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relative prestige of Cambridge colleges

This post arose out of discussions in another thread, in which we were trying to ascertain whether individual colleges within Oxbridge were accorded varying levels of prestige in a meaningful way.

Of course, by its very definition, 'prestige' cannot be a matter of individual taste, but must come from some sort of consensus within society.

I would therefore ask participants herein to indicate their perception of the relative prestige of Cantabrigian colleges in some fashion. I suggest giving each college a score out of 10, but feel free to use any other means you feel is convenient, e.g., ranking the colleges from 1 to n, or grouping colleges together with broadly similar levels of prestige, etc.

The purpose of this exercise is to determine if the concept of 'prestige' really has any validity as applied to individual colleges, rather than to the university as a whole.

For your convenience, the colleges of Cambridge are listed below:

Christ's College
Churchill College
Clare College
Clare Hall
Corpus Christi College
Darwin College
Downing College
Emmanuel College
Fitzwilliam College
Girton College
Gonville and Caius College
Homerton College
Hughes Hall
Jesus College
King's College
Lucy Cavendish
Magdalene College
New Hall
Newnham College
Pembroke College
Peterhouse
Queens' College
Robinson College
St Catharine's College
St Edmund's College
St John's College
Selwyn College
Sidney Sussex College
Trinity College
Trinity Hall
Wolfson College

Thank you.

Reply 1

Joey_Johns

10

St Johns is the best.

Reply 2

RetiredAccount89

18

Prestige is a really dodge method of chosing college, but I'll rank them out of 20 for how good they are viewed within the university.And A-E on prestige (E being lowest)
Christ's College 15-C (geeks)
Churchill College 16-D (well nice people, but awful looking place.)
Clare College 17-B
Clare Hall 0 E (i still haven't met anyone from here, and thought it was a made up college)
Corpus Christi College 15-C (small so sometimes forgotten)
Darwin College 7-D
Downing College 17-B
Emmanuel College 19-A
Fitzwilliam College 14-D
Girton College 12-E
Gonville and Caius College 13-B
Homerton College 2-E
Hughes Hall 0-E
Jesus College 15-C
King's College 10-A
Lucy Cavendish 0-D (only cos of the cavendish name)
Magdalene College 16-C
New Hall 17-D
Newnham College 15-D
Pembroke College 18-B
Peterhouse 9-C
Queens' College 13-C
Robinson College 10-D
St Catharine's College 18-C
St Edmund's College 6-E
St John's College 12-A
Selwyn College 16-C
Sidney Sussex College 15-B
Trinity College 17-A
Trinity Hall 18-B
Wolfson College 5-E

Reply 3

RetiredAccount89

18

Joey_Johns

St Johns is the best.

You bring so much to a thread. Are you even at Cambridge?
J

Reply 4

Tek

7

I'd have put Christ's prestige higher than C, but then, you do know more about it.

Reply 5

Alex_R

OK, here goes:

Christ's College - My college and therefore the best, established 1505. College of Darwin and Milton. Has best academic reputation. Ali G went here. Overall objectively 8/10

Churchill College - National memorial to Winston Churchill. Good reputation for sciences. New. 4.5/10

Clare College - Nice college. Good academic rep. On strip of old colleges (Trinity, Kings etc). 6.5/10

Clare Hall - Graduate college. New? Not heard of much 2/10

Corpus Christi College - Small, old but nothing really famous I don't think, but has name everyone seems to know. 5/10

Darwin College - Graduate. Quite invisible. More recognisable name than Clare Hall. 2.5/10

Downing College - Reasonable academic rep - especially for vocational subjects. Good sports college. Mike Atherton went here. Kicking everybodies ass on the river this year - 6.5/10

Emmanuel College - Excellent academic rep. Generally regarded as quite a cool college. 8/10

Fitzwilliam College - Modern but with reputation. Reasonable academically. Sometimes good ents. 6/10

Girton College - Long way away. Traditionally college of female thinkers. Because of history 6.5/10

Gonville and Caius College - Big college quite rich. Steven Hawking is here. Big tradition 8/10

Homerton College - Famous for previously education only college. Quite far out 4.5/10

Hughes Hall - Graduate 2/10

Jesus College - Sporty. Old. Reasonable academic rep 7/10

King's College - Old college. Chapel. Choir. Beautiful. Lefty. Very lefty. Not very good academic rep in recent times. Anti tradition attitude 5/10

Lucy Cavendish - Graduate. Female only. Older than other graduate colleges? 3/10

Magdalene College - Old. Backward looking. Not great academic rep, but lots of tradition. 7/10

