Is Leeds THE dark horse uni?

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username2094811

Why are age and endowment relevant? Sure, there's a correlation between old unis and prestigious ones, but is there causation? I can think of plenty of unis that are more recently established but have used that to their advantage in pioneering in new fields. Imperial, LSE, LBS, are the ones that spring to mind.

Imperial and LSE are over a century old (I don't think LBS is considered a university). I don't think they acquired their outstanding reputations until much later on in the 20th Century. There isn't a causation between age and prestige but the correlation is undoubtedly consistent. But as I said, it has more to do with historical reputation than age (if we look beyond league table performance over the past two decades, which really is a joke in my opinion, I doubt many high-brow individuals or academics have ever taken them seriously). Hull is an old university but I don't think it's ever been considered particularly 'good' throughout its history (although it is a bit underrated) unlike Leeds and all the civic redbricks which have usually been (and still are) regarded as traditional academic heavyweights. One thing that can be said is there are no old universities which are considered bad.

Although I don't think it's really fair to use Imperial and LSE as examples since they're not typical universities. They're more like specialist colleges rather than multi-faculty universities. They specialise in fewer subjects so of course they're going to be extremely reputable for the subjects they offer.

Original post by JohnGreek

I'm not sure whether the difference in endowment means anything. Neither of these two unis have enough of an endowment in absolute terms to make them seem rich (and therefore 'prestigious' ) because of that alone. It's like saying that a homeless person is more respectable than another homeless person because he has more clothes and blankets in his trolley. That doesn't make him respectable in absolute terms either way. Prestige with regards to endowment only operates when that endowment is in the billions (and the uni is a stereotypically rich one, with lots of nice, impressive assets, like Cambridge)

I don't think it means nothing. There isn't a causation but generally the universities with the most endowment (i.e. over £100m) in this country tend to be pretty good ones, and the ones with no endowment tend to be ones nobody's heard of. CEOs generally give more money to universities they perceive as being good. I'm not saying Warwick isn't good, but the fact its endowment is comparatively tiny might be a sign that it's perhaps not quite as reputed elsewhere in society than it is on TSR.

Original post by JohnGreek

Geog at Leeds lets in plenty of people with grades below that of the offer. Perhaps that, its lower UCAS entry tariff, and its consistent presence in Clearing, is a reason why it's seen as less selective (and therefore less prestigious).

Do you have any evidence for this?

Original post by JohnGreek

Besides, Warwick has flagship courses (Econ, Maths, Physics?) that are amongst the most desirable within the UK, and a well respected Business School. Does Leeds have a similar fame in any field? If not, it's not surprising that it's seen as a jack-of-all-trades.

Not sure why being exceptional in a couple of subjects is necessary for a university to be perceived as 'excellent'. Leeds is generally pretty good for everything. So is Warwick. There are probably subjects which Leeds is also 'top' for, they're just not recognised on TSR because everyone here seems to be a Maths/Economics student (in fact I wouldn't be surprised if TSR is basically just a forum for Maths/Economics students at Warwick disguised as a website).

Original post by JohnGreek

Define 'substance' please.

If that 'substance' isn't academic rep, employer rep, graduate salary, research power, and a more academically successful student community on average, all of which are taken into account by the league tables, then what is it? A nice building that I can't even visualise off the top of my head? The only thing that sounds to be mickey mouse here are your completely arbitrary (and unconventional) ways of measuring a uni's reputation.

Not sure what league tables you're reading. All the ones I've seen seem to rank universities by things like entry standards, completion rate, percentage of 'good' honours, percentage of people in work after graduating (not graduate salary) and student satisfaction.

League tables are actually pretty awful indicators of academic rep, employer rep and graduate salaries. On average, Sheffield's graduates are amongst the highest earners in the country, yet Sheffield isn't even in the top 30 in some of those tables. They really are nonsense. Unfortunately a lot of young people are fooled by them. There's so much more to a university than how it performs on some (frankly questionable) measures.

