The truth about Top 5/10 unis etc

It'll depend on a thousand things, how good are your ECs, how well do your interview, what are your first year marks, what course are you doing et cetera .

ECs?

And I am just about to take my first year exams, doing History and Politics.

What's your point? I made no claim that it is front-office or that people working in tech div will be earning anywhere near front office salaries after a couple of years. My initial post as stated refered to people interested in mainly Tech (and finance), not front-office positions.

Btw, my edit in my other post made it clear that people still had to work damn hard to get their internships BUT, it helps when alot of the Tech questions they asked have at some point or another already been covered as part of your course, or you have come across it already in a project at uni etc. It's still a commendable achievement for sure, and not "easy", but before I came to uni, and people told me "I have a position in Tech at e.g MS", I would think of it as an amazing achievement and react with "Wow, amazing!", whereas now my reaction is more like "Oh cool, nice one".

I know a programmer in Tech who claims they work in front office because they are revenue generating (sell patches/new software/etc to other banks).

Yes the reputation of the course, but when it comes to IBs course reputations don't mean much, only the university's reputation does. Its a reason why Aero engineers from Soton will find it hard to get into IB, even though in the engineering world its a very highly respected course (and one of its Alumni earns about $15million working in a F1 team).

Yes, my point being that it is far more competitve to get into front office, and was trying to put things into context a bit.

Yes it helps a lot to know your technical stuff, but how is that any different to a CompSci from Cambridge, Oxford, UCL...? You learn Java at Imperial, or you learn it at the other end of the city in UCL, whats the difference? Yes the reputation of the course, but when it comes to IBs course reputations don't mean much, only the university's reputation does. Its a reason why Aero engineers from Soton will find it hard to get into IB, even though in the engineering world its a very highly respected course (and one of its Alumni earns about $15million working in a F1 team).

Your initial arguement seemed to revolve around the fact that hardly anyone was internship-less because the course was absolutely wonderful (which I'm sure it is, but that doesn't "almost guarantee" you a placement).

If you think the main element of a comp sci course consists of learning Java, you are sadly mistaken and I am wasting time debating this with you.

Using your argument, you could say that about anything, e.g You learn the theory of relativity in Oxford physics, you learn it in Surrey physics, what's the difference? the theory of relativity is the theory of relativity.

Course rep is in my opinion generally built on the quality of grads, which often comes from the fact that higher quality grads tend to have better knowledge of their subject, most likely due to a strong course.

No, my initial revolved around the fact that by observing my classmates, I noticed that hardly anyone was internship-less, which therefore seemed to ME that one was almost guaranteed a place.

Feel free to believe that in all cases course reputation is of little relevance. For the most part it is irrelevant, but there are a few cases where it isn't imo.
Anyway we're going round in circles here, you're not going to agree with me, and I'm not going to agree with you, so I suspect we're going to have to agree to disagree.

No, using my arguement you can't say that because my arguement revolved around comparing Imperial to top 5 unis, not a joke like Surrey. And I didn't say that course reputation accounts for nothing, you said it helped that all the people at interviews had covered the technical stuff as part of their course, I asked how is that any different to a CompSci from another top university?

Well that was very naive of you to assume that almost everyone was guaranteed a place on virtue of the course they were on, considering the nature of the industry, even though its back office.

Perhaps it is best to agree to disagree, but now I'm kicking myself for not doing Imperial CompSci which would have almost guaranteed me a place in back office atleast.

It'll depend on a thousand things, how good are your ECs, how well do your interview, what are your first year marks, what course are you doing et cetera .

Agreed, wouldn't focus too much on which uni you come from nor GCSEs (can't change it anyway) just focus on being absolutely outstanding at interviews, etc
Good luck