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Respected Non Oxbridge universities?

Reply 20

fankan

What do you want to study?
Overall, it'd be Imperial, UCL, LSE, Warwick, etc.

P.S. I like your attitude! :smile:

Good luck to you!

Reply 21

MMA

10

A rough guide would be:
LSE, Imperial, UCL, Warwick, Bristol, Edinburgh, Nottingham, York and Durham.

Reply 22

amie

14

I think Bath is quite well respected :smile:

I'm not saying this just because I go there, but because that's the impression I get looking at league tables, the kind of people I know that go there, graduate jobs etc. It does tend to focus on sciences though, the only non-sciences are foreign languages and management as far as I'm aware (along with Politics and Economics if you don't class them as social sciences).

Reply 23

CamSPSer

Point 1) GCSE results are a better indicator of university success than a-levels. 13A*s is way more than the average oxbridge candidate will have and will certainly put you in a good position though take nothing for granted (not that I need to tell you that!)
2) A good way to work out what the good unis are is to look at their offer requirements. The better the university the higher the requirements - places like LSE, for instance often have AAA,AAB offers fora lot of subjects. This is particuarly useful for universities such as Essex or southampton which overall do not have excellent reputations but have some fantastic areas, for instance engineering/maths at southampton or social sciences at essex. Other indicators are the age (generally the older the university the better, though this is rapidly becoming less of an issue (ie Oxford Brookes)
Universities that are excellent at research are also the best generally: Russell group institutions is where you should really be looking (http://www.russellgroup.ac.uk/index1.html)

Reply 24

charlotteonlegs

egyptiancat

My opinion?
Manchester (although personally I didn't like it),
Nottingham,
Warwick (especially for Business),
St. Andrew's,
Edinburgh,
Trinity (Dublin) - especially for History,
----------
Exeter,
Lancaster (college system like Durham, 1970's build, but good reputation),
Bristol.

Hope that helps.

Other decent unis (redbricks):
Birmingham,
Liverpool.

what about bath?

Reply 25

President_Ben

15

notyourpunk

Point 1) GCSE results are a better indicator of university success than a-levels. 13A*s is way more than the average oxbridge candidate will have and will certainly put you in a good position though take nothing for granted (not that I need to tell you that!)

No they're not.

Being in the top 0.1% of GCSE students (11 A* or better I think) tend not to better than the top 0.1% of A Level students (which is AAAAA or better as I remember it...)

That said - the two groups are very similar to each other. Differences open up as you move down the scale and away from the extremes. If you look at the very bottom. The absolutely failures at GCSE don't even get to take A levels. Let alone ever quallfy for starting a degree.

Reply 26

IainM

11

Just about got over my cambridge rejection.

Given that 4 in 5 cambridge applicants get rejected, even with top a levels and intellegent brains, there must be universities which cater for those people. The likes of london, the west country, St Andrews and Warwick i suppose are the best.

Although these are extremely subject specific. I would hope that from these universities with a 2:1 or 1st you would be equally as employable as a cambridge graduate with the same class degree.

Do employers know of these top universities?

Reply 27

President_Ben

15

Yep. They sure do.

Not sure about NatSci courses in particular because I don't take one nor follow employment trends in it...

Reply 28

IainM

11

President_Ben

Yep. They sure do.

Not sure about NatSci courses in particular because I don't take one nor follow employment trends in it...

from what i know it seems you can do anything. Most ppl do accountancy i think!!

Thats going to be the decision (if i get an offer), Im pretty sure atm that i would like a career in science im going to have to check that its still good given you dont get such an in depth education of science.

We will see but thanks thats made me feel better, general people seem to be single minded - i.e. think oxbridge are the only top unis, its good that employers see beyond that.

Another enhancement to this discussion would be the assertion that its possibly more important which class of degree you get ?!?

Reply 29

President_Ben

15

It's been discussed many times on this forum already... it really does depend on the industry. Many of them split universities into groups of equivalance (for lack of a better term).

Reply 30

randdom

20

top 20 in the gardian table that I looked at are
Institution
Average Guardian teaching score/100
Number of subjects

1. Oxford
2. Cambridge
3. Imperial College
4. Schl of Oriental & African Studies
5. London Schl of Economics
6. King's Col, London
7. University College London
8. York
9. Warwick
10. Edinburgh
11. St Andrews
12. Queen Mary, London
13. Bath
14. Manchester
15. Nottingham
16. Sussex
17. Aston
18. Surrey
19. Bristol
20. Cardiff

However there are only 14 points between highest unit and the lowest out of 100 so all these unis are pretty good.

Reply 31

President_Ben

15

Don't rely on league tables... they're universally rubbish after all...

Reply 32

alej18

5

The Ace is Back

Well to be fair anyone who can get 10A*s or more must be a genius :wink:

11 or more.

Reply 33

MMA

10

Ignore the Guardian league table, its a load of rubbish. The Times and Sunday Times are slightly better and give you more of an indication of reputation but even they have some serious problems.

Reply 34

Dr Pip

The Guardian tables are based on more accurate figures than the times. But you’re correct that the Times show more the reputation, rather than the academic rigour of the university.

Reply 35

randdom

20

I would have copied from the times but for some reason I am unable to get onto that page so I thought that the gardian was the next best bit. I know that legue tables don't tell you everything but they can be usefull when ruling out universities in the early stages.

Reply 36

YouKnewThat!

1

To the OP>

Well, it depends really. Imperial and LSE don't count for many people as they foucs on specific areas.
Bristol, Durham, York, UCL, any red brick universities eg. Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, Leicester, Leeds, Sheffield etc etc.