Original post by JohnGreek

It's interesting that you present Leeds as a work hard party hard city, when it seems to be leaning distinctly towards the work easy party hard side of the equation. Take a look here. Compare Leed's position relative to other uni cities on pp 22 and 23.
http://personal.natwest.com/content/dam/natwest_com/Life%20Moments/NatWest%20Student%20Living%20Index%202017.pdf

I don't really see that much of a correlation between how 'work easy party hard' the unis are on that table and how respected (an average TSR-user perceives) they are. There are universities near the top of the 'work hard' and the bottom of the 'party hard' tables which I don't think are that respected. I wouldn't blame any student for spending a lot on having fun if the nightlife is very good. Not sure how having a great city nightlife = less respected uni. Most universities are in close proximity to nightclubs, it's just the ones in smaller cities will have smaller nightclubs.

Original post by JohnGreek

Postscript:
I personally don't find measuring prestige at uni level only to be particularly useful. We should be looking at individual courses.
I'm glad that we've stopped comparing Leeds to Bristol or UCL - that's an improvement.

I agree to an extent that we should be looking at individual courses - because then you'd find on average, for most courses the gap between Bristol and Leeds isn't particularly significant and that the calibre of those universities is quite comparable (in the same way most Russell Group universities are similar to each other, and most post-1992 ones are similar to each other). The grades you need to get into either are basically the same anyway.

EDIT: I don't buy into this nonsense that there are identifiable tiers within the top fifth of UK universities. Nobody cares if Oxford Brookes is better or worse than Nottingham Trent, or if they're 20 places apart, they're both ranked low.

If Leeds maintains its current performance on league tables, in a few years time students might consider Leeds to be on a par with UCL. I don't see why not. It's all down to what this generation is used to seeing at the top of the rankings. At the end of the day it doesn't matter because employers have a slightly different perspective compared to teenagers who haven't been to university.

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 21

username2094811

Original post by JohnGreek

LBS is as much of a university as LSE is. The fact that it does postgrad only teaching doesn't detract from its status as a research institution.

The difference between Imperial and LSE, and Leeds, is that the latter have actually developed a formidable reputation across the globe, both to students and to employers. Leeds, despite being of almost exactly the same age, hasn't. If anything, if this historical reputation you say it had is true, it's been falling down quite badly.

Fair enough. I'm not arguing that Leeds has always been seen as the next best thing after Oxbridge. I'm just saying it's consistently maintained a very good reputation as a university throughout its history (as have Sheffield and Liverpool) and that undermining Leeds just because it's not LSE/Imperial, or doesn't have any courses "up there" with those, is ignorant. It still has a good reputation across the globe anyway, usually ranking in the top 150 in the world. Compared to most universities on the planet, that's excellent. I wouldn't argue that its reputation has fallen down quite badly.

Original post by JohnGreek

Either way, it doesn't matter to current applicants or employers York was once held up to be the Oxbridge reject capital of the UK. It hasn't maintained this reputation. It doesn't mean that an employer or prospective applicant should make a choice in the same way their parents did 20-30 years ago.

But even current reputation doesn't mean that much (unless it's Oxbridge). Even universities that are currently popular might lose their reputation in a few years.

I personally think a university that's always been seen as 'good' is usually a safer bet than a newer one that's only recently acquired a 'top' reputation. The one that's older and has always had a good reputation will generally remain that way (because it's more 'established' ), whereas the newer one has to constantly "prove" it's a good university by maintaining its high position in rankings. Places like Manchester and Edinburgh (and Leeds) don't need to do well in league tables for people to know they're good universities. Bath and York used to be top 5 in some league tables and now they're never in the top 10.

However I would also argue that a York graduate doesn't suddenly become less employable just because their university is no longer considered to be the Oxbridge reject capital.

Original post by JohnGreek

Actually, no, let's assume that the overall size of a university somehow affects how well it does in certain areas. In that case, you'd be conceding that Leeds, as a jack of all trades, master of none, was mismanaged into overexpanding and providing too many courses that it wasn't/isn't good at, with the result being its average 'quality' across all departments being lowered.

You're just explaining why Leeds is an average university. You're not contesting the average-ness itself.

I don't think Leeds is an average university. I don't think it's an exceptional university either (that's not what I'm arguing). Although I don't see how the fact it's "expanded" and offers more courses means it's therefore a weaker university, particularly.

Original post by JohnGreek

And yet no one would consider a uni with a £100m endowment to be prestigious solely because of that. Not least because they wouldn't be aware of the size of a uni's endowment (seriously, you must have a significant age gap with the rest of this forum to think that a uni's endowment is relevant to undergrads these days).

