I am not going to a Redbrick/Russel group Uni.

Yeah definitely. But there are also different styles and criteria, often not easy to work out unless you are familiar with the department. Many of my students fall foul of this when doing joint honours degrees or courses taught by another department.



Absolutely. I get quite a range of abilities. My inclination is to teach to the top students at the expense of the lower students (because much of that is due to lack of effort). But the university often wants to dumb down for these students so they can all walk away with 2.1s.

This is the most important reason you should try to get into the best university you can. Otherwise you'll be stuck with slower learners.

Do you think if classifications were standardised it would improve the quality of university education?

To what level should the standard be set at?

i dont know how bad hull is as a uni but I'd definitely kill myself if I had to spend 3 years living there

i dont know how bad hull is as a uni but I'd definitely kill myself if I had to spend 3 years living there

What do you lecture in again? I know you did an AmA but I forgot, sorry!

I think for something like History the level of the other students is kind of irrelevant because it's based on your own research and reading; lectures and seminars don't hold the same importance for learning. You can pretty much take it as far as you want. I imagine for courses with lots of contact hours it would be essential, though? Having driven/engaged friends you can thrash ideas out with is important for all students, I reckon.

I was supposed to go to Birmingham, but I missed it by one grade. So now, I am off to Hull. I feel a bit ashamed telling people - purely because the Rusell groups have been hyped up so much. Am I worrying about nothing? Will my uni affect my future prospects?

I don't mean to sound rude, so please, don't take this offensive! I just feel disappointed I missed out on my firm.

This is the most important reason you should try to get into the best university you can. Otherwise you'll be stuck with slower learners.

This is where I am concerned. If you look at rankings by subject there are a lot of unis higher up the chart than red brick or Russell groups.

Do you go with RB or RG just because of their status or do you go with a uni higher in the subject ranking which is not RB or RG?

If, say for example, in your degree subject you need an A*AA to get into a RG but only say 360 UCAS points to get into one that is higher up in the rankings for that particular subject degree but not RG what do you do???

Not being mean but, you do want to study with people at the same level of achievement and aspirations as yourself but, also you do want to do the best degree? This is where the confusion is

Any advice of this would be valued.

Take rankings with a laaarge pinch of salt. If you look at different newspapers, they can have quite different rankings. If you compare year by year, the same system can produce quite different results. These are strong clues that the measurement is not very reliable. It's also ultimately subjective what criteria you include and how you want to weight them. Also remember that correlation =/= causation necessarily e.g. just because a subject has high employability statistics does not mean that it causes you to be more employable: it may simply have taken on more employable students in the first place.

Some things will be consistent - Oxbridge near the top, London Met near the bottom and so on, so you can be more confident of these broad trends.

So I wouldn't say a department with a higher ranking is a better degree. But one that does well in that and has high standards probably is.

I would also try and find out about the history of the course if you can. Courses can look great on the website (indeed universities have strong incentives to "sell" their courses) but that may not translate into reality. If a course has been running for many years, relatively unchanged, with good student numbers, that is a sign that it is a good course.

Exeter's a bit random...

Furthermore, you are claiming that the student who did not make it into Oxbridge is less capable than one who did. How do you even know that? There are very bright students out there who spend most of their school years bored out of their minds and who deliver mediocre results because they can't just be bothered, or alternatively there are students who perform worse than what they truly could because they spent years being bullied and have no esteem whatsoever.

Sister. Don't worry about it. Hull's a cracking uni, you'll do well. Nothing to be ashamed about going to any university, let alone Hull. Forget the Russell Group snobbery, it's just a TSR Bubble. Snobbery goes all the way up to the top and it's poisonous. Look at them pricks at LSE who felt King's College London was the standard of a poly. They don't realise there's people at Cambridge thinking LSE is a poly. That's the problem. Where does it end?

I study at one of your rival universities, although our institutions share a Medical School...wink wink. I bought into the Russell Group snobbery in first year, now I couldn't really give a ****. And you won't in time. Best of luck.

LSE is quite respected. My brother who went to LSE, has a friend from Cambridge, and they respect each others unis a lot. So I'm guessing LSE isn't seen as a poly by Cambridge students. LSE is up there, specially in Economics and Maths. I think you've got the wrong impression. Kings is definitely not as prestigious as LSE. However, it is far from poly standard.