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Reply 20
Original post by SarcAndSpark
International academics seem to rate it- more so than they rate LSE (for example). I wonder if it's the name? Or maybe some of them are confusing it with King's College, Cambridge?


I highly doubt it's the latter. It looks as if their 'academic reputation' is very high (I'm not quite sure how that's calculated though) and according to the site they have a really high international faculty? They also have a ranking for international students which seems odd, but I guess that's to do with the fact that the more international students gives it a greater international prestige; it seems as if a lot of the rankings are pretty useless though.
Original post by Wikia
Excuse my ignorance, but why does KCL rank so high internationally but so low in our own national rankings?


Same for Edinburgh.

From what I can see, it's probably down to student satisfaction being taken into account in national league tables and things are just weighted differently.

KCL is a great university - don't let rankings tell you otherwise :tongue:
Original post by Wikia
I highly doubt it's the latter. It looks as if their 'academic reputation' is very high (I'm not quite sure how that's calculated though) and according to the site they have a really high international faculty? They also have a ranking for international students which seems odd, but I guess that's to do with the fact that the more international students gives it a greater international prestige; it seems as if a lot of the rankings are pretty useless though.


LSE gets ****ed for not having a medical school or an engineering or natural sciences department - a lot of research is generated there and unis who lack this fall down. Same case with light-research Ivies.

You'll notice those at the top have these, except Caltech and MIT who don't have med schools, but a larger science and eng presence than normal to account for it.

That, and it seems its not too rated by international academics.

I would pay little mind to it; your achievements of getting into uni x will be recognised by people here and everyone in the top 100 is relatively amazing anyway.

Shoutout to the Chinese students at Imperial for propagating the rep in Asia.
(edited 6 years ago)
Reply 23
Original post by 04MR17
Manchester down. Anyone want to give Wired a tissue?


That would only be needed if it went up...
Original post by Wikia
I highly doubt it's the latter. It looks as if their 'academic reputation' is very high (I'm not quite sure how that's calculated though) and according to the site they have a really high international faculty? They also have a ranking for international students which seems odd, but I guess that's to do with the fact that the more international students gives it a greater international prestige; it seems as if a lot of the rankings are pretty useless though.


Academic reputation is a survey of 70,000 academics worldwide. This is the aspect of the rankings given the highest weighting. I would bet money some of these people have never heard of KCL, but a) think they should have, based on the name, so rate it highly or b) are confusing it with King's college, Cambridge.

Most of the highly ranked UK unis seem to have a high ranking for international students, so I don't think it's related to that.
Original post by Wikia
Excuse my ignorance, but why does KCL rank so high internationally but so low in our own national rankings?


Student satisfaction.

It's managed to make Lancaster and Loughborough top 10 universities in the UK :biggrin:
Original post by 04MR17
Manchester down. Anyone want to give Wired a tissue?


I'm dead lol
this is ancient been out since september,

im hotly awaiting the UKs best league table release should be April-May time.

The complete university guide :smile:
Reply 28
Original post by Realitysreflexx
this is ancient been out since september,


June.
(edited 6 years ago)
Original post by Doonesbury
June.


Lol then why sell it like its new, thats fake news... kidding..

are you looking forward to the CUG 2019 i really am.
those asking why KCL > LSE, different rankings have different weightings. CUG has a lower student satisfaction weightings so LSE is always top 5, generally top 3. QS has a higher weighting to more social/lifestyle factors. From a purely academic standpoint QS ranks LSE as number 2 overall across all 15 social science courses, second only to Harvard. King's is ranked 54th by this metric.
Reply 31
Original post by Realitysreflexx
Lol then why sell it like its new, thats fake news... kidding..

are you looking forward to the CUG 2019 i really am.


Dude, I spend every waking hour in eager anticipation of the next university ranking publication.
Original post by Doonesbury
Dude, I spend every waking hour in eager anticipation of the next university ranking publication.


it does cause a rush of emotion lol.
I think it's really great that we have 1/5 of the population of the US and still have only 1 less uni on the top 10 than they do. And there's only 1 uni there that's not British or American.
Reply 34
Original post by GapYaar
those asking why KCL > LSE, different rankings have different weightings. CUG has a lower student satisfaction weightings so LSE is always top 5, generally top 3. QS has a higher weighting to more social/lifestyle factors. From a purely academic standpoint QS ranks LSE as number 2 overall across all 15 social science courses, second only to Harvard. King's is ranked 54th by this metric.


