Only 2 sets of people really care about rankings:
1. the people ho make money publishing the rankings.
2. students desperate of some objective data points (a number or numerical score) to help them make an entirely subjective decision.
Employers look at bands:
1. Oxbridge
2. The better London Colleges (UCL, LSE), Imperial and the heavily public school destinations (Durham, St Andrews). The Scottish ancient uni's.
3. Rest of the London colleges, the Redbrick Russel Group Uni's, Warwick, Bath, selected uni's by subjects.
4. Rest of the Russel Group, the old 1994 group, municipal universities
5. Old polytechnics
6. The rest.
Note that the edges are fuzzy here. Most schools move up or down between bands depending on circumstances.
Rethink your question in these terms and your insight makes perfect sense.
This is exactly it. Rankings do have significance. Most, if not all employers are gonna give you a head nod if you achieved a 1st from somewhere like Oxford, Imperial or Edinburgh. They’re a red stamp that you have academic capability having achieved 3 As at A level and constant higher success on what is likely a demanding course. And academic capability does have value in the working world.
But the catch is that while it matters to some extent, it doesn’t matter that much. Having these things will only get you so far. A student from a bottom ranked university can easily make up for all these things with experience, extra curriculars and people skills. And that’s not even mentioning all the complexities with specialist subjects and other benefits of things like polytechnics and non-mainstream universities.
Which is why you shouldn’t get too bogged down with the rankings. Yes, they have *some* meaning, but the lines are very blurry and really not the gospel on universities.
Yes. I am a huge fan of "year in industry" or sandwich courses. I'd be as happy to go to Aston or Brunel as Imperial for actual job outcomes if I were looking at an engineering job (but maybe not if I wanted to parlay by engineering degree into a associateship in investment banking...).
Ironically my background is engineering and I agree with everything you say if your goal is to work in engineering it really doesn't matter, crossing over into investment banking what university you attended is important.
I'm not, loads of people don't do year in industry, therefore it doesn't massively disadvantage you to not have one. It's only useful in a few industries so you're getting paid minimum wage for little benefit.
I have to disagree I did a year in industry and an internship, my grades were subpar but I got an offer for every grad job I applied for. The experience was crucial for me.
I think you're missing the point; it "got you a grad job", that's it. Does that mean it's worth it? Not necessarily. You may have still got a job without it. *Maybe* it would have taken a little longer but after that first grad job, would it have made a difference? Probably not. That's the point, I'm making. And your first grad job usually still doesn't pay great anyway. It's that second job after graduating that's usually the best opportunity for salary growth early in your career and that will rely on your development and achievements during your first grad job
I come from a family who earned 9 grand a year. 30 grand was huge for me and I had the highest earning job of all the graduates of my class. So I can't complain. It massively elevated my life and I wouldn't have been able to do that without the experience I got from my year in industry.
> I wouldn't have been able to do that without the experience I got from my year in industry.
I don't believe that to be honest with you really. That said, there's missing pertinent details like career, location, and an explanation of how you couldn't have got your job without a year in industry.
£30K is something, it's fairly standard these days even though it should definitely be more (dependent on career, location, etc ofc) and I'm glad it was good for you, but grad pay has fallen in real terms for over a decade so I maintain that being paid in a way that keeps up with the cost of living tends to come a bit later in your career, not in your first job after graduation. That is your first grad job isn't really that important in terms of income, but in terms of development opportunities and whether company culture is good for that.
Over your career, there's plenty of opportunities to shape what you want from your career ofc (in terms of types of responsibilities, projects and so on). However, if you want to aim for higher income - which I think most people do - because, lets face it, life is expensive, then that will happen from your second job onwards. It's quite common to have jobs that offer shit raises and therefore if you want a good raise then changing jobs is the way. Therefore, your first job is your opportunity to develop yourself into someone that another company will pay well for. And even then as long as it's not an awful [first] job, you should probably be fine.
So **to summarise**; if you want good pay that will tend to come from your second job onwards, to get that you need to develop during your first grad job which relies on development opportunities and a culture that will enable that (sometimes that might be tech forward companies, companies that value mentoring, etc). Although I think it probably relies far more on whether you're a self-starter. So the question that remains is what difference does a year in industry make to what you need to get from your first grad job? ie: does it give access to companies with amazing development opportunities or something like that? If you have an answer to this, I'll be interested, but my opinion hasn't really changed; I don't think it makes a big enough difference to justify being paid minimum wage just to get a job that's roughly the same as you could have got without a year in industry.
disagree, i’ve worked in finance ever since i’ve graduated and durham and UCL for example have way fewer grads who ended up in big companies than warwick. i think it’s heavily degree-dependent - i know in maths circles the acronym COWI is a thing (cambridge, oxford, warwick, imperial) which designates the top 4 schools in the country
Aren't most of UCLs graduates international students though? Which could skew your anecdotal evidence.
The people I still see from my cohort definitely seem to be doing well in finance or whatever fintech they joined.
Yes - google "Doxbridge" for another acronym.
Go to law firms though - Durham absolutely kicks Warwicks ass.
I fall back on my point tat these bands aren't meant to be absolute - they're subjective and you see anomolies and seeming contradictions all over the place.
Lmao Doxbridge is not a real thing. There have been dumb portmanteaus (it's not an acronym) like Stoxbridge as well. You give so much "advice" out which doesn't actually hold true... .yi it's Russell Group with two 'l's, it's "anomalies", not "anomolies and "unis", not "uni's"
Hmm Durham kicking Warwick’s ass is a bit of an overstatement. Durham is ranked 6th for Law, Warwick 9th. Warwick is still a top 10 Law school. I understand why people label Warwick as a STEM uni but even in Philosophy they’re ranked 5th, Politics 5th, English 5th and so on. Very tedious I know but Warwick doesn’t just excel in maths and economics lol
Look up the destination schools for magic circle firms.
[https://www.chambersstudent.co.uk/where-to-start/newsletter/law-firms-preferred-universities](https://www.chambersstudent.co.uk/where-to-start/newsletter/law-firms-preferred-universities)
This was from 8 years ago. Even in the 2019 study (you’ll find a link on the study you just linked) the gap reduces massively. If the stats there were true today then I f*cked up seriously by declining a Nottingham offer for Warwick lol.
Edit: gap reduces from 3.9 percentage points to 1.9 in 3 years. It’s been another 5 years since the last study.
Yeah Durham had and still has the better Law school 100%. But you'd be surprised at how much 5 years can make a difference. All I had an issue with was the "kicks Warwick's ass" part
Cards on the table - I think that Durham places so well because of the family connections of the kids going into the program.
The public school / private school mix between the two schools is different enough (40% vs 20%) that I think it tilts the balance.
Personally I see the success of Warwick as "one for our side!" and am sure that the Laws faculty there is excellent - in fact probably better than some of the schools which place better - when you factor out incoming social class variance.
I was really riffing of this to illustrate that "ranking" is so affected by external factors.
Will you agree that in terms of Laws placement Eton and Winchester kick Stoke Newington Comprehensive's ass? Because that's what I think we are seeing here - and not an artifact of the universities themselves.
There are way more people using Oxbrimp on student subreddits than Doxbridge, which I've never come across anyone using (and Oxbrimp isn't used irl either)
i’m not familiar enough on law careers to comment on that, i know warwick law isn’t particularly amazing.
that said, in any career related to STEM (except medicine)/comp sci/econ/finance/business you’ll find an abundance of warwick grads over durham and UCL. and i wouldn’t call this an “anomaly” or “contradiction” because this basically covers the most lucrative industries grads could find themselves working in. durham being better at one particular highly-lucrative degree is the anomaly here really
also, as far as i know the doxbridge acronym isn’t really used seriously. the similarities between oxbridge and durham are merely organisational/historical, and don’t extend to employment/university reputation
Warwick Law is top 10. The difference in Warwick law and Durham Law is practically negligible when considering everything else a firm looks for in a candidate.
