The Student Room Group

What's wrong with Lancaster University?

Why does it seem like so many students don't regard Lancaster very highly? I know league tables aren't everything when it comes to uni choices but it's been placed top 10 in many of the tables. When I visited it struck me as an impressive uni. And yet people talk about it on these forums like it isn't on par with standards like cardiff or leeds :L
Is it just because it hasn't been around long enough to be seen as prestigious, or is there something i'm missing? Confused :s
Reply 1
Original post by Jumay
Why does it seem like so many students don't regard Lancaster very highly? I know league tables aren't everything when it comes to uni choices but it's been placed top 10 in many of the tables. When I visited it struck me as an impressive uni. And yet people talk about it on these forums like it isn't on par with standards like cardiff or leeds :L
Is it just because it hasn't been around long enough to be seen as prestigious, or is there something i'm missing? Confused :s
Lancaster is an excellent university but some people on here refuse to believe that is the case. it has nothing to do with the age of the university - much the same as Warwick or York, as it happens - it's just a form of meaningless snobbery.

If you like the university, you like the course, and want to go there, then go. Your career prospects will be just as good as they would be at either Cardiff or Leeds, if not better.
Original post by Jumay
Why does it seem like so many students don't regard Lancaster very highly? I know league tables aren't everything when it comes to uni choices but it's been placed top 10 in many of the tables. When I visited it struck me as an impressive uni. And yet people talk about it on these forums like it isn't on par with standards like cardiff or leeds :L
Is it just because it hasn't been around long enough to be seen as prestigious, or is there something i'm missing? Confused :s


Well, if you want to base it on the grades of students

Leeds> Lancaster > Cardiff in terms of UCAS points.

In terms of grad prospects

Lancaster > Cardiff > Leeds

Based off CUG.

I don't regard it as a top 10, I see it as a top 20. I think it's marginally worse than Leeds, and marginally better than Cardiff. Those three universities are in the same tier, I think. Lancaster would perhaps benefit joining the RG. It's a useless tag for anyone invested in academics, but for the general public, RG is seen like some kind of gold standard, even though some of the universities in it have fairly lower requirements and lower average grades than Lancaster.

Edit: one negative is that it's heavily isolated, literally by the motorway
(edited 7 years ago)
Reply 3
Original post by GradeA*UnderA

I don't regard it as a top 10, I see it as a top 20. I think it's marginally worse than Leeds, and marginally better than Cardiff. Those three universities are in the same tier, I think. Lancaster would perhaps benefit joining the RG. It's a useless tag for anyone invested in academics, but for the general public, RG is seen like some kind of gold standard, even though some of the universities in it have fairly lower requirements and lower average grades than Lancaster.

Edit: one negative is that it's heavily isolated, literally by the motorway
Why? Employers generally don't care about the Russell Group per se - most of them don't know it exists, or what it means if they have heard of it. Come to that, most of the general public have never heard of it either.

The term 'Russell Group' as used on TSR has become a curious but misplaced kind of shorthand for 'quality' or 'prestige', implying that any non RG universities offer neither, when it means nothing of the sort.
Original post by Jumay
Why does it seem like so many students don't regard Lancaster very highly? I know league tables aren't everything when it comes to uni choices but it's been placed top 10 in many of the tables. When I visited it struck me as an impressive uni. And yet people talk about it on these forums like it isn't on par with standards like cardiff or leeds :L
Is it just because it hasn't been around long enough to be seen as prestigious, or is there something i'm missing? Confused :s


Lancaster is as good as several universities in the Russell Group (Liverpool, QUB, QMUL). But for it to get real recognition it needs to either:-

1) Join the Russell Group
2) Get into the World top 100

Lancaster has always ranked in and around the top 20 in domestic tables (unlike Exeter and Liverpool), but they have to do better in the global tables.
Reply 5
Original post by Minerva
Lancaster is an excellent university but some people on here refuse to believe that is the case. it has nothing to do with the age of the university - much the same as Warwick or York, as it happens - it's just a form of meaningless snobbery.

If you like the university, you like the course, and want to go there, then go. Your career prospects will be just as good as they would be at either Cardiff or Leeds, if not better.


This, as always, is the only advice that matters.

Posted from TSR Mobile
Original post by Minerva
Why? Employers generally don't care about the Russell Group per se - most of them don't know it exists, or what it means if they have heard of it. Come to that, most of the general public have never heard of it either.

The term 'Russell Group' as used on TSR has become a curious but misplaced kind of shorthand for 'quality' or 'prestige', implying that any non RG universities offer neither, when it means nothing of the sort.


