St Andrews University: A Warning

At my university the PhD students do not teach in lecturers or seminars at all.

Harvard

So Harvard definitely employs graduate TAs, i.e. PhD students who teach.

Harvard

ORLY?

Seriously, which university do you attend? Or plan on attending?

You will just judge it, unless it was Oxbridge. It is a top 10 Russell Group university.

Now looking at Royal Holloway for MSc.

London Met. Unmistakable.

Yes, but as you've already pointed out, you don't tell the truth.

You must be living in 2005 because St Andrews has been top 5 for 10 years. Look at the rankings.

So, in answer to my question, no. I genuinely have no idea how somebody could attack the academic quality of an institution on an online forum without even having studied there, and this is as somebody who does not see the place through rose tinted glasses by any stretch of the imagination. Get a hobby or something.

The Times University Guide had St Andrews at 26th in 2007, the first year that the student satisfaction was brought in to replace the teaching quality assessments. Kind of killed the value of the ranking.

That is one ranking in one year, can you link me to anything? How about the Guardian, Complete?

If your point is that the league tables are unreliable I can agree with you on that. If your point is St Andrews is not a top 10 university, I cannot agree with you on that.

IMO, the UK rankings died the day student satisfaction replaced teaching quality assessments. St Andrews is top 10 for prestige, but not top 10 when teaching and research are given equal weighting. Would be close to a top 10 though, around top 15.

How do you calculate that? It seems that employers and other universities do not take the same position as you. I'm surprised people are even taking time to reply to you, your arguments are based on nothing but stats.

This thread has veered severely off-course, where have the mods gone in this forum?

When St Andrews joins the Russell Group, or gets into the top 10 for graduate employer targeting, then I'd be happy to share that view. People have stated in this thread that the teaching is at times poor, and the World rankings and REF suggest St Andrews can't compete with the top 10 most research intensive universities.

On a separate note, this thread should have been closed by now. Everyone knows how dull St Andrews can be.

St Andrews will probably never join the Russell Group since the Russell Group is for universities that have large research grants. St Andrews is just too small (as in we don't have enough staff/students) to attract enough grant money.

St Andrews didn't do that badly in REF tbf.

St Andrews will probably never join the Russell Group since the Russell Group is for universities that have large research grants. St Andrews is just too small (as in we don't have enough staff/students) to attract enough grant money.

St Andrews didn't do that badly in REF tbf.

I regret picking St Andrews for my summer school. Should have picked Edinburgh :/

What makes you think that?
I have been there last summer and I was impressed.It cannot be better than StA