Cambridge, Oxford or any others?

No way! Mind me asking what you got for Maths and Further Maths AS?

St Andrews is basically the Scottish version of Oxbridge in terms of prestige. It's by no means a low-ranked university. It's just odd in that it happens not to have joined the Russel Group.

Did maths whole a level last year, going to do further maths whole a level this year. Got an A* last year with 100 in C4, M1.

You need to teach me how you go abouts advanced Mathematical thinking to solve problems that require higher level thinking rather than just a good memory.

So is St Andrews better than Imperial/Cambridge/Oxford/UCL/Kings/Birmingham at Computer Science?

If it was that good, how comes St Andrews is barely a World top 100 university, whilst Oxbridge is top 10? St Andrews is prestigious for being an ancient university, NOT because it is in the same league as Oxbridge, LSE, UCL, Imperial, Bristol, Edinburgh and Warwick. Likewise with Durham. If you looked at the REF results and World Rankings (the things universities actually measure themselves on), St Andrews and Durham would struggle to ever get into the UK top 10. To their credit, they have very high typical entry requirements (AAA/A*AA), so they generally attract brighter students than higher ranked unis like Birmingham and Glasgow.

I get the impression that some students haven't got the faintest idea that universities care a trillion times more about the World Rankings and REF than the UK league tables. Nowadays the challenge is for universities to be seen as global, attracting the best students and professors worldwide. They also need lots of resources to fund World-class research to stay at the top of the rankings.

St Andrews is not in the Russell Group as the main requirement is for members to demonstrate World-class research across a wide range of subjects. Neither St Andrews or Bath meet that essential requirement.

I really don't know as neither I nor any of my friends do Computer Science. I was just making the point that St Andrews isn't the terrible university that some people were implying it to be.

I really don't know as neither I nor any of my friends do Computer Science. I was just making the point that St Andrews isn't the terrible university that some people were implying it to be.

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Ok, I've just done more research and I've found out that these univeristies are the best for Computer Science in the UK:

Cambridge
Oxford
Imperial
Edinburgh
UCL
Manchester
Kings College


Now, I really want to try and get into Cambridge or Imperial so those two are my top priority but then I have 3 more gaps to fill which are Edinburgh, UCL, Manchester or Kings.

I'm on the course with Kings which is called K+ and it basically gives us advice that we would get - just my school is too poor to offer it - and like nearly all people on K+ have a guarentued offer for Kings, so that's great for me but Kings is last in those universities. It's not crap, I'm just aiming for the highest so I don't know what to ditch between Kings, Manchester, Edinburgh and UCL.

Have you been to any open days? If not, it would be a good thing to consider doing if you can. You'd get to see the cities, possibly have a look round the departments and talk to staff and current students.

I think you're overstating how great Cambridge is! To be honest, at the top of the league tables, the differences between the quality of course and prestige of university aren't that big. You're going to get an amazing education whether you go to Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial etc. Cambridge is an elite institution in terms of education but so are Oxford and Imperial. You are definitely not short-changing yourself by going to any of those instead of Cambridge (particularly Oxford since a lot of people would argue that their CompSci department is the best in the UK, and it definitely wins in terms of graduate starting salary). If you want to go to a world leading university, you're obviously going to be in an elite environment. Financially and socially though, they're really not. Most people there are very down to earth, I wouldn't worry about that.

St Andrews is a very good school. The fact that it's not in the Russell Group means absolutely nothing other than that they didn't negotiate with those universities who are in the group. They are better than more than half of the RG universities.

Saying St Andrews shouldn't be considered a top university simply because it's not in the RG is like saying MIT is not a top university by default because it's not in the Ivy League, when in reality their only actual rival is Harvard.

With that said, St Andrews's position on The Guardian's league table is biased towards their favour because of their being a Scottish university. They are very small, and so like the LSE, their admission scores got bumped up; that studying there is free for Scots and could lead you directly to a Master of Arts instead of a Bachelor of Arts also lead to more applicants than they 'deserve' to have. And admission score is a big factor in this particular table. Then of course the fact that His Royal Highness Prince William, The Duke of Cambridge having read that made them unusually popular among applicants. Keep in mind also, is that their table calculates satisfaction as well (in various aspects), and people who applied to St Andrews are likely to be choosing them because they do want to go there, instead of the equally good people who end up at schools like UCL, Imperial, or Durham who are more likely to be Oxbridge rejects and thus less happy about going to their universities to begin with.