I would disagree with this. In recent years the RG tag has come into its own, and leading employers are fully aware which ones are RG. I would always generally advise top students to aim for a RG university, with St Andrews, Bath and Lancaster being the only notable exceptions to the rule.
Original post by Minerva
Why? Employers generally don't care about the Russell Group per se - most of them don't know it exists, or what it means if they have heard of it. Come to that, most of the general public have never heard of it either.

The term 'Russell Group' as used on TSR has become a curious but misplaced kind of shorthand for 'quality' or 'prestige', implying that any non RG universities offer neither, when it means nothing of the sort.


Seems like everyone at sixth form drives it home in all their decisions about university, it must come from somewhere ie the parents, teachers etc
Original post by Magic Streets
Lancaster is as good as several universities in the Russell Group (Liverpool, QUB, QMUL). But for it to get real recognition it needs to either:-

1) Join the Russell Group
2) Get into the World top 100

Lancaster has always ranked in and around the top 20 in domestic tables (unlike Exeter and Liverpool), but they have to do better in the global tables.


I think they're higher than a few RGs in global tables. They're hovering around the low 100s. They're getting ****ed by not being in London, and by not being old. Global tables measure alumni, prizes, international students, research etc. Lancaster being small, isolated and young is a bit disadvantaged by that system
Original post by GradeA*UnderA
Seems like everyone at sixth form drives it home in all their decisions about university, it must come from somewhere ie the parents, teachers etc


When I was at sixth form several years ago the teachers often said that Durham was the next best after Oxbridge. Such misinformation made me laugh inside, as I was fully aware that Imperial, LSE and UCL were miles better. Even Edinburgh, KCL and Bristol were considered better then.
Original post by GradeA*UnderA
I think they're higher than a few RGs in global tables. They're hovering around the low 100s. They're getting ****ed by not being in London, and by not being old. Global tables measure alumni, prizes, international students, research etc. Lancaster being small, isolated and young is a bit disadvantaged by that system


But many of the RG universities have at least been in the World top 100, if only for a year or two. Lancaster has never been ranked this high. And if they don't do it soon, they might never be able to, because they've literally spent lots of borrowed money from banks, of which they will spend a generation paying back (just like Durham and St Andrews and Exeter).
Original post by Magic Streets
When I was at sixth form several years ago the teachers often said that Durham was the next best after Oxbridge. Such misinformation made me laugh inside, as I was fully aware that Imperial, LSE and UCL were miles better. Even Edinburgh, KCL and Bristol were considered better then.


Well, I wouldn't say "miles better", but yeah, better. It does sometimes baffle me some of the things teachers say about universities; one of mine said Exeter is the place people who can't get into Oxbridge usually go - I know only of J.K Rowling that's done that :smile:

I suppose people living in London are naturally more aware of the prestige of London universities. Being in Wales, everyone thinks Bristol is top 5, Cardiff is top 15 at the worst. It's just a bit annoying.
Original post by Magic Streets
But many of the RG universities have at least been in the World top 100, if only for a year or two. Lancaster has never been ranked this high. And if they don't do it soon, they might never be able to, because they've literally spent lots of borrowed money from banks, of which they will spend a generation paying back (just like Durham and St Andrews and Exeter).


Brexit is going to ruin all U.K places on the global scale, UCL and Imperial will probably lose top 10, and Oxbridge my slip to the edge of the top 10 - only because of international students, the score at the high ends of the tables are very tight
I think it is a lot to do with the fact that it isn't in the Russell group, which is completely unfair.
Original post by GradeA*UnderA
Well, I wouldn't say "miles better", but yeah, better. It does sometimes baffle me some of the things teachers say about universities; one of mine said Exeter is the place people who can't get into Oxbridge usually go - I know only of J.K Rowling that's done that :smile:

I suppose people living in London are naturally more aware of the prestige of London universities. Being in Wales, everyone thinks Bristol is top 5, Cardiff is top 15 at the worst. It's just a bit annoying.


Outside of the very top universities (Oxbridge, London, Edinburgh) there isn't much in it between them. For instance, the head of Plant Sciences at Nottingham was educated at Oxford and Cambridge, and the head of Physics at Oxford and Harvard. If you are being taught by people of this calibre, you can't really say that you are getting a worse education at Nottingham than at Durham or Warwick.
Original post by izpenguin
I think it is a lot to do with the fact that it isn't in the Russell group, which is completely unfair.


That's one of the reasons, but far from the only one. People haven't forgotten that the universities that dominated higher education in the 80s and 90s are still considered the best today, and Lancaster wasn't quite up there with the best in those days. Tradition is a big thing.
Loughborough!!!!!!!

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