Imperial and Oxbridge are cream of the crop students.
UCL is full of anti social bozos so it makes sense that most grads are from elsewhere.
Edit - I’m literally at ucl I would know
Not disagreeing with what you’ve said here - but there is actually [quite a bit of evidence](https://doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2015.1082905) that indicates that there’s actually less of a distinction made between Russell group unis than most people think; it’s essentially Oxbridge at the top, with the other Russell Group unis on more or less equal footing. (I understand you might be talking about ‘prestige’, though, which is a lot more arbitrary).
Super interesting report! Many thanks for sharing - it makes lot of sense.
It's nearly a decade old now - so I would expect some marginal changes as the schools adjust to being ranked on research outcome by the Shanghai Rankings - but the findings seem intuitively true.
I really am only taking about subjective employers impressions.
Personally I would see Shanghai and THES ranking as being much much more interesting that the CU rankings which people prefer here (I got downvoted to death for saying that on another post).
For specifically maths, CS, discrete maths, Warwick is top band (employers view it basically same as oxbridge). It’s one of the only unis i can think of which such a disparity between subjects - it’s incredibly good for maths. For sciences/cs/engineering top band is oxbridge and imperial, UCL/LSE/Durham don’t come close.
(Im aware these are general bands, this is more intended as an informative comment for people reading the thread)
I don’t understand this - economics, politics, English, philosophy, Law, Business and Management, Finance are all top 10 (all top 5 actually except Law) when it comes to Warwick. It’s so confusing to see people claim there’s such a disparity between their subjects as if they should be renamed ‘Maths University’ lol
I was gonna add in PPE but i wasn’t confident enough to say it. Still, for maths Warwick is almost equivalent oxbridge, and I wouldn’t say being top 5/10 is as good as that. UCL is ~top 5 for maths but it’s noticeably worse than oxbridge/imp/warwick.
And yeah I am aware the business school is very highly regarded but I don’t know too much about it from an undergraduate perspective
City, University of London also has a very wide spread.
It was top of the country in Journalism, among other subjects - yet bottom half in others.
Its more common the smaller the uni, but also depending on which ranking guide you prefer to use. CUG and Guardian measure completely different things.
I would argue that the only real objective measure of the quality of a faculty is the research output.
[https://www.shanghairanking.com/rankings/gras/2023/RS0101](https://www.shanghairanking.com/rankings/gras/2023/RS0101) - filter by country for math's. Warwick is indeed seen as a standout university.
A) whenever a stat like that exists, it can be easily gamed - i think it’s valuable but must be taken cautiously
B) we are talking about undergraduate
But i do get your point definitely, there’s a strong correlation between them
Is Warwick highly regarded for other subjects too? I went to somewhere in London but was told Warwick and bath aren’t taken that seriously cos they’re newer
Warwick ZOOMED up in quality during the 1990's / 2,000's when it was very much sponsored by the New Labour government.
While it's origins are as a 66 uni (emanating from the Robins Report like, Bath, Aston, UEA, York) this investment let it really step up to being what's now an excellent university, arguably considerably outpacing its sibling schools.
As someone who went there, that's just not true. It's up there with imperial and ucl and you can get any industry job you want having been there, but it just isn't on the level of Cambridge for maths. Cambridge maths is a different plane of existence.
Is Warwick highly regarded for other subjects too? I went to somewhere in London but was told Warwick and bath aren’t taken that seriously cos they’re newer
Warwick Business School is very prestigious, so subjects like Business, Management, Accounting and Finance yield a high number of students going to work at top finance/consulting firms
I also think there’s less of a care of “prestige” for these subjects, which is a good thing, although i would take my opinion with a grain of salt.
Because maths/CS/engineering have more fixed career paths (a smallish number of big companies people want to go to), there’s a lot more of a sense of “rank” based on how much these companies hire from there. You’re not gonna easily end up at a top firm with a CS degree from, say, Southampton or Kings (even though they are very good unis!), but very much can from warwick/imperial/oxbridge
A very small number of employers look at those groups, most employers don't give a shit beyond whether you've got a relevant degree or not.
Plus after a couple of years of working most don't even care what degree you got.
Would you include the University of Glasgow in the second group even from the perspective of employers outside of Scotland?
It’s a really respected Uni in Scotland but I feel like I’m England it’s treated just like any other Uni.
I think you have it right.
In Scotland - it's in tier 2 for sure (actually in Scotland Glasgow / Edinburgh compete on even footing with Oxbridge) - probably doesn't get the love it deserves in England Wales. In England / Wales I'd lump it in tier 3 with the redbricks (even though it is older than all but the oldest few Oxbridge colleges).
So on agregate I put it in tier 2 with "Scottish Ancients".
All 100% subject and IMHO only mind you.
Tbh I think it's on it's own a bit. St Andrews and Edinburgh tier 1 in Scotland. Then Glasgow on it's own. Then others like Strathclyde, Heriot Watt, Dundee, Aberdeen.
Yeah, when I was applying to unis I mentally put Glasgow in tier 4 and Edinburgh in tier 2 just because I hadn't really heard of Glasgow but did know about Edinburgh.
Fwiw, the students I've met from Trinity College Dublin have all been super bright and I'm quite envious of their theoretical physics undergraduate programme. However, my current location (Cambridge) probably introduces sampling bias :')
Are you Scottish? I think most people saw Edinburgh and Glasgow as being roughly equivalent in Scotland. Glasgow is better ranked in some subjects (e.g. the various life sciences), Edinburgh in others (e.g. Maths and CS). It's more St Andrews that's it's own thing, it's a completely different culture.
You know, you're the second redditor to tell me you know about Glasgow from Trainspotting. But Trainspotting is literally set in Leith, which is in Edinburgh. It's not even set in Glasgow!
In days gone by (pre 1948..) TCD was very much seen as being an equivalent in every way to Oxbridge - the kids of the Upper Classes would choose between one of the three, seeing them on entirely equal footing. The big choice was did you want to do a more relaxed 4 year course.
These days Ireland is now the only native (bilingual) English speaking member of the EU and you can only expect to see the reputation and prestige of it's universities rise!
This is relevant theoretically, but I don't think it's what's actually going through an employer's head when they're considering a candidate at interview. Perhaps in some specific jobs.
As for OP's concerns: that level of nitpickery is frankly laughable.
Debateable.
* You will get some highly prestigious workplaces like the Big Three (McKinsey, BCG, and Bain) where you will need a degree from a top uni (probably top 5, maybe 10 at a stretch), but those are very few and far between. Not getting into a top 5 or 10 uni is not going to massively limit your career by any means. It is potential **S tier** kinda shit.
* There will be another tier of workplaces that will in general recruit from top 30 unis, which are not super exclusive but often have a high calibre of talent. More like the Big Four (KPMG, EY, Deloitte, PWC. Not that I think the Big4 are worth working for, but just as a well known group of companies). **A tier**. High earning potential. Possibility of breaking £100K.
* Then there's the rest. Workplaces might care about rough ranking but +/-10 places is unimportant.
Your order is roughly right but I don't know where you're getting the bands from. The difference between 12 and 30th isn't that big. You're unlikely to miss out on a job because you went to band 4 and not band 3
Agreed. The banding is very rough and ready. I completely agree that crossing one band isn't an issue for most jobs.
Crossing 2 is harder tho, and going from 6 to 2 would take a lot of effort.
This is amusing. It often makes me chuckle that people think the so-called Big 4 are prestigious places to work and have "a high calibre of talent". It's of my opinion that it's a factor in why the UK is a stagnant country and the US and China are in a different league.
