Is Russell Group the UK Ivy League?

I know the Ivy league was about sports but there are many universities/colleges doing better especially by subject and yet people still yearn

Reply 1

Tulipbloom

Original post by wanga_wanga

I know the Ivy league was about sports but there are many universities/colleges doing better especially by subject and yet people still yearn

Yeah a reputation kinda thing but more and more people are becoming aware of this and would actually choose to go to a school that excels in a particular major. Had a friend who got into Yale, Brown, and Penn but chose to go to Stanford. Had another who got into Yale but chose to go to CMU (better for engineering and CS).

Reply 2

BenRyan99

Careers Forum Helper

Original post by wanga_wanga

I know the Ivy league was about sports but there are many universities/colleges doing better especially by subject and yet people still yearn

Not really. The Ivy league was originally centered around sporting competition and now is really about them being generally very elite universities. The Russell Group is centered around a greater focus on research output and quality.

Still, the Ivy league is much more exclusive than the Russell Group, with the latter containing quite a lot of mediocre universities. While it's true that there are some very very good US colleges outside the Ivy League (e.g. MIT, Stamford, Cal Tech, Duke, Chicago, etc) and this also holds in the UK (e.g. St Andrews, Bath, etc), I think all the Ivy league colleges are still very good even if they're not all the very best, whereas many Russell Group unis are incredibly average.

Reply 3

Carpetshiz

Original post by BenRyan99

Not really. The Ivy league was originally centered around sporting competition and now is really about them being generally very elite universities. The Russell Group is centered around a greater focus on research output and quality.
Still, the Ivy league is much more exclusive than the Russell Group, with the latter containing quite a lot of mediocre universities. While it's true that there are some very very good US colleges outside the Ivy League (e.g. MIT, Stamford, Cal Tech, Duke, Chicago, etc) and this also holds in the UK (e.g. St Andrews, Bath, etc), I think all the Ivy league colleges are still very good even if they're not all the very best, whereas many Russell Group unis are incredibly average.

I wouldn't describe any university in the Russell Group as 'average' considering around only 25% of undergraduates attend a Russell Group university.

While the Ivy League is more exclusive than the Russell Group, it doesn't mean they're not comparable; every university in the Russell (maybe apart from QMUL) is far above average.