And LSE is only 6th in the UK for its keystone subject in CUG.

https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/league-tables/rankings?s=Economics

Posted from TSR Mobile
Original post by Doonesbury


Which is exactly why I take tables with a pinch of salt. That table shows since 2013 LSE has been 1,2,2,,3,2,1,2,2,3,4,6. Generally if a university is amongst the top group for it's subject then I don't care about the fluctuation. All you need to do is apply common sense, it's LSE they have the most nobel prize winning economists ever, and in recent times, of course they'll be good at it.
Reply 36
Original post by GapYaar
All you need to do is apply common sense, it's LSE they have the most nobel prize winning economists ever, and in recent times, of course they'll be good at it.


But perhaps not so good at teaching it? (TEF bronze...).

Posted from TSR Mobile
Original post by Doonesbury
QS has just released their 2018 rankings. The top 3 remain the same, and the UK still has 4 in the Top 10. Cambridge (now 5th) has swapped places with Caltech.

But overall UK universities haven't faired so well with 51 fallers out of 76 in the ranking.

Top 10 Universities
1. MIT
2. Stanford
3. Harvard
4. Caltech (+1 place from last year)
5. Cambridge (-1)
6. Oxford
7. UCL
8. Imperial (+1)
9. Chicago (+1)
10. ETH Zurich (-2)

Selected others
23= Edinburgh (+4)
23= KCL (-2)
34. Manchester (-5)
35. LSE (-2)
44. Bristol (-3)
57. Warwick (-6)
65. Glasgow (-2)
78= Durham (-4)
82= Sheffield (+2)
84= Nottingham (-9)
84= Birmingham (-2)
92. St Andrews (-22)

St Andrews is the biggest UK faller in the Top 100 since last year.

https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2018


Hi Doonesbury, thanks for making this thread. we have talked before on here but you probably dont remember - Im from another country and the first to go to university from my family so excuse me if I sound too ill-informed: Seeing this makes me think Edinburgh is a great university to end up in after getting rejected from Oxford. Although in national rankings like the good university guide it ranks reeally low - so I'm a bit confused, so do you mind putting a little perspective into that? :smile:


Original post by FinnToScotland
I’m so happy for Edinburgh 🙌🏽


Haha me too!
(edited 6 years ago)
Original post by transient life
Hi Doonesbury, thanks for making this thread. we have talked before on here but you probably dont remember - Im from another country and the first to go to university from my family so excuse me if I sound too ill-informed: Seeing this makes me think Edinburgh is a great university to end up in after getting rejected from Oxford. Although in national rankings like the good university guide it ranks reeally low - so I'm a bit confused, so do you mind putting a little perspective into that? :smile:




Haha me too!


I'm an Edinburgh Informatics student.

Edinburgh has TERRIBLE (and I mean TERRIBLE) NSS scores which is linked to student satisfaction. I have no idea why (Possibly due to accommodation costs and the general lack of accommodation within the city?) and neither does the recently retired VC & Principal, Sir Timothy.

National league tables tend to take student satisfaction into account, or in some cases, add more weight to it compared to other metrics.

I really wouldn't come to Edinburgh JUST because of its QS Ranking. You need to visit the city, the university, and your faculty to see if it's the place for you.
(edited 6 years ago)
Original post by Blue_Cow
I'm an Edinburgh Informatics student.

Edinburgh has TERRIBLE (and I mean TERRIBLE) NSS scores which is linked to student satisfaction. I have no idea why (Possibly due to accommodation costs and the general lack of accommodation within the city?) and neither does the recently retired VC & Principal, Sir Timothy.

National league tables tend to take student satisfaction into account, or in some cases, add more weight to it compared to other metrics.

I really wouldn't come to Edinburgh JUST because of its QS Ranking. You need to visit the city, the university, and your faculty to see if it's the place for you.


Hey! Which year are you in? Thank you for making that clarification in the ranking. I picked Edinburgh because of what it looked like too to be honest (I wanted to go to one of the ancient institutions) and also I applied for History and Politics and it seems to have a good alumni for that. I also heard from people who applied for History at Edinburgh and other institutions and they said Edinburgh is friendlier etc. I also didn't want to go to universities in London.

I did get an invitation for offer holders but it is not possible for me to visit all the way from Asia due to costs etc.