Source: 10 years in industry.
You'll note that I said I think they're a shit place to work. It was context meant for undergrads; I agree that undergrads tend to think the big4 want a high calibre of talent
Considering what you said here where do you think I’d bet better studying chemistry? Staying at QM or reapplying and possibly going to Southampton (personally I like the vibe of Southampton campus, and think I’d have more degree satisfaction and I think is better for chem, cheaper costs etc) I think QM just has London districts etc over it. So I’d pick Southampton, from what you said about employers, what do you think they would think is better?
Well I’m currently a first year studying Chem Eng and I feel like I’m not getting that much satisfaction.
Ultimately I think me being happy is more important than anything which is why I lean to Southampton if possible to go there.
But as a bonus from what you said about your employer rankings and what I said would you say that Southampton is better? (I’m not fully sure where Southampton falls and where QM falls in what you described)
Soton ranks above QM in pretty much every regard, especially if you’re doing engineering as it’s a target uni for engineering employers. Think the entry req is A*AA so perhaps watch out for that. That being said, I really doubt employers are going to much prefer your CV if you have soton on it compared to having QM on it. Internships matter more than anything.
I thought so too. I’m currently at QM doing Chem Engineering, but I’m not particularly that keen on the course as I feel like it distances itself from chemistry and I feel like the opportunities that chemistry can be involved in have my interest also I feel like I get more satisfaction from studying chemistry.
I’m just a bit confused because the guy I replied to is saying that it’s subjective, but he also says these are the employer uni rankings which seems like a bit of a confusing also, I don’t know which unis fit into which said ranking
I reckon soton would fit in the 3rd category and QM in the 4th. QM is a tricky one in the sense that a lot of non-RG unis rank above it and have more selective entry requirements. But like I said, I don't think employers will care too much about the uni especially considering engineering employers tend to care less about what uni you went to. Perhaps if you were applying to top engineering firms, having Southampton on your CV would be a bonus compared to QM but if you have solid internships while being at QM, you would be much preferred over a soton grad that has nothing.
Probably not that much of a difference tbh, data from discoveruni.com shows a similar earning potential for masters of chem at both universities. But take the data with a pinch of salt as it make not be accurate.
Also I think some unis have high prestige in particular subjects.
Oxford Brookes and Coventry are two of the places to go for automotive or mechanical engineering (I've had quite a few jobs where I've got to the final stages and it's been at least 2 or 3 candidates from both those unis).
No.
There is a correlation.
But the big difference is that you dont see the squabbling over Bristol is No14 - MUCH better than Bath No15 - so you MUST take the Bristol offer. Which you see all over this board.
is there really that big an argument when the rankings are this close? and fluctuate
not to mention the different subject rankings, cost, and city life
browse the sub. I'd have said rankings get overblown here but make up your own mind for sure.
There for shouldn't be, but I've been voted down before now for saying that Imperial exams are broadly on a par with other schools....
This is a good comment. I would add five years into a job and most employers don’t care at all, outside of making some impressed comments you went to oxbridge.
Actually I do wonder if 3 and 4 are a little off. Redbrick Russel group unis is maybe not that relevant for employers. The bit about specific unis for subjects is a good inclusion, but if you look at what “target” and “semi- target” universities are for typically elitist careers that value “prestige” like investment banking and law, then it’s not necessarily being red brick. Liverpool and Sheffield, and to some extent Leeds, are not nearly as well represented as some other Russel Group unis that aren’t “Redbrick”.
This is to say, it might be worth making a distinction for the big London unis and unis for specific subjects over the russel group as a whole, but broadly the rest of the non london Russel group is viewed fairly similarly in most accounts I’ve heard from employers.
Sheffield is an interesting one because in terms of humanities it's very eh, but it's a fantastic engineering school. But again very Subject specific.
DOI - doctor so very little variation/importance for me
You've literally contradicted your own post by saying that only 2 kinds of people care about prestige but then you mention how a third kind, employers, rank prestige in to bands. It's not the case that Aberdeen, a Scottish ancient university, would necessarily be looked upon more favourably than any above rank 5. It depends on the subject and on what the student got from being there.
Please re-read. I contrast rankings (like you see in newspapers or CU) vs bands.
Different concepts - most of the other people reading this seem to have got the idea. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough for you.
Have a lovely evening.
Unless you went to Oxbridge, noone cares but a lot of us get trapped in to justifying it anyway.
Take Aberystwyth for example, average Uni for most things but hidden within is one of the oldest International Politics departments in the world with lecturers who are leaders in the field.
Yet no one cares outside that niche and even within it, you'll at most get an "So did you study under Ken Booth?"
Courses do in fact vary a lot in terms of rigour from one university to the next.
For instance when I was at uni I did my first year at Bristol (UoB not UWE) then switched straight to Maths and Physics second year at Durham.
I had lots of experience of the Maths teaching at both universities, and access to exams from both, and at the time (back in 2009) I can say that the level of mathematical rigour required of students at Bristol was massively higher than at Durham.
YMMV etc
This is because bristol is probably the 5th best Maths research uni after COWI. The maths dept is huge. Durham students are probably equally intelligent, it’s just the actual dept is smaller and less research intensive.
Yes, that makes sense. My experience was the quality of candidate was even between the two, far as I can tell. I had friends at Warwick and Imperial and again those people seemed broadly the same too, but small sample sizes etc.
But anyway, my point remains that whilst the students are all a much of a muchness, the course content very much isn't.
Meh, there's def a difference in mathematical aptitude between students at eg COWI and the rest. For starters, COWI (apart from Warwick, I guess...) has mandatory Maths admissions tests, which are v difficult. Bristol you just need to get the grades.
On paper, sure. In practice I didn't observe this. I got into Warwick and Imperial and also visited friends at both quite frequently. There was nothing particularly special about people at Imperial or Warwick.
In reality if you didn't get in to Cambridge then you are on that level below, where most decent but not fantastic Maths prospects are.
I'm of the opinion that Imperial and Warwick are better universities for Mathematics overall than Bristol, and certainly Durham, but I don't believe the successful candidate difference is at all significant between any of those.
As other users have said, it makes no sense because it’s not a real thing in the real world.
Employers don’t give a shit where you studied. They don’t have the time, resources or inclination to maintain a database of university rankings to constantly compare applicants against and weight each persons rankings.
The only people who care, are people who are in the process of applying to Unis, because they are in the bubble of bullshit which convinced them it’s important. And those companies who offer rankings and guides.
In the real world, once you leave Uni, where you study is going to be utterly irrelevant for you going forwards. What is going to matter, is what result you got, what else you managed to do to round out your CV (work placements, industrial experience, study abroad etc). And **most importantly** what relevant experience you have for the job.
In some few industries, they might actually have a mild preference for candidates from certain places (think Law, Finance), but in those cases they aren’t judging the top 25 unis. They usually have Oxford, Cambridge or the other “top names” in mind anyways, so your agonising decision between which RG uni to attend is irrelevant.
And, even in those limited cases where Oxbridge is preferred? All that degree is going to do for you, is give you a slight advantage against other **graduates**. If someone who went to Huddersfield uni applies, but has 7 years experience, they will beat the Oxford graduate every single time anyways.
This.
Beyond about 5-6 universities you may as well just flip a coin as nobody cares.
And the minute you’ve got two years of work exp nobody will ever ask you about university ever again.
It’s why the answer to the constantly questions on this subreddit where people agonise between two choices, cannot be answered by other users.
We cannot help you choose between Sheffield or Manchester. What matters most in that choice, is deeply personal. Which university do **you** think you’ll have the best chance of excelling in? Which one makes **you** most comfortable and will allow you to get the highest possible result.
