The Student Room Group

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Reply 1
Have been around for a few more hundred years......
Reply 2
Imperial is already the number one for science and technology. Most medics I know chose Imperial over Oxbridge and didnt even put it down as a choice as they find London unis course much better than at Oxbridge. For example at Oxbridge you dont get to see patients until the third year but in Imperial you see them in the first year.

Oxbridge is just better know because of how old it is and it is not neccessarily better than Imperial for science, technology and medicine. Imperial is a much more modern university and that is why it is less well known.
Reply 3
ashy2005
Have been around for a few more hundred years......


yeh but so has edinburgh (16th century) lol
Reply 4
love2learn7
yeh but so has edinburgh (16th century) lol

Haha edinburgh is in Scotland so it doesn't count :p:
Reply 5
love2learn7
yeh but so has edinburgh (16th century) lol

But Edinburgh is a good uni; if you're Scottish it's like going to Oxbridge. :p:
Reply 6
edders
It could reduce its intake by about 25% and raise its standard offer to AAA + interview-that-actually-counts. And have tutors who take tutorials seriously.


yeh i reckon AAA defo, not sure about reducing intake though.
Reply 7
If you increase your entry standards you're gonna have to reduce your intake...
Reply 8
Tom H
If you increase your entry standards you're gonna have to reduce your intake...


i thought most of IC get AAA anyway??
Reply 9
Hmm.. possibly implement a collegiate system? Seems to be the big 'thing' about Oxbridge (other than the staff teaching you..)

Other than that, poach a couple of nobel laureates so we rank higher in those silly world table thingies... top 10 would be nice (think we're like 11 in the Times one but like >20 in that Shanghai one)

That would increase the public's exposure to IC - which is what we need most... other than the way doors seem to magically open for you with an Oxbridge degree on your CV, there isnt much to separate IC and Oxbridge - and that is mostly due to the exposure Oxbridge has had to the world (in classic books etc etc)

But being specialised really doesn't help our cause as we'll never get the journalists/writers/politicians (read: public figures) that could extoll the virtues of an IC education to the masses for us...

Anyway just my rambly thoughts... feel free to tear it apart :p:

fais
Reply 10
yeh very true- dont exactly get famous engineers nowadays!

I wonder whether LSE and Imperial merging would be considered better than Oxford or Cambridge? Do you think such a merger is likely/possible??
Reply 11
lol like the idea of Imperial College colleges, that would really make life confusing for the unitiated!
Reply 12
ashy2005
lol like the idea of Imperial College colleges, that would really make life confusing for the unitiated!


either 'colleges' or 'houses', like we/they have at grammars and the independent schools. Dont do a Durham though, for some reason their collegiate system seems a failure to copy oxbridge (perhaps im wrong)!
Reply 13
love2learn7
either 'colleges' or 'houses', like we/they have at grammars and the independent schools. Dont do a Durham though, for some reason their collegiate system seems a failure to copy oxbridge (perhaps im wrong)!

Yeah I'm well aware of how houses work, and it does encourage competition, but I'm looking forward to getting out of that kind of system. I'm not sure how much I like being separated from other people and forced to compete with them, or develop a kind of weird ancient rivalry based on no obvious reasons.
Imperial is already the number one for science and technology. Most medics I know chose Imperial over Oxbridge and didnt even put it down as a choice as they find London unis course much better than at Oxbridge. For example at Oxbridge you dont get to see patients until the third year but in Imperial you see them in the first year.


Oxford and Cambridge do implement some early patient contact, though not as much as most other universities. It's debatable as to how useful\rewarding it is though and obviously the people who do pick Oxford\Cambridge don't see it as a priority.

I don't know how feasible it is for Imperial to make itself the UK's MIT. People don't necessarily just want to be around science students and perceive there to be better non-academic opportunities somewhere which has a strong all-round academic reputation.
Reply 15
Perhaps IC's reputation stems for it being purely a science college rather than an all round uni. In that case a merger might be a bad idea, and might damage the reputation instead. Just my random ramblings though!
Reply 16
ashy2005
Perhaps IC's reputation stems for it being purely a science college rather than an all round uni. In that case a merger might be a bad idea, and might damage the reputation instead. Just my random ramblings though!

I don't really see what advantage it would give us if they did merge. The campuses are in two separate locations and I doubt there's that much overlap to eg. save money through cutbacks. The idea of merging with UCL was mooted but that turned out to be very unpopular with the academics.
Reply 17
I think that merger between IC and UCL they were talking about a couple of years go would have been interesting..

Would have made us the biggest uni in the country (at the time.. dunno about Manchester now) and with UCL being debatably one of the best for law et al and a stat I remember seeing calling it the most cited university or something, thered be no stopping us!

But I fear with the amount of courses they offer dwarfing ours, we'd have just been devoured and become a single appendage to one massive UCL beast..

I quite like the idea of colleges/houses.. especially if they all had distinct personalities. Just like studying Maths at Trinity College, Cambridge or Balliol for politics etc is perceived as *the* places to be for that subj, there could be a similar system within IC, but perhaps with a vocational slant to show off our relations with industry and to prey on Oxbridge's weakness of preparing for academe.. eg studying maths at X college/house, IC is *the* place to be if you want to get into the big Investment Banks or something..

I think forging stronger links with alumni is pretty important too.. would be nice to go into an interview and the interviewer asking what house you were at IC and then either jibing at it ("their football team still propping up the league table?") or giving a nod and slight wink..

Another way could be with IC getting in on that crazy 'one uni only' action that Oxbridge have with UCAS.. candidates wanting to study Aero/Mech Eng/Computing etc can only apply to Ox, Cam or Imperial... would be interesting to see if that would work (or completely backfire..)

Thoughts?

fais
Reply 18
But I fear with the amount of courses they offer dwarfing ours, we'd have just been devoured and become a single appendage to one massive UCL beast..


I agree, IC would just disappear into UCL, which ultimately would probably disappear into one "University of London". I feel this would be a problem as the individual colleges in the university of london already do have their own distinct personalities. There already is a collegiate system, it's just a unique one.

I think forging stronger links with alumni is pretty important too.. would be nice to go into an interview and the interviewer asking what house you were at IC and then either jibing at it ("their football team still propping up the league table?") or giving a nod and slight wink..


While this is true, it can also lead to discrimination "you like UCL, oh dear they're our rivals, tut tut" and so forth.

Another way could be with IC getting in on that crazy 'one uni only' action that Oxbridge have with UCAS.. candidates wanting to study Aero/Mech Eng/Computing etc can only apply to Ox, Cam or Imperial... would be interesting to see if that would work (or completely backfire..)


That's possibly a good idea, but it could just as easily backfire, as you say. Personally I think it's unfair that you can't apply to both Oxford and Cambridge, so adding IC to that list would just limit the number of options for an applicant, and just make the system even tougher for the poor Upper Sixth Former.

I still think a merger would be a bad idea :p:
Reply 19
Can i just ask before i make suggestions- what are Imperials finances like?? Do they have "money in the pot"?