No universities other than Oxbridge are stereotypically "rich", even by UK standards. Whether Leeds has an endowment £60m higher than Warwick isn't of concern to either prospective students, parents, or even the odd chap down the street. The homeless people example is relevant as always here. Being richer than a beggar doesn't make you rich. Being more wealthy than a uni whose endowment is worth less than TSR doesn't make you wealthy or prestigious.

Besides, you haven't proven that Leeds' endowment is down to generous billionaire alumni contributions (a la Harvard), or whether it's just because the uni owns a lot of land that it doesn't want to get rid of (this mostly applies to Oxbridge).

Obviously Oxford and Cambridge are going to be miles ahead of the rest of the UK. But I don't believe the fact some other universities have £100m endowment means nothing in itself. You're not just given that much money over a certain period of time for being an ordinary university.

Original post by JohnGreek

Leed's consistent presence in Clearing should be an indicator. Irritatingly, the Telegraph's Clearing website seems to update itself and remove institutions/courses as their vacancies fill up, so I can't provide a link proving this.

It seems that no one is concerned about their chances of getting into Leed's BA English Lit course. No FOI requests on this matter. I'll gladly concede the point if I have to - literally zero importance when compared to the rest of this post.

Warwick and Bristol are often in Clearing as well, most times I've checked. It's not uncommon to see them there.

Bigger universities are always more likely to be in clearing because naturally they have more spaces to fill. Doesn't mean employers think less of them.

Original post by JohnGreek

Ah, I think that you're misrepresenting the facts here again.

First of all, no, TSR as far as I know isn't a forum for Maths/Econ people at Warwick. Just take a look at the relatively low activity of the Warwick Uni subforum. The fact that Maths and Econ courses are popular at the moment, and that people are discussing them, and that Warwick happens to be good at both, doesn't by default turn this into a circlejerk around Warwick.

Warwick isn't good because it offers two or three good courses. It's good because these courses make up a significant part of its student body, and because it still performs very well in the rest of its offerings. I think that you've just admitted (as you should) that Leeds isn't that incredible at anything. Hence, I have to ask why a merely good but thoroughly unexceptional and undistinguished university deserves our respect as being the "dark horse" of the RG.

I was just joking really about TSR being a Warwick forum in disguise as a website (although it does sometimes feel like the university pays its students to promote it on here or something).

Do they make a significant part of its student body? Two courses out of more than a couple dozen? Out of however many thousand students there are, studying different subjects?

Warwick only does especially well (in terms of entry standards) in about 5 subjects. Bristol/Durham aren't as good for Maths/Economics but they tend to do better in more subjects (quite a bit better, especially Durham which does especially well in almost everything it offers). If you ignore its Maths and Economics courses, you'd probably find Warwick, although generally better, is not really that much better than Leeds for many subjects.

Original post by JohnGreek

Quoting this from the U of Edinburgh's site: http://www.ed.ac.uk/governance-strategic-planning/facts-and-figures/league-tables

•

UK rankings traditionally comprise a range of different quantitative measures of input, process and output including: entry standards, student satisfaction, student:staff ratio, academic services/facilities expenditure per student, research quality, proportion of 1sts/2:1s, completion rates, and student destinations.

•

To construct World rankings, however, compilers have to use measures that translate as reliably as possible across different countries/regions - i.e. for which comparable data, which are not inextricably linked to national prosperity or other local/regional issues, can be found. For this reason, the measures used in the World University rankings are quite different to those used for UK rankings and cover prizewinner affiliations, research bibliometrics, student:faculty ratio, peer review responses, and percentage international students/staff. [they forgot to mention the 'academic' and 'employer reputation' measures in the QS Rankings]

Which of these metrics do you find not useful, and, more importantly, why?

http://www.shanghairanking.com/ARWU2017.html

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/rankings

These are the only tables I think are worth taking seriously. Although I don't agree with LSE being ranked so low, generally I think they give more objective measures of long-term reputation (taking into account things such as Nobel Prize winners, which I think is alarmingly overlooked on here).