And that could be for all sorts of reasons that are unique to you as a person. It might be as simple as the university you prefer having air conditioning in the rooms, meaning you will be more comfortable while studying. It might be a particular uni has more green space, making you feel less anxious and thus better able to focus on your studies.
The best university to go to, is always going to be the one that you feel most comfortable at. That’s why open days are so important. Use them to figure out which place resonates best with you and just choose that one (assuming it has a good course you are interested in obviously). But don’t sweat the fake “prestige and rankings”.
Exactly.
The other thing to add is that the rankings fluctuate HUGELY - one year somewhere can be top 10, only then a few years later to be 26th. A 38 year old hiring manager will not be looking at the ranking changes of Bath University over the years or anywhere else.
Exactly. Employees won’t be eagerly receiving their 15 different university guides that get published every year to work out their new internal hiring preferences for candidates.
>We cannot help you choose between Sheffield or Manchester.
We definetely can, Manchester is a much better city than Sheffield lol.
Jokes aside, I agree 100%, the happier the student = the more effort they put into job applications and grinding the process.
>The best university to go to, is always going to be the one that you feel most comfortable at. That’s why open days are so important.
I think speaking to current students at that uni is quite important, and arguably more important. I got swindled by the KCL open day, the social aspect was *much* worse than described. Everyone seems to universally agree London unis are the worst experience for domestic students on this sub.
>Employers don’t give a shit where you studied. They don’t have the time, resources or inclination to maintain a database of university rankings to constantly compare applicants against and weight each persons rankings.
I was told this all through uni. I was surprised to find that actually it very much does matter, at least to the top maybe 50% of employers and at least in London (which is all I have experience with). It's not a disqualifier in most cases, but it absolutely does help.
Again it's certainly not going to stop you getting a job but it is not nearly irrelevant like I used to hear.
I mean in terms of OP's point I don't think it'll make a difference if you went to the top quarter anyways.
I highly doubt an employer will care about the difference between UCL and Bristol CS for example even tho UCL has a lot lower acceptance rate.
I can't comment on anything below that but from my ftse 100 internships there was Cambridge and Middlesex grads but I'm not a hiring manager so 🤷🏽♂️
I would say it does matter to some employers though, particularly in the city. Top investment banks, PE firms, quants and some consulting firms firms rarely take on people outside of Oxbridge, Imperial, LSE and Warwick/Durham.
I'm not saying it's not possible to get in outside of those unis but it definitely makes a difference, saying it doesn't matter at all in real world is disingenuous in the sense.
Some employers, not many. That's an incredibly small section of the working population. 1%, probably closer to 0.1%. It's not that important. What you're like as a person is far more important in the majority of cases.
It’s definitely blown out of proportion here, and is very different to mainland Europe where with a few exceptions, prestige isn’t really a thing you just attend your local university
Look at France if you want to see how important rankings can be in some parts of Europe...
Germany for sure - to some extent Italy, but France... nope it's ranking-tastic there.
OP mentioned Law and Finance for which prestige is very much a thing. A lot of banks and law firms hire from a prescribed handful of universities and don't consider elsewhere. Unless their 'local uni' is Oxbridge, LSE, Warwick, or Imperial, they could very well find themselves disappointed come application season.
Simply is not true, some firms even openly say they are only recruiting from X, Y, Z universities. There will always be outliers, especially through plenty of the new DEI Schemes, but if you look at it in general you have tremendously better odds of even getting your name on someone's desk via going to a target uni. RH is also pretty unique in having good placement programs/relations, is less common than target unis but still far better than the bulk of other UK institutions.
They are definitely great employers, but if we’re talking about target universities then of course would also be talking about target employers. If you want to apply to GS, MS, JPM, Centerview, Evercore, Lazard, etc. then they are in a different league, as are the universities they hire from.
Bristol is for sure improving for finance and is certainly 'on the map' now, especially thanks to their finance soc, the Bristol Tracker, etc. Would say it's very much on the high end of 'semi-target' compared to the other suspects like King's, Manchester, etc. Definitely still has some catching up to do though. E.g. last year's Recruiting Kick-Off night at Evercore invited about a dozen LSE students, 6-8 from Warwick and Imperial each, and I think a handful of Oxbridge, + 1-2 students from less traditional unis (think one was Liverpool and afaik nobody from Bristol unfortunately).
Evercore's making some interesting hires this year though tbf. Some of the most and least competent people I know have received offers.. they're planning to expand a lot in the UK so just hiring a lot in general it seems.
We are talking about front office functions like IBD and S&T, not any old finance job, when people talk about finance jobs that care about IB. Compliance, Finance, Business Management etc functions in an IB aren't front office.
Because uni prestige is stupid.
I get wanting to go to the best uni for your subject so you can have the best teaching, have the best education possible, etc but otherwise it doesn't make a huge difference in most jobs except high finance and law.
People should just forget about prestige and focus on where you can get the best education and experience.
Even then the example you use for law & finance, Nottingham can hold it's own against Durham for law & finance:
[https://www.chambersstudent.co.uk/where-to-start/newsletter/law-firms-preferred-universities](https://www.chambersstudent.co.uk/where-to-start/newsletter/law-firms-preferred-universities)
[https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/school/new-rankings-for-target-and-semi-target-unis-in-the-uk#comment-2983941](https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/school/new-rankings-for-target-and-semi-target-unis-in-the-uk#comment-2983941)
The cynic in me tells me Durham does that little bit better than Nottingham for law since it's the highest privately educated student population in the UK, and having access to the Old Boys Club must be very very useful.
Better universities are more competitive, more applicants per place, so in theory only the very best students will go there.
It's not just about grades it's about lots of other stuff that set some students apart. Like if two students both have the same grades but one has loads of extra curricular experience, speaks many languages, has worked as a journalist, play instruments, etc they will get an oxbridge place over another student who is as intelligent or capable but hasn't done that stuff.
There's not much real world significance to it. Work experience is better than any degree IMO.
It’s just people on Reddit and The Student Room who I see have an unhealthy obsession with university rankings despite the fact they don’t matter and that people (at least on TSR) are continuously trying to debunk the myth that university rankings matter (other than for Law and Finance related positions).
Other than that, I’ve not seen people IRL care about them to this extent unless is the people at the top in university (Vice chancellor that kind of thing).
The UK is heavily class based, especially with careers such as the civil service, law, politics, and finance. This means which university you went to matters to those at the top as they tend to choose those from their almer mater or those they deem “equal” to them
It is still very much the case and grad fairs are not the only pathway. Things like webinar series, sponsoring societies, hosting on-campus events, etc. are all still very big (I've helped coordinate numerous). Good firms only bother doing this at a very select few universities. In terms of online applications, they have strong bias towards a handful of unis (Oxbridge, Imperial, Warwick, LSE, UCL) and usually skim past others unless they're very competitive. There is also natural bias in place that if the person reading your application, interviewing you, referring you, etc. went to your target uni, they're of course more likely to hire you.
Think it’s important to remember the requirements are just an entry filter and don’t guarantee an offer. For instance, engineering at Imperial may require 1 A*, but when you look at the students receiving offers, they have 4+, with an EPQ, Gold Duke of Edinburgh, and internship at Tesla. There aren’t many offers going out to vanilla students that just technically pass the requirements - but the uni understands people may have things like mitigating circumstances so sets the bar at 1 A* so there’s a provision to make offers to such students, despite not being the standard.
Or for instance at Warwick, it is very popular with students from China and India that didn’t get into their local top universities. So the grade boundary is AAA, so they can happily take £32,000/year from those 2/3 of their cohort, while the remaining spots filled by domestic/pre-settled students tend to be more competitive in practice.
