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If you're actually skilled in your area of work, prestige is meaningless.

Prestige allows untalented and unmotivated people to ride the wave of success they surfed (and - for some - inherited) at the age of 18. You see it in these youtubers who can't talk for five minutes without name dropping their high-ranking university.

Ironically, the students prestigious universities weould want are those who needn't rely on the university's prestige.
1. Liverpool John Moores
2. Leeds Beckett
3. De montford
4. Ulster
5. Oxford Brookes
6. Worcester
7. Aberdeen
8. Swansea
9. UCL
10. Cambridge
Genuinely amazed people are putting Exeter so high up- it's solid top 20 I think but not top 10 for me. Plus it's got an awful history of racism, which if nothing else should put people off.

I'd go something like:

Oxford/Cambridge
LSE/Imperial (I just think they are more prestigious in their respective fields).
UCL
Warwick/Durham/St As/Bath/KCL (Dependent on field again).

Then: Bristol/Nottingham/Machester/York/Birmingham/Edinburgh (possibly Exeter) are much of a muchness, with maybe Leeds, Liverpool and Newcastle slightly below. But this varies a lot by subject. Then probably the rest of the Russell Group + Lancs and Loughborough- but again it massively depends- there are definitely some courses where I'd rate Lancs and Loughborough pretty highly!

It depends if you want to work outside the UK, as well- I think Kings and St Andrews have much higher international reputations than they do within the UK!

It depends so much on course too- the way people rate unis for biological sciences (for example) would be totally different to law.
Original post by SarcAndSpark
Genuinely amazed people are putting Exeter so high up- it's solid top 20 I think but not top 10 for me. Plus it's got an awful history of racism, which if nothing else should put people off.

I'd go something like:

Oxford/Cambridge
LSE/Imperial (I just think they are more prestigious in their respective fields).
UCL
Warwick/Durham/St As/Bath/KCL (Dependent on field again).

Then: Bristol/Nottingham/Machester/York/Birmingham/Edinburgh (possibly Exeter) are much of a muchness, with maybe Leeds, Liverpool and Newcastle slightly below. But this varies a lot by subject. Then probably the rest of the Russell Group + Lancs and Loughborough- but again it massively depends- there are definitely some courses where I'd rate Lancs and Loughborough pretty highly!

It depends if you want to work outside the UK, as well- I think Kings and St Andrews have much higher international reputations than they do within the UK!

It depends so much on course too- the way people rate unis for biological sciences (for example) would be totally different to law.



This thread is only about ranking prestigious unis, not about the racism (which is obviously terrible but this isn't what this thread is about). Exeter is quite prestigious on the basis of has been in the top 10 regularly on various league tables, it is a Russell Group university and their entry requirements are quite high. A lot of private school students tend to attend Exeter and their quality of research/facilities seem very good.
Original post by Lightning720
Prestige is a stupid measure, but I'm really confused about how Warwick (and maybe even Exeter) has made it onto some of these lists. I hadn't even heard of them until I was looking at league tables (as a starting point). I didn't realise people loved them so much until I came to TSR.


Warwick's mathematics department is considered on par with Oxbridge and Imperial. Their business school is also pretty highly reputed, and grads from those programmes are pretty heavily recruited by e.g. investment banks etc. Other than those subjects, economics, and computer science it is maybe not so reputable in other areas. However the extremely high reputation of those first two departments (and to a lesser extent the other two) buoy it up greatly in the general perception.

Also to be perfectly frank, these "Prestige" lists are essentially just a less informed list of "target" universities for investment banks. Hence, Warwick tends to feature. There is little other reason to group them together as such and IBanking is the only sector that trades on prestige in recruitment and doesn't care about what subject you've studied in your degree, which is the only combination of factors that would make any list as such including a specialist social science university, a specialist STEM subject university, and a range of more generalist traditionally academic universities together, make any sense.
(edited 3 years ago)
Don't really believe in prestige, it's only ever roughly correlated with course quality, standards, etc. and is a pretty useless metric whatever you're looking for. Different people look for different things anyway, you wouldn't really be able to establish an "objective" ranking.

