor in the US and Asia. Edinburgh has a prestigious history particularly in the US where a lot of colleges and faculties were established by Edinburgh graduates. Kings has always had a solid reputation and Manchester's has been growing since the merger in 2006. Then you got Bristol, Birmingham, St Andrew's and Glasgow.

The fact that Durham, Exeter, York joined the RG definitely legitimised it for prestige. Though obviously some are better than others. Leeds and Liverpool generally come bottom of the group, Oxbridge, Imperial come top. The only ones missing which I definitely want to see join by right are Bath and St Andrews. The universities you mention, such as Liverpool and Leeds, are prestigious. They are just not top 100 world universities.

RG universities are the best the UK have to offer, and if you go to one of those you have done extremely well, generally speaking. It is interesting how diverse the RG universities are. Glasgow, Durham, Edinburgh, UCL, Nottingham, Warwick. All so different in tradition and set up. Some very old and ancient, some very new and modern. I prefer the tradition factor over anything else.

Durham despite the fact it is both revered and derided in equal measure because of its prestige is in my opinion a good university and has always been a selective one and often the number 3 to Oxbridge. IMO it was always 'the best university that wasn't part of the RG' much how say Holland are the best team to have never won the World Cup.

I think that membership to the RG is based more on their research endowment and funding and once that had increased to the 'acceptable level' that ranked it as on par with its RG peers. Of course the reputation of the university played a role in attracting that level of funding in the first place.

St Andrew's and to an extent Aberdeen and Dundee suffer in the fact that their locations do not make them particularly accessible and hence not attractive areas for research etc. Other than the medical and dental schools what other research intensive faculties do Aberdeen and Dundee have? St Andrew's is undoubtedly selective at undergraduate level owing to it's age and the fact a certain royal went there otherwise it was never really the prime alternative to Oxbridge or Durham or LSE. A lack of strong postgraduate programmes and extensive research means that St Andrew's probably won't join the RG any time soon.

The most likely candidates IMO would be Bath, Leicester, Lancaster and possibly Loughborough.

Yes but don't forget specialist colleges like say the LSHTM which is considered the best in the world in the field it specialises in.

What I notice more so about UK universities is that some will stand out for particular departments. Very few can claim to be uber selective across all subjects that it offers I.e. You'd need at least A*AA to get onto any undergraduate programme at Cambridge but could get into Liverpool with less than BCC.

Bath is the twin of Bristol, IMO. The others you mention are a bit behind RG overall. Durham is not number 3 for prestige, that goes to Imperial/LSE. Durham is top 10, however.

It is true that some RG unis are more selective than others. Liverpool may suffer poor grades in some courses, but in others it asks for AAAA (Medicine, Vet Science, Dentistry). The more places a university offers, the less selective it becomes. At postgraduate level Oxbridge are much easier to get into.

In terms of selectivity it's high up there and given that are imperial and LSE are very specialist institutions, Durham would come close to being the third best university that offered a diverse range of course across most disciplines

Oh I would disagree with the latter you still need top notch grades for postgrad study at Oxbridge.