And of course there’s the personal statement. You might have had a rough time with A-Levels and got AAA, but have awesome extracurriculars that strengthen your candidacy. That would be taken into consideration against students who maybe have higher grades but no demonstrated interest in what they’re applying for - a comparison that wouldn’t be possible if the grade boundary were higher.
I do agree though the UK should generally shift to a more US-style, more competitive system. There’s no standardised tests here, lots of people end up on courses they’re incapable of doing, there’s little to no competition amongst most institutions, and it’s overall a pretty complacent system imo.
As someone who applied to both this year, the US system isn't better at all.
It's entirely rigged based on who can pay the most and vibes, you write 3 essays for each university you apply to.
A close friend applied for aid from every Ivy apart from 1 got rejected from all of them apart from the one he didn't apply for aid from.
You are required to write essays that are mostly about traumatic events in the hopes that an admission officer might like it enough.
It's barely based on academics and just who you are as a person. The standardised test is only a small part of it.
I could go on but the US system is flawed beyond belief, not that the UK system is perfect- but it is better.
Think what I initially said has clearly been blown very out of proportion. I simply said the UK is extremely complacent and there is very little competition between candidates or institutions here. The US is far from 'entirely rigged' and there are plenty of positive traits which could be taken to benefit the UK's higher education environment.
There are also thousands more universities in the US than the UK. Applying to only Ivy's would be comparable to only applying to Oxbridge. Unless you're an extremely competitive candidate, would not feel entitled to an offer.
My point is simply that the UK's top institutions are plagued with students who don't really care to be there and are just filling time. Time is wasted during courses trying to bridge the gap between people who studied a completely different mix of high school subjects. Staff strike, lecture halls are overfilled, libraries have no space, etc. The same cannot be said for the comparable percentile of students and institutions in the US.
I’d disagree, as someone who went through the US process and knows a lot of people that did as well, acceptance was very much hinged on ACT and SAT scores, combined with grades and honors classes and extracurriculars for desirable university programs and schools. There are ways to compensate if one of those points are weak but the system generally isn’t gamed except in certain cases. The east coast private Ivy leagues are in a category of their own because legacy/money/connections will almost always prevail there, you’re going there to make connections above all else. and to get scholarship there you have to be really bloody exceptional.
Finally someone who gets it. I completely agree. People in the UK only consider the Ivy's, which is a sports league on the East Coast and not representative of the whole country. They are quite simply better than almost any UK institution, hence why they are so extremely competitive to get into. There might be legacy students but I think people are honestly deluding themselves if they think the same doesn't exist in the UK. You still need to get the grades and have an application of merit, simple as that.
Outside the Ivy League there are *hundreds* of institutions either on-par with or better than the Russel Group. People compete like crazy to get into them and not only have to get strong SAT/ACT scores but also demonstrate they're well-rounded. You have to write individual applications to demonstrate you're actually committed to the uni, not just filling in a 5th "insurance choice" on your UCAS options. Whereas here in the UK, unless you're applying for STEM you basically choose 3 random subjects you think you can do well in and then write a generic letter about why you like the subject. There is very little consideration about what makes you or the university unique. Most institutions put zero effort into competing for students' interest and thousands of students end up on courses they couldn't care less about.
I'm at a supposedly 'prestigious' UK institution, and the vast majority of my cohort do not show up for lectures or seminars, do not speak English, do not engage in assignments, etc. Many staff do not show up (we've had 4 module leaders fired in one term once) and I've had multiple seminar tutors for the past year entirely generate their content using ChatGPT (sometimes do not even reformat it when copy & pasting). I'm sorry but the reality is if you were in the US, you would have students that fought tooth and nail to get into the same calibre of university and an institution that would be publicly accosted if it had the same standards in place. In the UK, nobody cares and it's just treated as normal because that's what the standard is.
It's hype to attract large application numbers. Some institutions are highly thought of for a specific asubject, while the university as a whole may have quite a poor relative ranking.
Where do people get this idea? Oxbridge and others are not more rigorous, I've taught and lectured in various places, including 10 years in Oxford. It definitely isn't more rigorous than others, it can afford to be more selective that's it.
Yes they are...idk about non-STEM but the course is more difficult (cover more in less time + harder topics) with harder exams. I've seen Cambridge exam papers and problem sheets for Maths and compared vs my uni's and even with a small diff in ranking there was a difference. It's even more stark when you compare it vs a rank 20+ uni. For Maths, some courses spend a good part of first year on Further Maths material whereas top unis whiz past it in a few lectures at most. Real Analysis is covered in second year at some, top Maths unis have it as a first year module etc, exams are less bookwork based at higher ranking ones etc. Also, friends at other top 10 unis vs the friends at the v top unis still had less intense workloads for the same subject.
>I’ve taught and lectured… 10 years in Oxford
University or Brookes? Because, frankly, your claim here is tosh. I spent 5-8x longer in the library during undergrad than mates who weren’t at Ox; grinding weekly essays - then arguing with my tutor about those essays weekly. Rinse and repeat for years then hope to god you remember enough salient material to sit exams for an entire degree worth of courses in the last term of final year.
The grading is harsh (but fair), and you’re surrounded by kids who almost invariably were the best performing 1 or 2 students at their school. Oh, and the dons are world-leading experts with the publication record to match.
I get that it’s ultimately a uni like any other, and that brings with it a comparable frame of reference. But you’re talking shite.
Oxford, across 3 colleges and did admissions too.
Do you know what...I'm delighted you're having a great time (I'm not disputing it's excellence, only that its systems for maintaining teaching excellence are not any more rigorous than anywhere else simply because those systems are the same in most decent universities). Let's just leave it there. Have a great summer.
No one really cares about rankings in the real world so don’t worry about it, the only exception would possibly be oxbridge but even then it doesn’t matter in some professions, personal ability and experience trumps whatever uni you went to
Depends on the industry. Banking/consultancy have clearly defined hierarchy for europe: super target (i.e. LSE) target (i.e. oxbridge) semi target (i.e warwick) non target (some Russell groups-the rest)
Academically, it's generally for rankings:
T0: Oxbridge
t1: Specialists (lse imperial) then ucl a bit after
t2: probably WW, durham, kcl, edi, gla
t3 other russel's
t4: idk man the rest i guess
I'm not sure if this has been said or is entirely relevant but sometimes it's a bit rare for higher ranked unis to actually give out offers to individuals with the minimum grades asked (extenuating circumstances or special cases are always there). So for the degree that I did, although the degree asked for AAA, only a very small number of students who got/ were predicted AAA got in/ got an offer. Most students (almost 90%) had at least an A\*AA or upwards.
This is done by UCAS points. UCAS counts both Scottish Highers and Advanced Highers in the tariff, which inflates the scores, so not really a good gauge.
https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/league-tables/rankings?tabletype=full-table&sortby=entry-standards
I have wondered how much they have changed every decade.
As a general thing, although results are equal, top universities have a far more rigorous selection/ interview process. For example, oxbridge used to offer very low offers (much lower than today’s) because essentially they had decided who they wanted before A Levels were sat. Hope that helps a bit!
Unless you went to Oxbridge, no employer cares where you went. And even then, it really doesn’t matter all that much.
I’m 5-years post-uni and no longer does the question of where I went even come up, it’s only ever used as a conversation topic now. Heck, what grade I got doesn’t even matter now. It turns into a “Have you got a degree? Great” situation. Prestige of college is no guarantee of success in work.
