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How good is achieving 80% in a MEng Electronic Engineering degree ?

I just graduated from Loughborough University with a MEng in Electronic Engineering. I got my results today:

1- Second Year: 79%
2- Third Year: 76%
3- Fourth Year: 84%

Mean degree mark : 80%

I tried to speak to my university to ask where I would rank amongst others in my engineering school but I have been declined. Even finding out my percentile(for example 80th, 90th or 95th percentile) is something the university cannot do as this is apparently against "privacy and of data protection regulations". I find this strange as all I want to know how I did compared to others.

So my question is how good of an achievement is getting 80% mark, is this something rare or quite common ? Because some websites show that 35-45% of engineering graduates get a first, so perhaps this is not a big of an achievement? What did you guys get ?

Reply 1

Admit-One

Universities Forum Helper

It’s an outstanding result. Congrats.

I’m not sure if any UK uni issues a student ranking. It’s not really a thing.

Reply 2

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

As above, that's truly quite an exceptional achievement. Very well done.

There's a very significant difference between a minimal first (70%) and a good first (75% or so) and you're well ahead of either.

Regarding ranking students, this doesn't really happen outside of medicine/dentistry courses normally.

Reply 3

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by admit-one

it’s an outstanding result. Congrats.

I’m not sure if any uk uni issues a student ranking. It’s not really a thing.

prsom!

(edited 9 months ago)

Reply 4

mnot

Universities Forum Helper

Obviously it’s excellent.

Probably within the top 10% of students.

Although in the grand scheme of things what matters is your competencies more than your final grade percentile, although it is an indicator of both capability & work ethic.

Reply 5

IBkidinthecorner

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by Admit-One

It’s an outstanding result. Congrats.

I’m not sure if any UK uni issues a student ranking. It’s not really a thing.

KCL do for medicine and I think many other UK med schools do too. Not sure about other degrees though

Reply 6

Admit-One

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by artful_lounger

Regarding ranking students, this doesn't really happen outside of medicine/dentistry courses normally.

Original post by IBkidinthecorner

KCL do for medicine and I think many other UK med schools do too. Not sure about other degrees though

Thanks both, I work in postgrad admissions but don’t see many applicants from those subject areas, so a bit of a blindspot for me.
It’s much more common practice overseas.

Reply 7

jonathan_Smith

Original post by artful_lounger

As above, that's truly quite an exceptional achievement. Very well done.
There's a very significant difference between a minimal first (70%) and a good first (75% or so) and you're well ahead of either.
Regarding ranking students, this doesn't really happen outside of medicine/dentistry courses normally.

Thanks.

Are medicine/dentistry courses more difficult than engineering, what is reason behind that only they release rankings? What is a bigger achievement would you say: a high first in MEng(like me) Engineering degree or graduating with a medical degree ?

I don't really know that many people studying medicine because it does not exist in my university (Loughborough), we only have sport science, engineering and computer science related courses.

Reply 8

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by jonathan_Smith

No, medicine and dentistry do it because those degrees are non-honours degrees (unless they intercalate an honours year) so they don't get a classification at all. So the degree itself is pass/fail but they benchmark students on the course against each other. This at least used to play a part in medical specialty/foundation recruitment but I believe decile ranking is no longer considered for foundation recruitment and possibly not for some specialty recruitment. I know intercalated degrees don't count for either now.

In any event, I've never gotten the impression it's not "more difficult" than any other degree (and I got the impression it's not that the material is overly hard to understand - the difficulty more seems to lie in how much content is covered in that time). Different in some respects perhaps as a result, but that's besides the point. People don't do medicine because it's intellectually and conceptually difficult, they do it because they want to become a doctor (likewise for dentistry).

Reply 9

username872704

You've done really well. Regardless of your results compared to other students in your group...... you've achieved a really good result and got yourself an achievement worth celebrating.

Congratulations, welcome to the profession and best of luck in getting a job 😀

Do take some time to unwind, celebrate with family/friends and just breathe.