I also think this is a good table, came out in 2012 but I think it's more in line with reality:

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2012/10/25/world/asia/25iht-sreducemerging25-graphic.html

Original post by JohnGreek

Leeds ranks 10th for salaries, and Sheffield ranks 16th. https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/08/daily-chart-5, which in turn sources data from the DLHE longitudinal survey). That puts them behind about half, and two thirds, of the RG respectively. Not sure where the 'dark horse' thing is apparent, particularly given that the difference between Leeds/Sheffield and the unis several places below them is so small.

I'm not sure as to why you believe that salary tables should mimic league tables. By definition, they measure different things. More importantly, they can be used to complement each other. A uni is much more than its graduates' pay slips 5 years down the line.

There are some odd results from that data. Loughborough over St. Andrews? Oxford Brookes above Cardiff? Holy ****? Does that mean I should've gone to Oxford Brookes instead of Cardiff? (not that I went to either)

I was referring to this:

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/alumni-rich-list-top-20-uk-higher-education-institutions-for-graduate-salaries/2017984.article

I know it was published at an earlier date than your data (although that data is based on 2014).

I'd like to know how much money graduates make 10-15 years after they graduate.

Original post by JohnGreek

Not for all courses. Bristol and Warwick's requirements and UCAS point entries are higher than those of Leeds in key courses such as Econ and Law. That's where the difference between the two comes in.#

I'm fairly certain that students who studied at Warwick and Bristol get higher average UCAS tariffs (i.e. better high school exam results), even if the difference is small overall.

I don't think average UCAS tariffs indicate that one university is better than another especially when the difference is small (also if the university has a high international student intake, that sometimes skews things massively because high UCAS points from international qualifications can translate into lower A-Level scores). St. Andrews routinely ranks higher than Edinburgh on this measure but I'd say Edinburgh is the more respected university in reality.

But generally most people at these universities will have AAB. I don't see how someone is going to be penalised in terms of career prospects for choosing to spend 3 years at Leeds.

Original post by JohnGreek

something something extrapolation something something zero sum game

If I follow your logic to its full conclusion, Leeds should be above Cambridge by 2025.

Leeds' improvement seems to be slowing down as it competes with universities that aren't actually mediocre giants. It moved from 34 to 28 in the Guardian in 2015, but only from 16 to 14 this year. And this is the Guardian we're talking about - the protector and promoter of traditionally unexceptional universities (through its reliance on student satisfaction, a 'value added' score, and the lack of a 'research' metric).

Likewise, the big jumps Leeds enjoyed in the past in CUG (32 to 23 in 2014-2015) seem to be getting smaller in magnitude (16 to 14 this year).

I'd be interested in seeing this much-vaunted evidence of employers holding Leeds as some reservoir of reliable, hardworking graduates. More importantly, to focus on the question in this thread, I'd like to see evidence relating to Leeds grads being held as better than other RG grads.

I'm not trying to argue that Leeds is held as better than other RG grads. I'm just saying it's not worse than the 'better' RG unis either.

The fact Leeds is 10 in the Times (the 'respected' league table) is what sparked this debate.

Obviously it's never going to be above Cambridge.

Didn't have enough time to reply to all of this properly.

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 22

Pidge Gunderson

It's rated fairly adequately in my opinion. It's a jack of all trades - it doesn't really excel in anything. Bristol is also a jack of all trades (although it does excel in earth sciences, chemistry and Law), but is simply better for every course that Leeds has to offer.

Rankings are fairly arbitrary anyway. Aside from Oxbridge, Imperial and UCL which are the clear best, it blurs a bit.

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 23

username2094811

Original post by JohnGreek

Which unis with recently acquired reputations are you thinking of?

Warwick, since its whole claim to fame seems to be that it's never left the top 10 in any of the UK rankings. League tables are still a relatively new thing and it's not a long-established university like Edinburgh or KCL (those universities don't need to worry about their rankings).

And I guess Exeter as well, to an extent.

Original post by JohnGreek

I agree with your point about league table performance, even though I doubt that Leeds is one of those 'respected-no-matter-what' universities. That title for me goes to unis like Edinburgh and Bath. Then again, we come from different backgrounds.

I can’t imagine Leeds ever being regarded as a ‘bad’ university though, even if it starts to rank low. Liverpool has been ranked very low in some league tables (last year it was below 60 in one of them). However, I think most employers are aware that it’s a good university. I think having RG status helps a lot and is ultimately more vital to safeguarding a university's general long-term success than momentary league table performances.