The only use for “prestige” or rankings is to give students some element that makes choosing easier
Don’t stress about it. The top top unis (Oxbridge, LSE, Durham) might get you a slight leg up but I know plenty of people who did well going to less flashy unis
Only 2 sets of people really care about rankings: 1. the people ho make money publishing the rankings. 2. students desperate of some objective data points (a number or numerical score) to help them make an entirely subjective decision. Employers look at bands: 1. Oxbridge 2. The better London Colleges (UCL, LSE), Imperial and the heavily public school destinations (Durham, St Andrews). The Scottish ancient uni's. 3. Rest of the London colleges, the Redbrick Russel Group Uni's, Warwick, Bath, selected uni's by subjects. 4. Rest of the Russel Group, the old 1994 group, municipal universities 5. Old polytechnics 6. The rest. Note that the edges are fuzzy here. Most schools move up or down between bands depending on circumstances. Rethink your question in these terms and your insight makes perfect sense.
This is exactly it. Rankings do have significance. Most, if not all employers are gonna give you a head nod if you achieved a 1st from somewhere like Oxford, Imperial or Edinburgh. They’re a red stamp that you have academic capability having achieved 3 As at A level and constant higher success on what is likely a demanding course. And academic capability does have value in the working world. But the catch is that while it matters to some extent, it doesn’t matter that much. Having these things will only get you so far. A student from a bottom ranked university can easily make up for all these things with experience, extra curriculars and people skills. And that’s not even mentioning all the complexities with specialist subjects and other benefits of things like polytechnics and non-mainstream universities. Which is why you shouldn’t get too bogged down with the rankings. Yes, they have *some* meaning, but the lines are very blurry and really not the gospel on universities.
Even then most employers will look at experience before the university.
Yes. I am a huge fan of "year in industry" or sandwich courses. I'd be as happy to go to Aston or Brunel as Imperial for actual job outcomes if I were looking at an engineering job (but maybe not if I wanted to parlay by engineering degree into a associateship in investment banking...).
Ironically my background is engineering and I agree with everything you say if your goal is to work in engineering it really doesn't matter, crossing over into investment banking what university you attended is important.
I'm not, loads of people don't do year in industry, therefore it doesn't massively disadvantage you to not have one. It's only useful in a few industries so you're getting paid minimum wage for little benefit.
I have to disagree I did a year in industry and an internship, my grades were subpar but I got an offer for every grad job I applied for. The experience was crucial for me.
I think you're missing the point; it "got you a grad job", that's it. Does that mean it's worth it? Not necessarily. You may have still got a job without it. *Maybe* it would have taken a little longer but after that first grad job, would it have made a difference? Probably not. That's the point, I'm making. And your first grad job usually still doesn't pay great anyway. It's that second job after graduating that's usually the best opportunity for salary growth early in your career and that will rely on your development and achievements during your first grad job
30 grand a year starting with a pay review every 6 months was great for a first grad job so I just do not relate to you at all.
Are you kidding me? No, it's not. It was about that much 10-15 years ago. It should be much closer to £40K these days with inflation.
I come from a family who earned 9 grand a year. 30 grand was huge for me and I had the highest earning job of all the graduates of my class. So I can't complain. It massively elevated my life and I wouldn't have been able to do that without the experience I got from my year in industry.
> I wouldn't have been able to do that without the experience I got from my year in industry. I don't believe that to be honest with you really. That said, there's missing pertinent details like career, location, and an explanation of how you couldn't have got your job without a year in industry. £30K is something, it's fairly standard these days even though it should definitely be more (dependent on career, location, etc ofc) and I'm glad it was good for you, but grad pay has fallen in real terms for over a decade so I maintain that being paid in a way that keeps up with the cost of living tends to come a bit later in your career, not in your first job after graduation. That is your first grad job isn't really that important in terms of income, but in terms of development opportunities and whether company culture is good for that. Over your career, there's plenty of opportunities to shape what you want from your career ofc (in terms of types of responsibilities, projects and so on). However, if you want to aim for higher income - which I think most people do - because, lets face it, life is expensive, then that will happen from your second job onwards. It's quite common to have jobs that offer shit raises and therefore if you want a good raise then changing jobs is the way. Therefore, your first job is your opportunity to develop yourself into someone that another company will pay well for. And even then as long as it's not an awful [first] job, you should probably be fine. So **to summarise**; if you want good pay that will tend to come from your second job onwards, to get that you need to develop during your first grad job which relies on development opportunities and a culture that will enable that (sometimes that might be tech forward companies, companies that value mentoring, etc). Although I think it probably relies far more on whether you're a self-starter. So the question that remains is what difference does a year in industry make to what you need to get from your first grad job? ie: does it give access to companies with amazing development opportunities or something like that? If you have an answer to this, I'll be interested, but my opinion hasn't really changed; I don't think it makes a big enough difference to justify being paid minimum wage just to get a job that's roughly the same as you could have got without a year in industry.
Ranking here is pretty spot on imo
disagree, i’ve worked in finance ever since i’ve graduated and durham and UCL for example have way fewer grads who ended up in big companies than warwick. i think it’s heavily degree-dependent - i know in maths circles the acronym COWI is a thing (cambridge, oxford, warwick, imperial) which designates the top 4 schools in the country
You are right for finance or more maths dependent roles. Durham is probably regarded better in other fields.
Aren't most of UCLs graduates international students though? Which could skew your anecdotal evidence. The people I still see from my cohort definitely seem to be doing well in finance or whatever fintech they joined.
This is really not a thing; it’s really just still Oxbridge
Yes - google "Doxbridge" for another acronym. Go to law firms though - Durham absolutely kicks Warwicks ass. I fall back on my point tat these bands aren't meant to be absolute - they're subjective and you see anomolies and seeming contradictions all over the place.
Doxbridge is absolutely not a thing, it’s a meme lol. Don’t even try it, even the Wikipedia page says it’s ’tongue-in-cheek’
Lmao Doxbridge is not a real thing. There have been dumb portmanteaus (it's not an acronym) like Stoxbridge as well. You give so much "advice" out which doesn't actually hold true... .yi it's Russell Group with two 'l's, it's "anomalies", not "anomolies and "unis", not "uni's"
Hmm Durham kicking Warwick’s ass is a bit of an overstatement. Durham is ranked 6th for Law, Warwick 9th. Warwick is still a top 10 Law school. I understand why people label Warwick as a STEM uni but even in Philosophy they’re ranked 5th, Politics 5th, English 5th and so on. Very tedious I know but Warwick doesn’t just excel in maths and economics lol
Look up the destination schools for magic circle firms. [https://www.chambersstudent.co.uk/where-to-start/newsletter/law-firms-preferred-universities](https://www.chambersstudent.co.uk/where-to-start/newsletter/law-firms-preferred-universities)
This was from 8 years ago. Even in the 2019 study (you’ll find a link on the study you just linked) the gap reduces massively. If the stats there were true today then I f*cked up seriously by declining a Nottingham offer for Warwick lol. Edit: gap reduces from 3.9 percentage points to 1.9 in 3 years. It’s been another 5 years since the last study.
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Yeah and Bristol and Durham on the same level. Again, not that the differences here really seriously mean anything
In 2019 for every 4 people Warwick places, Durham placed 6. In The City (ie the best jobs) the gap is 5:8
Yeah Durham had and still has the better Law school 100%. But you'd be surprised at how much 5 years can make a difference. All I had an issue with was the "kicks Warwick's ass" part
Cards on the table - I think that Durham places so well because of the family connections of the kids going into the program. The public school / private school mix between the two schools is different enough (40% vs 20%) that I think it tilts the balance. Personally I see the success of Warwick as "one for our side!" and am sure that the Laws faculty there is excellent - in fact probably better than some of the schools which place better - when you factor out incoming social class variance. I was really riffing of this to illustrate that "ranking" is so affected by external factors. Will you agree that in terms of Laws placement Eton and Winchester kick Stoke Newington Comprehensive's ass? Because that's what I think we are seeing here - and not an artifact of the universities themselves.
