Why is LSE seen as more desirable?

I don't hobnob with investment bankers so I wouldn't know. But your 'evidence' appears to be 'I spoke to an employer and they said stuff was in UCL's anthropology degree that wasn't in LSEs...'. Which I just thought was quite funny having seen you demand evidence from someone else on this thread.

Hey! There's the general saying that LSE is better than UCL for everything it does, and that UCL is better for everything else. This combined with the fact that LSE degrees (apparently) have greater international reputation & employability makes it a more attractive institution overall.

My evidence is, as I have already said, is mostly based on RAE and REF results (which you can google yourself) and departmental reputation within academia and some employers, not anecdotal evidence based on the odd conversation.

Well from what I found online, by REF LSE is higher overall and higher in Anthropology (where it's #1). I couldn't be bothered to check every subject on that list. I imagine 'reputation' is rather difficult to measure but I know both are very respected institutions. Perhaps UCL has overtaken LSE in more recent REF rankings - the one I found was from 2014.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GzpAf_VvmUdhZK28sDgVtvFjfrNBli8ES65ZDHHlcTM/edit?pref=2&pli=1#gid=2038780975
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/sites/default/files/Attachments/2014/12/17/k/a/s/over-14-01.pdf

Did you actually look at the figures? Doesn't look like it. REF clearly shows that UCL has more 4* and 3* research than LSE. Actually UCL has the second highest percentage of 4* (world leading) research in the country.

Hi, on tsr and I feel in real life too, most people I have seen regard LSE as a far more desirably university than UCL. From my experience those who have offers from LSE and UCL, 9 times out of 10 firm LSE.

Any more details as to why this is, given their reputations are pretty similar.
Thanks

LSE benefits abroad from having a self-describing name. It is good for economics, but the reason it is known for it internationally above other British universities comes down to branding.

If you look at the individual rankings by subject for Accounting and Finance or Economics UCL does not appear in the top 10. From an international employment perspective in the Investment banking UCL is not seen as a target university but it is within the UK.

Oxbridge and LSE is well known worldwide but most people outside the UK have never heard of UCL and in particular the business world.

Most academics would have heard of UCL worldwide but for the general population internationally the brand recognition is very low.

I somewhat agree with you. But UCL is quite known amongst the I-banking community in New York, Chicago...
Nobody in the I-banking industry is going to think "Oh you went to UCL, but not LSE. You suck!" Both unis are highly regarded.
For the general public (i.e. you go up to a stranger and say you went to __ uni) in North America, LSE and UCL don't raise eyebrows the way Oxbridge and (sometimes) Imperial do.

This^ All the traditional targets here are known in the US i-banking community, especially because they're represented amongst graduates of the top MBA programmes.

When I speak to a randomer on a US college campus the following happens:
- Oxford is known
- People ask if I mean Harvard or MIT when I say 'Cambridge'
- St Andrews registers due to the royal wedding
- Edinburgh is known, more so for medicine than anything else really
- People don't make the distinction between UCL/KCL/Imperial, they'll only catch on to the fact that those schools are in London
- Warwick is synonymous with Maths

So to reiterate what everyone else has been saying, the people 'in the know' will be aware of the top universities here and will rightly so, consider any graduates from such institutions as they would graduates from top US universities.



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What about Durham for all these factors?

Durham is also well known (in the UK at least) and performing quite well in recent rankings.

Yeah I know its UK rankings, but more interested in things like successful admissions into top MBA schools, representation in domestic and foreign IB.

But... it doesn't though... Look.

That's not entirely true. It's also more selective than UCL because of its size. And besides people seem to forget that LSE's full name is 'The London School of Economics and Political Science'. It does other things besides economics.

Evidence please.

Yes it does. UCL submitted 36 pieces of research to REF, of which 43% was considered 4*. LSE only submitted 14 pieces to REF, 50% of which was rated 4*. Do the math. And if you look at 'research power', UCL is no. 1 whereas LSE is a lowly 28.

UCL is a large multidisciplinary Uni whilst LSE is a considerably smaller specialist Uni. UCL submits more research because it has 5 times the academic staff that LSE does and that research is very good. It is not a better uni because it's a larger which is why the REF ranking is by the proportion of quality research. Research Power is typically calculated by the product of quality research and the number of academic staff. All things being equal the larger the Uni, the greater it's research power. LSE therefore punches far above it's weight.

I'm not arguing that UCL isn't one of the best universities in the world but you made claims that you cannot back up.

Not to mention the OP is almost definitely discussing undergraduate prestige which is only marginally affected by research. Just look at St. Andrews.

The fact that UCL is much bigger than LSE is completely irrelevant. We are comparing individual Anthropology departments, UCL's Anthropology department is fairly comparable in size to LSE's. I have backed up my claims; you just don't want to believe it.