Most famous british university after Oxbridge?

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Based on the myriad students I met from the US during my time at UCL, I would say that you just spoke to the wrong people lol.

One would assume that those Americans who go to UCL know about UCL.

I talked to people who did not go to UCL. In fact, they went to a top 20 college in the US. Wrong people or not, they did not know UCL. I started off by saying that my "survey" was not representative. And let me reiterate that this has nothing to do with how good UCL is or how many people actually know UCL. But as long as we don't have official survey results, I'm afraid we must rely on each others' experience to measure how well-known these unis are.

Reply 41

erklam

It is really interesting how King's does not seem to impress UK people and many would not mention it as a uni they think is very well known abroad. Yet, so many people in this thread who was posting from abroad mentioned King's and it indeed has a surprisingly strong reputation overseas...
Also, on UK league tables it does not perform that exceptionally well, whereas it ranks much better internationally.

Reply 42

poohat

The gap between Oxbridge and the rest is so big in terms of international brand name that I wouldnt assume that anyone outside the UK has heard of any of them, unless theyre an academic or spent some time here. Its like asking "who is the third most well known football team in Scotland?".

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 43

Ruvermillion

Original post by Joinedup

have you got a table of those?
Imo St andrews in the usa and probably lse everywhere. Ucl suffers imo for sounding like its a university college, which most places is a feeder college to a more famous uni.
If i was hired as brand consultant I'd suggest the following;
imperial - london institute of technology
ucl - london university
liverpool john moores - liverpool john lennon

How well known would you say LSE when compared to imperial globally?

Reply 44

arbaaz

warwick or KCL or LSE

Reply 45

molly.

Original post by erklam

I don't find this difficult to believe, given that even in England a lot of people don't seem to know anything about UCL! I'm (hopefully) going there and 99% of the people I've told have no idea what it is. It's been confused for UCLan multiple times and once for a "university college". However people do seem to have heard of LSE/Durham (but we live next to Durham)/Imperial/Warwick. And university cities e.g. Manchester, Bristol, Leeds.

Reply 46

Slumpy

Original post by erklam

Indeed, at my school(in Scotland, admittedly) virtually nobody had heard of Kings, and not that many had heard of UCL. There was more knowledge of IC/LSE and other major city universities I think.

Reply 47

All-in

Original post by erklam

Yeah, UCL isn't famous either in my country. Same goes for Kings, Warwick, Durham, St. Andrews etc. I think some people really overestimate how famous UK unis are abroad.

Seapking from my experience, LSE is very famous, then Imperial. That's it really.

Bolton

Original post by Politricks

So? What's your point?
I never even heard of Whitney Houston until she died, and she was famous.

edit: of course Queen Mary isn't as famous as LSE or UCL, but it's definitely well known, saying that you've personally never heard about it isn't really a good argument.

Well it's obviously not he most famous after oxbridge. That's just untrue.

Reply 50

Chris22

3 pages in and no London Met jokes? Very suprised by this :tongue:

Reply 51

internet tough guy

Original post by erklam

At my US uni, no one had heard of UCL. Neither back home in Europe. I think that, sadly, it also has to do with the name. University College London is just not a memorable name with three such generic words.
At the same time, everyone I talked to in the US seemed to know King's College London. Some of you might not beleive me but this was my personal experience. I talked to over 40 students in the US and King's College London rang a bell for all of them. Of course, St. Andrews did as well (but I think that while St Andrews is known by almost everyone in the US, it is not so well known in other parts of the world).

I supppose the word 'kings' makes a difference as americans typically associate us british with royals :tongue:

, so its probably more memorable

Reply 52

Ronove

Before I (via TSR) discovered the existence of Bristol Uni in my gap year I had no idea it was a big city, never mind that it had a university (never mind two). Pretty sure barely anyone in my Sixth Form knew of it either. That's just a northern person for you. So I highly doubt it's that well known abroad outside specialist academic circles.

Nothing against Bristol though - I went there.

Reply 53

internet tough guy

Original post by Ruvermillion

How well known would you say LSE when compared to imperial globally?

Since they are complete opposites in terms of the courses they offer, I say it greatly depends on who you talk to. But I would take a guess that they're equally well known to their respective circle of people.

Reply 54

Arekkusu

Impressionistically I would say LSE, Warwick and Durham but the gap from Oxbridge is oceanic.

Imperial/LSE/UCL.

Original post by Arekkusu

Impressionistically I would say LSE, Warwick and Durham but the gap from Oxbridge is oceanic.

True about the gap from Oxbridge, but from my experience nobody even seems to have heard of Durham! Everyone's heard of King's, UCL, Imperial, LSE, and Ediburgh and Warwick- but somehow Durham, even as an unquestionably brilliant university, doesn't seem to have such a good international rep.

I wonder why?

Reply 57

innerhollow

Original post by saachi

Low intake of international students; not in an iconic location; lack of high-profile graduates; low or unranked on QS/ARWU and the such. Generally it just seems to be less of an "international" university.