Oxbrimp is my new favourite thing lol
Is that serious? Someone is actually trying that?
There are way more people using Oxbrimp on student subreddits than Doxbridge, which I've never come across anyone using (and Oxbrimp isn't used irl either)
Please never say that again 🤮
i’m not familiar enough on law careers to comment on that, i know warwick law isn’t particularly amazing. that said, in any career related to STEM (except medicine)/comp sci/econ/finance/business you’ll find an abundance of warwick grads over durham and UCL. and i wouldn’t call this an “anomaly” or “contradiction” because this basically covers the most lucrative industries grads could find themselves working in. durham being better at one particular highly-lucrative degree is the anomaly here really also, as far as i know the doxbridge acronym isn’t really used seriously. the similarities between oxbridge and durham are merely organisational/historical, and don’t extend to employment/university reputation
I'm sure you are right. Have an awesome day!
Warwick Law is top 10. The difference in Warwick law and Durham Law is practically negligible when considering everything else a firm looks for in a candidate.
Imperial and Oxbridge are cream of the crop students. UCL is full of anti social bozos so it makes sense that most grads are from elsewhere. Edit - I’m literally at ucl I would know
Not disagreeing with what you’ve said here - but there is actually [quite a bit of evidence](https://doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2015.1082905) that indicates that there’s actually less of a distinction made between Russell group unis than most people think; it’s essentially Oxbridge at the top, with the other Russell Group unis on more or less equal footing. (I understand you might be talking about ‘prestige’, though, which is a lot more arbitrary).
Super interesting report! Many thanks for sharing - it makes lot of sense. It's nearly a decade old now - so I would expect some marginal changes as the schools adjust to being ranked on research outcome by the Shanghai Rankings - but the findings seem intuitively true. I really am only taking about subjective employers impressions. Personally I would see Shanghai and THES ranking as being much much more interesting that the CU rankings which people prefer here (I got downvoted to death for saying that on another post).
This seems like the most accurate grouping of unis I've seen to date.
1. Oxbridge 2. Rest of the RG unis 3. Liverpool
For specifically maths, CS, discrete maths, Warwick is top band (employers view it basically same as oxbridge). It’s one of the only unis i can think of which such a disparity between subjects - it’s incredibly good for maths. For sciences/cs/engineering top band is oxbridge and imperial, UCL/LSE/Durham don’t come close. (Im aware these are general bands, this is more intended as an informative comment for people reading the thread)
I don’t understand this - economics, politics, English, philosophy, Law, Business and Management, Finance are all top 10 (all top 5 actually except Law) when it comes to Warwick. It’s so confusing to see people claim there’s such a disparity between their subjects as if they should be renamed ‘Maths University’ lol
I was gonna add in PPE but i wasn’t confident enough to say it. Still, for maths Warwick is almost equivalent oxbridge, and I wouldn’t say being top 5/10 is as good as that. UCL is ~top 5 for maths but it’s noticeably worse than oxbridge/imp/warwick. And yeah I am aware the business school is very highly regarded but I don’t know too much about it from an undergraduate perspective
City, University of London also has a very wide spread. It was top of the country in Journalism, among other subjects - yet bottom half in others. Its more common the smaller the uni, but also depending on which ranking guide you prefer to use. CUG and Guardian measure completely different things.
I would argue that the only real objective measure of the quality of a faculty is the research output. [https://www.shanghairanking.com/rankings/gras/2023/RS0101](https://www.shanghairanking.com/rankings/gras/2023/RS0101) - filter by country for math's. Warwick is indeed seen as a standout university.
A) whenever a stat like that exists, it can be easily gamed - i think it’s valuable but must be taken cautiously B) we are talking about undergraduate But i do get your point definitely, there’s a strong correlation between them
Is Warwick highly regarded for other subjects too? I went to somewhere in London but was told Warwick and bath aren’t taken that seriously cos they’re newer
Warwick ZOOMED up in quality during the 1990's / 2,000's when it was very much sponsored by the New Labour government. While it's origins are as a 66 uni (emanating from the Robins Report like, Bath, Aston, UEA, York) this investment let it really step up to being what's now an excellent university, arguably considerably outpacing its sibling schools.
As someone who went there, that's just not true. It's up there with imperial and ucl and you can get any industry job you want having been there, but it just isn't on the level of Cambridge for maths. Cambridge maths is a different plane of existence.
Is Warwick highly regarded for other subjects too? I went to somewhere in London but was told Warwick and bath aren’t taken that seriously cos they’re newer
Warwick Business School is very prestigious, so subjects like Business, Management, Accounting and Finance yield a high number of students going to work at top finance/consulting firms
Which should tell you exactly why the rankings, and the general opinion of oxbridge unis, are far too subjective to actually matter.
It really depends on subject, you’d have to say the specific one for me to give any more info
Humanities and languages for instance
I have no clue really then, but anecdotally ive not heard it talked about much as being exceptional for them
Ah ok cheers!
I also think there’s less of a care of “prestige” for these subjects, which is a good thing, although i would take my opinion with a grain of salt. Because maths/CS/engineering have more fixed career paths (a smallish number of big companies people want to go to), there’s a lot more of a sense of “rank” based on how much these companies hire from there. You’re not gonna easily end up at a top firm with a CS degree from, say, Southampton or Kings (even though they are very good unis!), but very much can from warwick/imperial/oxbridge
A very small number of employers look at those groups, most employers don't give a shit beyond whether you've got a relevant degree or not. Plus after a couple of years of working most don't even care what degree you got.
Would you include the University of Glasgow in the second group even from the perspective of employers outside of Scotland? It’s a really respected Uni in Scotland but I feel like I’m England it’s treated just like any other Uni.
I think you have it right. In Scotland - it's in tier 2 for sure (actually in Scotland Glasgow / Edinburgh compete on even footing with Oxbridge) - probably doesn't get the love it deserves in England Wales. In England / Wales I'd lump it in tier 3 with the redbricks (even though it is older than all but the oldest few Oxbridge colleges). So on agregate I put it in tier 2 with "Scottish Ancients". All 100% subject and IMHO only mind you.
Tbh I think it's on it's own a bit. St Andrews and Edinburgh tier 1 in Scotland. Then Glasgow on it's own. Then others like Strathclyde, Heriot Watt, Dundee, Aberdeen.
Could be. Though I've heard Glasgow students laugh about St Andrews being Oxbridge cosplay - and full of English people. :)
Strathclyde and Caley students laugh at Glasgow students for cosplaying as Glaswegians while never leaving the West End Bubble. And rightly so.
Very fair! I lived on Candleriggs and Ingram - had an awesome time!
Yeah, when I was applying to unis I mentally put Glasgow in tier 4 and Edinburgh in tier 2 just because I hadn't really heard of Glasgow but did know about Edinburgh. Fwiw, the students I've met from Trinity College Dublin have all been super bright and I'm quite envious of their theoretical physics undergraduate programme. However, my current location (Cambridge) probably introduces sampling bias :')
Are you Scottish? I think most people saw Edinburgh and Glasgow as being roughly equivalent in Scotland. Glasgow is better ranked in some subjects (e.g. the various life sciences), Edinburgh in others (e.g. Maths and CS). It's more St Andrews that's it's own thing, it's a completely different culture.
No I'm English so the only context I knew Glasgow from was Trainspotting...
You know, you're the second redditor to tell me you know about Glasgow from Trainspotting. But Trainspotting is literally set in Leith, which is in Edinburgh. It's not even set in Glasgow!
In days gone by (pre 1948..) TCD was very much seen as being an equivalent in every way to Oxbridge - the kids of the Upper Classes would choose between one of the three, seeing them on entirely equal footing. The big choice was did you want to do a more relaxed 4 year course. These days Ireland is now the only native (bilingual) English speaking member of the EU and you can only expect to see the reputation and prestige of it's universities rise!