Eg. while KCL is a more internationally known name, their maths programme doesn't hold a candle to those "lesser known" internationally like Warwick and Bath.

Have to admit as a warwick student I wasn't aware it was considered a "top 10" university outside of maths/CS/business/econ until I saw people complaining about league tables on FB.
(edited 3 years ago)
Original post by Karisa96
I'm surprised Loughborough, is not on everybodys list, as a top 10, uni.

The #16 guy has put it in ninth place
Oxford/Cam
LSE/Imperial/UCL
Warwick
KCL/Notts/Bath/Durham/Bristol/St A/Edinburgh/Manchester/Exeter
B'ham/Leeds/Sheffield/York/Lancaster/L'borough/Soton
QMUL/Cardiff/Liverpool/Leicester

Something along those lines. Point being that lots of unis are pretty close substitutes and there's less consensus over which is more prestigious, so getting a top 10 that people will agree on (unlike a top 6 which I think is less ambiguous) isn't possible.

Of course there are also some that are the best in their respective areas like LBS and Courtauld, etc.

And some unis have great departments like Cass at City, even though City's overall rep is lower.
(edited 3 years ago)
Original post by kayla2243
Based on prestige and past rankings:

1. Cambridge;
2. Oxford;
3. Imperial
4. LSE
5. Exeter
6. Durham
7. Warwick
8. UCL
9. St Andrews
10. KCL


So you are telling me that Exeter is better than Durham and that KCL is not as good as Warwick? Mate it has better alumni!
Original post by Anonymous
Give me your rankings

Here's mine

1. Cambridge
2. Oxford
3. Imperial
4. UCL
5. LSE
6. KCL
7. Edinburgh
8. Manchester
9. Bath
10. Warwick


This has been done to death. And why the anon
we are working jackets on fashion working on Men's fashion
Oxford and Cambridge are so similar they may as well just be put in the same category.
Original post by Anonymous
Oxford and Cambridge are so similar they may as well just be put in the same category.

To be fair - sometimes one has a slight edge over the other. (Cambridge is generally a bit more esteemed for maths for instance) But a lot of the time the difference is fairly negligible.
Reply 33
I wonder if people on here choose universities based on how happy they're going to be.

You know... as opposed to what their mother's neighbour will think :frown:
Reply 34
Original post by FRS500
I wonder if people on here choose universities based on how happy they're going to be.

You know... as opposed to what their mother's neighbour will think :frown:


I mean... I'd like Karen to go "oooooh shiny" when mum name drops my uni for the fifth time in a row but ya know.

There's more to life than Karen!
Original post by Anonymous
Give me your rankings

Here's mine

1. Cambridge
2. Oxford
3. Imperial
4. UCL
5. LSE
6. KCL
7. Edinburgh
8. Manchester
9. Bath
10. Warwick


Swap Bath with Bristol and you have the same list as I would have drawn up. Although I would put Cambridge at #1, Oxford at #2, LSE at #3, Imperial at #4 and UCL at 5#. Edinburgh seems to be outperforming KCL in the global rankings of late, so it could well edge out KCL very soon.
Original post by Anonymous
1. Liverpool John Moores
2. Leeds Beckett
3. De montford
4. Ulster
5. Oxford Brookes
6. Worcester
7. Aberdeen
8. Swansea
9. UCL
10. Cambridge

I assume this was a joke?
Experiencing the appalling level of teaching at Aberdeen first hand, I'd give that list a pass.
Original post by PomtheTom
I assume this was a joke?
Experiencing the appalling level of teaching at Aberdeen first hand, I'd give that list a pass.


Given that the first 3 are ex polys, yes it is a joke
Original post by PomtheTom
I assume this was a joke?
Experiencing the appalling level of teaching at Aberdeen first hand, I'd give that list a pass.

I’m assuming this^ is a joke. I experienced a fantastic education at Aberdeen, with quality and extensive teaching. Are you sure you’re not thinking of Aberdeen RGU?!
Oxford / Cambridge
UCL/ LSE / Imperial
Durham / St Andrews
Warwick / Bath / Edinburgh / KCL
Cardiff / QMUL / Loughborough / Lancaster / Birmingham

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