New Hall - All female. Has produced female academics 5.5/10

Newnham College - Sort of same as above. Bit older 6/10

Pembroke College - Good academic rep. Old. New master is head of MI6 - 7.5/10

Peterhouse - Old. Public school. Backward looking. Traditional 6/10

Queens' College - Good academic rep. Quite old. On strip (Kings, Catz, Trinity etc) Coolest college 8/10

Robinson College - New. Mostly known for that 5/10

St Catharine's College - Sporty. Not great academically. But on strip of colleges on King's parade. 5.5/10

St Edmund's College - Graduate. New. 2/10

St John's College - Rich, stuck up, old but famous. Good academic rep. Big and lots of history. 8.5/10

Selwyn College - 19th century I think. Decent in all areas. I quite like the buildings. 7/10

Sidney Sussex College - Average college in nearly every sense. Oliver Cromwell went here. Opposite Sainsbury's. 6.5/10

Trinity College - Biggest, richest, most famous. Very good academic rep. College of Newton, Milne, Prince Charles and many more. 9/10

Trinity Hall - Nice. Doing well on river this year. Decent academic rep. 7/10

Wolfson College - Graduate 2.5/10

Hope I haven't angered anyone, these are just things as I see them.

Reply 6

Joey_Johns

10

foolfarian

You bring so much to a thread. Are you even at Cambridge?
J

I will be in a matter of months. It was a joke, my dad went to Kings and he claims that is the best, of course he is biased, the same way I am. I also find you highly intelligent, you are very informative.

Reply 7

winorloose

Joey_Johns

I will be in a matter of months. It was a joke, my dad went to Kings and he claims that is the best, of course he is biased, the same way I am. I also find you highly intelligent, you are very informative.

Flattery will get you everywhere :smile:

Reply 8

Joey_Johns

10

winorloose

Flattery will get you everywhere :smile:

I was taking the piss.

Reply 9

winorloose

Joey_Johns

I was taking the piss.

So i guessed

Reply 10

Helenia

20

Alex_R

OK, here goes:

Clare College - Nice college. Good academic rep. On strip of old colleges (Trinity, Kings etc). 6.5/10

Alex, I'm not happy.

You ranked us the same as Girton!

And put John's ahead of us! And I thought you didn't like Caius. Not to mention all the others. Did we beat you at rowing or something? :tongue:

Some of the higher rankings I can understand, but I'd certainly put Clare higher than that.

Reply 11

happysunshine

8

Is it easier to get into the 'E' colleges? What sort of people go there?

Reply 12

Joey_Johns

10

happysunshine

Is it easier to get into the 'E' colleges? What sort of people go there?

I'd say it was mostly relative. Does your school have a specialist Oxbridge person sorting out applications?

Reply 13

happysunshine

8

Joey_Johns

I'd say it was mostly relative. Does your school have a specialist Oxbridge person sorting out applications?

There are lots of people that could help :smile:

I've got until next year until I start thinking about these kind of things. I do know what I want to do a degree in though... either history or linguistics.

Reply 14

Helenia

20

happysunshine

Is it easier to get into the 'E' colleges? What sort of people go there?

The ones J has ranked as E are mostly grad colleges, or for mature students. The only exception is Homerton. It's miles away (don't know if it's further than Girton as I'm not sad enough to measure) and has like 80% women. Look at application stats if you want to find somewhere that's easier to get into - I'd say you'd probably be more likely to get into a women's college if you applied there, but I don't know. When I last looked, King's still had ridiculously high applications/places ratios, despite the fact that its rep within the uni isn't that great. When I applied, Clare's were supposedly average, but apparently that's gone up; I don't know these things really.

Reply 15

Helenia

20

Joey_Johns

I'd say it was mostly relative. Does your school have a specialist Oxbridge person sorting out applications?

Is that like, their only job, or are they just a teacher who does that as part of their tutoring duties?

I never had anything like that.

Reply 16

happysunshine

8

Helenia

The ones J has ranked as E are mostly grad colleges, or for mature students. The only exception is Homerton. It's miles away (don't know if it's further than Girton as I'm not sad enough to measure) and has like 80% women. Look at application stats if you want to find somewhere that's easier to get into - I'd say you'd probably be more likely to get into a women's college if you applied there, but I don't know. When I last looked, King's still had ridiculously high applications/places ratios, despite the fact that its rep within the uni isn't that great. When I applied, Clare's were supposedly average, but apparently that's gone up; I don't know these things really.

I see, well I'd rather not go to any university if I had to go to an all girls college.

Reply 17

Joey_Johns

10

Helenia

Is that like, their only job, or are they just a teacher who does that as part of their tutoring duties?

I never had anything like that.

There were two at my school, one for Cam and one for OX. They are part time teachers too though. Hehe we had a 'director of studies' at my school on about 40k, since when and what is that!!!