Uni rankings

Hi
What is the difference between QS university rankings and university league tables found on websites like the complete university guide? Thanks for your help

Hi
What is the difference between QS university rankings and university league tables found on websites like the complete university guide? Thanks for your help

Different rankings give different weightings to different factors. Most league tables will explain how they calculate the rankings if you dig around their websites a bit.

The complete university guide is good though because it will give you rankings by subject which is more important in many ways than general ranking (in so far as university rankings are important/useful).

QS rankings
THE rankings
US Newsweek Global Universities
ARWU rankings

These all measure international performance...usually factoring in research output, a mix of surveys, employability, nobel prize recepients, staff to student ratio. Basically the universities that do well here are considered universally prestigious.

The complete university guide
The guardian (wouldn't trust it)

They measure more homegrown metrics.....and base their decisions heavily on student satisfaction surveys conducted within the UK in addition to employment prospect surveys, entry standards (a big metric here that wouldn't apply in a few countries with very good uni's due to policy), staff to student, facilities spend, good honours.

These rankings display domestic prestige or perceived success... Nationally. Often they don't translate to global tables.....A common example being Bath and Loughborough, St. Andrews... They are top domestic uni's.... But aren't really seen as great in international league tables.

Most people in the UK rely on the complete university guide to make decisions about undergrad study.

Personally I'm much more interested in employability... And find the Highfliers research as a great metric for a more accurate outcome based assessment..

Ultimately, you go to uni to get a job (or most ppl do). So employment prospects are more important to me then a domestic newspapers assessment.

I personally also tend to trust international rankings more, i find them more interesting to see where a uni really stands.

The big problem is that the international rankings favour older universities in big cities. Other than Oxford and Cambridge the 2 oldest the ranking shows UCL, Imperial, Edinburgh, Manchester, Kings, LSE, and Bristol as its top university. All in big cities and older universities.

The UK universities all look at things differently but dont favour universities on whether they are in big or small cities. They try to accurately assess things based on entry standards, teaching quality etc.

Ok thanks for your help. It’s just that I’m looking at the Kings Dental course and their website says 2nd in the world based on QS rankings whereas the complete university guide doesn’t even have them top in Britain for dentistry.

Well for one thing, medical school rankings don't matter in the slightest... You literally just pick the place you want to go most. But obviously if you announce to someone you went to King's college London in general people may respect that more... Then if you went to say Derby.....but in medicine... It's the same degree with the same outcome.

@swanseajack1

Seems to have this thesis where the international rankings favour big cities making them wrong.

I tend to think well actually it's the other way around domestic rankings are bought by having close ties with those local news sources. Not encompassing a realistic global assessment.

If you follow the international rankings over a number of years you would find what I am saying is correct. Take Kings as an example. Every year it ranks very highly in QS but does poorly in ALL the UK rankings. Manchester, Bristol and Edinburgh are also cases in point. It is no coincidence that most London universities and Edinburgh come out poorly in student satisfaction surveys. When you look at entry standards St Andrews does better than Edinburgh. It also comes out top in student satisfaction. The future king and queen went there. Why did royalty choose it.

No ranking system is totally accurate but the CUG is the most accurate. The system used does favour Scottish universities over English ones since AS levels have not been taken by most English students due to changes to linear A levels so really cannot be accurately used to compare Scottish and English universities.

QS and THE favour the older big city universities and always have. Universities like Bath and Lancaster suffer for this. Bath for example has students with higher entry standards, student satisfaction and better graduate prospects than Kings but QS ranks Kings far higher. Kings is an older institution in a huge city whilst Bath is a more modern university in a small city. 4 London universities, Bristol, Manchester and Edinburgh all in the top 50 according to the QS. All older universities in bigger cities.

That might be true, but a long history and perceived prestige... Are also factor's....

Bath can't just be ranked higher because it may have had a few good year's in the UK, when it's simply not as famous a university for example. 😅😂

That's why the international rankings are ultimately a better picture.

Bath might be hotshit in the UK...but that doesn't translate to the globe. I also doubt Bath does more research or really realises that much of an employment bonus... From a few years of data. But it's all very subjective... Most of which being student satisfaction...which i personally don't even think is that accurate of a measure....

For example in the NSS only 20% of my class even did it this year....possibly due to covid-19... 😂 But still its all subjective. I prefer international rankings as I have a more global outlook. But to each his own.

These are not recent events. They have been going on for years. If you go back to when Exeter and Durham joined the RG Bath and Lancaster were classes as top 10 universities then. It is not new.

Some of the others have been ranking lowly for years. Kings, Manchester and Nottingham have been out of the top 20 until the last couple of years. The only university that has broken into the top 10 in the last 5 years has been Loughborough whilst Surrey rose and fell. The other top 10 have remained for the last 10 years and they have been Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, Imperial, UCL, Bath, Exeter, Durham, Warwick and Lancaster. St Andrews has been the top Scottish university for all that time. These have basically been the same for CUG, GUG and Times/Sunday Times which all use different criteria but all are based on what is happening now not 100 years ago.

Mhmm... 😂 But your listing off universities that have a better name.

Lancaster especially doesn't fit into the air of Manchester, Kings, Nottingham.

It's like your listing your own feelings of contempt rather than realising... These are tiny uni's vs large powerful uni's with massive budgets.

Who leads applications recieved its Manchester, Nottingham, those type places which tend to be in bigger cities and have more to offer students overall and prestige wise.

Let's face it, the nuances of higher education within undergrad degrees are minimal at best.

The table for graduate prospectus make very interesting reading Lancaster 3rd Bath 5th. The Bath figure is due to its links with industry and possibly being a science and social services university increases its ranking. It has a £5000 higher starting salary than Nottingham so the facts speak for themselves. These universities didnt become universities until the 1960s so do badly in the international rankings but in terms of every subjective measure they score very highly.

I still doubt how that's calculafed... It depends on subject taken doesn't it.

Notts and Manchester also offer alot of fill courses, that tiny Bath doesn't offer. But no doubt Bath is a great domestic uni, no question about that.

Well for one thing, medical school rankings don't matter in the slightest... You literally just pick the place you want to go most. But obviously if you announce to someone you went to King's college London in general people may respect that more... Then if you went to say Derby.....but in medicine... It's the same degree with the same outcome.

@swanseajack1

Seems to have this thesis where the international rankings favour big cities making them wrong.

I tend to think well actually it's the other way around domestic rankings are bought by having close ties with those local news sources. Not encompassing a realistic global assessment.

Its good to see the rankings to help make a decision. but its also good to check out internship possibilities, departments, resources, employment prospects.

Ok. Thanks for the advice! Much appreciated