How important is university prestige?

Good luck getting into Investment Banking from Nottingham trent

Who cares IB they avreage £25.00 / hour when you take into account the hours they wirk.

As an Analyst, yeah. VPs, MDs make several orders of magnitude more than analysts and associates - working less hours.

£500k-£1mm+ is not chump change lol

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which uni are u going into

For the sake of this argument, I'm going to say that Oxbridge and the other Russell group universities have the highest prestige in the UK. This is of course a generalisation, but stick with me.

A few years ago when I was selecting which university to attend, I was in a very strong academic position. Amongst the top in my A-Levels, pretty much the best in my school, and I did loads of extra curriculum activities. It goes without saying that I had the potential to get into Oxbridge (although whether or not I would have actually got in is another question).

Now I feel this next part is going to make many here cringe...
I didn't even consider Oxbridge as a potential university.

Why?
Because their courses didn't look as interesting as some from other universities.

In fact, out of my five UCAS choices, only one was a Russell group university, but I did not pick it for that reason). I got offers from all five. I turned down the Russell group uni in favour of a university that was actually quite far down in the league tables at the time.

By this stage I bet many of you are thinking this is another one of those troll posts. But I assure you it's not.

Why did I do this?
Simply because I just wanted a course that developed me as a person, gave me all the skills I wanted, secured me a job, and was in a great location. I don't give a damn about prestige.

I am utterly insane. Sure. Whatever.

Story time!
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I'm in my final year now. Earlier this year I was applying for doctorate positions (PhD, EngD). I'm studying physics with a side of engineering and want to move into the space industry eventually. I saw the Open Uni was offering a PhD on their Rosetta mission, which is like a huge thing to me. I dream of being part of that team.

I applied for the position. Went there for my interviews - there were several throughout the day - and somehow was offered the place. I find it hard to estimate the competition for this place as the OU had a weird way of dividing up their scholarships, but I believe it was somewhere in the region of 5-15 people per place. One of the girls I met while on this day trip at the OU was a Cambridge graduate with some sparkling grades and she was really confident in talking to the professors and making herself stand out.

Somehow I was picked over her. Someone from a non-Russell group uni, with pretty average grades for a genius, being picked ahead of a Cambridge graduate with a perfect academic profile. Huh.

Anyway, I had applied for another position while this one was ongoing. Another doctorate in another location that looked interesting. This one had what I would call an open application system - they interviewed candidates as they applied. The OU position waited for all applications to be in before they interviewed everyone. For the sake of preventing personal identification, this second position will be kept a secret.

I was told when I went for this second position's interview that no candidate had so far made it past the first interview stage. They said they were looking for a high-calibre applicant to maintain the strong reputation of the university. Well. That's me counted out I thought.

Now, this position had been up for about 4 months, and I questioned them around the topic of applicants a bit to see what I could learn. From what I could gather they were averaging about one applicant per week for this position. So that means there could have been about 15 applicants before me who were all turned down.

Long story short, I didn't think I would get this place knowing those statistics. But after a grueling hour-long interview they told me the next day that I had passed. I was called back for a second interview, passed it, and then a third interview, with different people each time, and passed that one to finally be offered the position.

I saw a lot of potential in this new position, and selected it over the Rosetta mission for the sake of skill development. Both looked to be enjoyable projects.
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Now I put this forward to you: if university prestige matters then why was I offered these positions - one of which being my dream job? Why did so many, including a Cambridge graduate, fail against someone from a mediocre uni?
I am honestly nothing special. Even after a lot of thought I don't know what these professors saw in me to make them want to take me on.

Other people at my uni have had similar experiences. All getting either their top choice or one of their higher choices. Some of them have had similar experiences to me with being selected over Cambridge or Yale graduates.

Why are people so hyped about getting into Oxbridge or a Russell group university?

Why do people not see that these universities don't guarantee you a good career? From my point of view they don't even give a noticeable advantage over most other unis. This isn't the 1970s anymore.

University prestige apparently means to employers examining your skills. I don't think they really give a **** about which institute you developed those skills in, so long as you have them developed to a higher degree than other applicants.