Original post by JohnGreek

Not explicitly, no. However, going from the next best thing after Oxbridge to top 20 or 30 territory does impact your perception in competitive industries (usually the ones that TSR folks are constantly going on about - City law, IB, consultancy, audit, even the Civil Service), that offer the lion's share of grad schemes these days. You competing with better perceived universities can only be a bad thing when it comes to a recruiter's limited budget for sponsoring prizes, visits/presentations at your university, and so on.

Well it seems that the university you go to and where it ranks in the future (once you've graduated and if you're interested in those specific jobs) is all about luck, which I find hard to accept.

I don’t believe it matters a humongous deal even for competitive industries in general (the ones TSR constantly rave about are not the only competitive industries). People have different opinions as to what constitutes the top 10/20/30. TSR probably regards Manchester as a top 20 uni but many employers probably see it as a solid top 10. I don’t think there’s even such thing as a top 10/20/30 uni; I have not seen a single job advertisement state 'top 10 uni' or 'top 20 uni' as a preference. If jobs are being picky about universities, they mainly say they want a '2:1 or a 1st from a redbrick university' (with 'redbrick' meaning 'a good university' ).

Original post by JohnGreek

Agreed with you on Warwick being roughly on par with Leeds for a lot of courses, but that doesn't take away from my original point. Better to be known for something than for nothing. The same goes for Warwick being overhyped (which it definitely is, Warwick seems to be a place for those who got rejected from the good London unis and Durham)

I think your analogy (with regards to endowment) about a homeless person with blankets in their trolley being no better than a homeless person without blankets applies to this. Yes, it’s better to be known for something, but ultimately neither are particularly known for most things.

Somebody applying to study English Literature who thinks they’ll be happy at Leeds would be foolish to choose Warwick over Leeds, just because it’s top 4 for a subject they don’t study, and a target for a career they’re not interested in.

Those who get rejected from universities such as the good London ones and Durham generally go wherever they like in the Russell Group. Not sure why people who wanted to study in London would choose Warwick over several other big city RGs, unless it was for something specific.

Original post by JohnGreek

I'll ask again - why did you find the criteria, as summarised by Edinburgh's PR department, to be lacking? What does US News and ARWU bring to the table that the other tables don't, and, more importantly, why should we care about them? It seems that both of rankings you submitted are nearly entirely research focused, which renders them... not so relevant as the other tables (particularly the three UK ones) to prospective undergraduates.

I think research is frankly core to a university’s ‘reputation’, even more so than ‘entry standards’. Research is essentially what universities are all about as institutions. I don’t see how this is not relevant to undergraduates even though they're not involved with research; it certainly is a factor of ‘reputation’. All universities which score highly in research are widely considered 'good' ones anyway.

I think I read somewhere that the three UK tables are barely even acknowledged by academics (or others in positions of seniority/importance, I can't remember exactly, which I know doesn't come across well here). You could argue that mainstream league tables are of some importance for prospective undergraduates (as a rough guide more than anything, naturally 6th formers want to go somewhere with a good student satisfaction and where they're likely to get a 2:1/1st). My argument is that what prospective undergraduates think matters less than what senior figures/academics/people employing you think. Newspaper league tables don't reflect what the latter think, they shape what the former think.

Original post by JohnGreek

I think that it's odd that you submit the NY Times survey (whose precise methodology is not disclosed), when it shows other regional UK unis to be better than Leeds. Leeds isn't even in the top 150, but Notts, Manc, Bristol, Warwick and Durham are...

To be honest, I’m just using Leeds as a substitute for the redbricks in general.

Original post by JohnGreek

On the Nobel Prizes front...

I'm still not sure as to why I should care as to how many Nobel Prize Winners a university produces. If they don't teach there anymore, or have only ever studied at Leeds, how do they benefit the current batch of students? Half of the six prizes awarded to Leeds were awarded from 1910 to 1960...

That's not to mention that Nobel Prizes are not available in all fields of study (Law lacks one, as do Mathematics, and most social sciences and humanities), and don't account for 'elite', highly-cited and published academics that nonetheless fall short of being deemed to have the No 1 theory/paper/breakthrough in their field that year.