Regardless of what the league tables say, you are still a lot more likely to get a better education at Oxford or Cambridge for the money they have got and the tutorial system they have. They also have the two lowest drop-out rates in the country.

Between the two of them, I don't really know which one is better. If you're going for prestige and name recognition world-wide, your only choices in the world are Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Stanford, and perhaps Berkeley and Yale; and between Oxbridge, Oxford is the more famous one globally. In terms of employment, none of these universities lead you straight to a CEO position unless you start your own company, in which case MIT might be your choice of studies. Cambridge has a slightly higher graduate salary but a lower employment rate compared to Oxford (ie more likely to have a higher salary but also more likely to not be employed at all); they seem to be slightly more sought-after in business, engineering, and IT; but Oxford has a better overall reputation among employers (according to QS). With actual CEOs and millionaires, Oxford tops Cambridge by a comfortable margin but I cannot see how that should be relevant to you.

Im in the middle of year 12 AS so after I get my results and as soon as I see 4 As, Ima visit each and everyone of them I listed. I just wanted to know the true best universities.



Thanks for opening up the Cambridge vs Oxford argument. Now I can't decide

Wow.. Thanks man! I guess I'm picking Oxford.. Bye Bye Cambridge!

I think you're overstating how great Cambridge is! To be honest, at the top of the league tables, the differences between the quality of course and prestige of university aren't that big. You're going to get an amazing education whether you go to Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial etc. Cambridge is an elite institution in terms of education but so are Oxford and Imperial. You are definitely not short-changing yourself by going to any of those instead of Cambridge (particularly Oxford since a lot of people would argue that their CompSci department is the best in the UK, and it definitely wins in terms of graduate starting salary). If you want to go to a world leading university, you're obviously going to be in an elite environment. Financially and socially though, they're really not. Most people there are very down to earth, I wouldn't worry about that.

Wow. Just Wow. You read my mind and flipped it. Thanks! So REF and World Rankings are more important? Bye Bye Guardian Rankings then

Erm Cambridge Computer Science avg starting salary £31k, 94% employed/further study http://university.which.co.uk/university-of-cambridge-c05/computer-science-3-years-9000-g400-13239

Oxford Computer Science avg starting salary £30.2k, 92% employed/further study http://university.which.co.uk/university-of-oxford-o33/computer-science-3-years-9000-g400-58900

Imperial Computer Science avg starting salary £34.3k, 95% employed/further study http://university.which.co.uk/imperial-college-london-i50/computing-4-years-9000-g401

So clearly not winning in terms of graduate salary... Imperial's is slightly inflated by the London factor but still.

don't listen to him OP, he's just spouting biased rubbish just cos he's going to Oxford himself . Everyone knows the Cambridge CompSci course is better than the Oxford one, but Imperial's is (almost) just as good. The leaderboard rankings have got it bang on. It's:

Cambridge ≥ Imperial > Oxford for Comp Sci

In general, yes. But UK rankings give a useful overview on how competitive the average entry requirements are, student satisfaction, spending per student, teacher/student ratio etc. None of these factors decide how good the university is though, just only a snapshot of how much resource will be available per head to hopefully make it a better experience for the student. Though you can attend a very high ranking university and still be shell-shocked at the realities that the league tables don't show.

In short, visit loads of unis, look at the World Rankings (QS, THES, ARWU) closely, and skim over the UK rankings (Times/Sunday Times, Guardian, CUG). And select your final university based on where you feel is right when you visit, not just on rankings.

Erm Cambridge Computer Science avg starting salary £31k, 94% employed/further study http://university.which.co.uk/university-of-cambridge-c05/computer-science-3-years-9000-g400-13239

Oxford Computer Science avg starting salary £30.2k, 92% employed/further study http://university.which.co.uk/university-of-oxford-o33/computer-science-3-years-9000-g400-58900

Imperial Computer Science avg starting salary £34.3k, 95% employed/further study http://university.which.co.uk/imperial-college-london-i50/computing-4-years-9000-g401

So clearly not winning in terms of graduate salary... Imperial's is slightly inflated by the London factor but still.

don't listen to him OP, he's just spouting biased rubbish just cos he's going to Oxford himself . Everyone knows the Cambridge CompSci course is better than the Oxford one, but Imperial's is (almost) just as good. The leaderboard rankings have got it bang on. It's:

Cambridge ≥ Imperial > Oxford for Comp Sci