I agree that Nobel Prizes aren’t everything and yeah, they don’t cover all subjects. But whether we like it or not, they are amongst the most prestigious, celebrated and well-known awards attainable. A university that has a decent number of Nobel Prizes to its name is unlikely to be a bad university. It certainly doesn't harm a university's reputation. 18 year olds might not care but the public is generally impressed by that sort of thing (as well as other things such as producing influential people).

I don't think it particularly matters if the prizes were awarded at a much earlier date. The number of prizes associated with that university still remains a fact.

Original post by JohnGreek

My data is more accurate, as it was drawn automatically from the tax data of graduates who were also resident in the UK. Your survey seems to suffer from a no-name survey host (what's Emolument.com?), a smaller sample size, and, worse of all, self-reporting. That's why you're getting all sorts of anomalies in terms of which unis are up top, and, more importantly, why your figures are several thousand pounds a year higher than mine.

We'll surely have a blast in 5 years' time when the next batch of longitudinal survey data is out. Until then, we can only sit tight and trust dodgy career finding websites.

Whether or not it’s less accurate, I don’t think it can be completely discarded. It’s still a set of findings.

Either way, in both cases, the data is from 2014. It’s based on people who graduated 5 years before then, in other words people who started university in 2006/5, (11/12 years ago) so it's not going to be terribly relevant for people starting now. I don't understand why it took 3 years for the data to come out (or where the universities got their 'expected salaries' from). Besides, it only takes into account graduate salaries after 5 years of graduating, which is just a small fraction of someone’s working life.

Original post by JohnGreek

I wouldn't say that the difference between Bristol/Warwick and Leeds is small or irrelevant. The former had 485/478 UCAS points last cycle, compared to just 427 for Leeds. That's a 60-point difference. 60 points under the old tariff equates to an additional A at AS level. It could manifest itself as being the difference between someone getting AAA at A2 with another A at AS (3*120 + 60), and someone get A*A*A* at A2 with another A at AS (3*140 + 60). That's a far cry from being an AAB.

I would say it gets irrelevant once you reach past the 420 mark (although there is grade inflation, most people do not get AAAa). UCAS points also take things like the extended project (or whatever it’s called now) into account. Extra AS grades aren't part of what the students need to get into that university. If irrelevant qualifications are going to be included then you might as well use GCSE results as a measure in this too. Only the top 3 A-Level grades should be considered. The overwhelming majority of students at all these places do not have A*A*A*.

I’d also imagine Bristol/Warwick, being smaller universities, don’t have as many foundation years (which always lowers the average entry tariff, even though everyone who starts the degree is effectively ‘at the same level’) or a big nursing school (where you can get in with BBB), for example. That always lowers the average entry standards, as I believe it has done with KCL recently.

It’s more complicated than the average student having another A at AS, you also have to take into account the size of the student population (it's always going to be harder for bigger universities to do extremely well on this measure) and the things I mentioned above. It doesn’t lower the quality of the education or the job prospects.

It's also important to remember that in 2009, Strathclyde was 3rd in the UK for entry tariffs, and Strathclyde and Dundee were higher than Edinburgh and St Andrews. That was probably a one-off, but some universities move up and down an awful lot in the space of a year.

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 24

difeo

Such a ****ing weird thread

Reply 25

username3046368

I do think a lot of this thread misses what the point of a university is. The debate should be based on the quality of graduate Leeds makes not the quality of student it admits. Obviously, in many cases, the two go hand in hand. But, if Leeds is able to buck the trend and provide more students with good honours, comparative to other universities that admit higher quality students, then it definitely could be considered a 'dark horse'. The same rule applies for field-leading research. Unfortunately, I'm unaware of the data on either.

Reply 26

osamabinfishing

Original post by MaskOfKeaton

I'm finding it fairly difficult to see how Warwick can compete with Leeds.

Warwick
established: 1965
Nobel laureates: 2
Endowment: £4.3 million

Leeds
established: 1904
Nobel laureates: 6
Endowment: £67.7 million

I don't understand why some people automatically think places like Warwick are 'better' than these architecturally superior, traditional redbrick giants steeped in history. Is it because it's ranked a whopping 1 to 6 (out of 120) places ahead of Leeds? Are people really that blinded by such minuscule differences in something as trivial as league table performances?

Warwick always does better on those mickey mouse tables but Leeds arguably has more 'substance' as a university than Warwick.