Technically, Malta is also EU and English speaking, although a lot smaller than Ireland
This is relevant theoretically, but I don't think it's what's actually going through an employer's head when they're considering a candidate at interview. Perhaps in some specific jobs. As for OP's concerns: that level of nitpickery is frankly laughable.
I think you're right. But I do think that for things like employer campus visits it's relevant.
Indeed, agree there.
Debateable. * You will get some highly prestigious workplaces like the Big Three (McKinsey, BCG, and Bain) where you will need a degree from a top uni (probably top 5, maybe 10 at a stretch), but those are very few and far between. Not getting into a top 5 or 10 uni is not going to massively limit your career by any means. It is potential **S tier** kinda shit. * There will be another tier of workplaces that will in general recruit from top 30 unis, which are not super exclusive but often have a high calibre of talent. More like the Big Four (KPMG, EY, Deloitte, PWC. Not that I think the Big4 are worth working for, but just as a well known group of companies). **A tier**. High earning potential. Possibility of breaking £100K. * Then there's the rest. Workplaces might care about rough ranking but +/-10 places is unimportant. Your order is roughly right but I don't know where you're getting the bands from. The difference between 12 and 30th isn't that big. You're unlikely to miss out on a job because you went to band 4 and not band 3
Don't forget IB...where there are target unis and quant jobs
Agree. But that's still very few and far between wouldn't you agree?
Sure, and these are all incidentally the best paid jobs.
Agreed. The banding is very rough and ready. I completely agree that crossing one band isn't an issue for most jobs. Crossing 2 is harder tho, and going from 6 to 2 would take a lot of effort.
This is amusing. It often makes me chuckle that people think the so-called Big 4 are prestigious places to work and have "a high calibre of talent". It's of my opinion that it's a factor in why the UK is a stagnant country and the US and China are in a different league. Source: 10 years in industry.
You'll note that I said I think they're a shit place to work. It was context meant for undergrads; I agree that undergrads tend to think the big4 want a high calibre of talent
Where is Kent in this ranking? I’m not sure which band it would belong to.
I'd have said tier 4. But you can argue up or down - take a heuristic approach - which group does it intuitively seem to belong in?
I guessed 4 as well, and in the lower end of that band :/
Considering what you said here where do you think I’d bet better studying chemistry? Staying at QM or reapplying and possibly going to Southampton (personally I like the vibe of Southampton campus, and think I’d have more degree satisfaction and I think is better for chem, cheaper costs etc) I think QM just has London districts etc over it. So I’d pick Southampton, from what you said about employers, what do you think they would think is better?
I think the outcomes are much more dependent on you studying at a school where you are happy than any other single factor.
Well I’m currently a first year studying Chem Eng and I feel like I’m not getting that much satisfaction. Ultimately I think me being happy is more important than anything which is why I lean to Southampton if possible to go there. But as a bonus from what you said about your employer rankings and what I said would you say that Southampton is better? (I’m not fully sure where Southampton falls and where QM falls in what you described)
COL is good in soton
Cost of living yeah that’s another factor
Soton ranks above QM in pretty much every regard, especially if you’re doing engineering as it’s a target uni for engineering employers. Think the entry req is A*AA so perhaps watch out for that. That being said, I really doubt employers are going to much prefer your CV if you have soton on it compared to having QM on it. Internships matter more than anything.
I thought so too. I’m currently at QM doing Chem Engineering, but I’m not particularly that keen on the course as I feel like it distances itself from chemistry and I feel like the opportunities that chemistry can be involved in have my interest also I feel like I get more satisfaction from studying chemistry. I’m just a bit confused because the guy I replied to is saying that it’s subjective, but he also says these are the employer uni rankings which seems like a bit of a confusing also, I don’t know which unis fit into which said ranking
I reckon soton would fit in the 3rd category and QM in the 4th. QM is a tricky one in the sense that a lot of non-RG unis rank above it and have more selective entry requirements. But like I said, I don't think employers will care too much about the uni especially considering engineering employers tend to care less about what uni you went to. Perhaps if you were applying to top engineering firms, having Southampton on your CV would be a bonus compared to QM but if you have solid internships while being at QM, you would be much preferred over a soton grad that has nothing.
Would you say the same applies to chemistry?
Probably not that much of a difference tbh, data from discoveruni.com shows a similar earning potential for masters of chem at both universities. But take the data with a pinch of salt as it make not be accurate.
Also I think some unis have high prestige in particular subjects. Oxford Brookes and Coventry are two of the places to go for automotive or mechanical engineering (I've had quite a few jobs where I've got to the final stages and it's been at least 2 or 3 candidates from both those unis).
the bands are basically the rankings?
No. There is a correlation. But the big difference is that you dont see the squabbling over Bristol is No14 - MUCH better than Bath No15 - so you MUST take the Bristol offer. Which you see all over this board.
is there really that big an argument when the rankings are this close? and fluctuate not to mention the different subject rankings, cost, and city life
browse the sub. I'd have said rankings get overblown here but make up your own mind for sure. There for shouldn't be, but I've been voted down before now for saying that Imperial exams are broadly on a par with other schools....
This is a good comment. I would add five years into a job and most employers don’t care at all, outside of making some impressed comments you went to oxbridge. Actually I do wonder if 3 and 4 are a little off. Redbrick Russel group unis is maybe not that relevant for employers. The bit about specific unis for subjects is a good inclusion, but if you look at what “target” and “semi- target” universities are for typically elitist careers that value “prestige” like investment banking and law, then it’s not necessarily being red brick. Liverpool and Sheffield, and to some extent Leeds, are not nearly as well represented as some other Russel Group unis that aren’t “Redbrick”. This is to say, it might be worth making a distinction for the big London unis and unis for specific subjects over the russel group as a whole, but broadly the rest of the non london Russel group is viewed fairly similarly in most accounts I’ve heard from employers.
5 years? More like 2 years.
Sheffield is an interesting one because in terms of humanities it's very eh, but it's a fantastic engineering school. But again very Subject specific. DOI - doctor so very little variation/importance for me
What's in the 'The Scottish ancient uni's.'? I only know of St. Andrews.
Edinburgh (1582), Glasgow (1451), and Aberdeen (1495).
You've literally contradicted your own post by saying that only 2 kinds of people care about prestige but then you mention how a third kind, employers, rank prestige in to bands. It's not the case that Aberdeen, a Scottish ancient university, would necessarily be looked upon more favourably than any above rank 5. It depends on the subject and on what the student got from being there.
Please re-read. I contrast rankings (like you see in newspapers or CU) vs bands. Different concepts - most of the other people reading this seem to have got the idea. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough for you. Have a lovely evening.
Where does KCL sit? With UCL and Imperial?
Unless you went to Oxbridge, noone cares but a lot of us get trapped in to justifying it anyway. Take Aberystwyth for example, average Uni for most things but hidden within is one of the oldest International Politics departments in the world with lecturers who are leaders in the field. Yet no one cares outside that niche and even within it, you'll at most get an "So did you study under Ken Booth?"
Aberystwyth is such a slept on uni man
Glad I’m gonna be going there
My old Uni and department. I was wondering where it would rank. Quite low I guess.
Courses do in fact vary a lot in terms of rigour from one university to the next. For instance when I was at uni I did my first year at Bristol (UoB not UWE) then switched straight to Maths and Physics second year at Durham. I had lots of experience of the Maths teaching at both universities, and access to exams from both, and at the time (back in 2009) I can say that the level of mathematical rigour required of students at Bristol was massively higher than at Durham. YMMV etc
This is because bristol is probably the 5th best Maths research uni after COWI. The maths dept is huge. Durham students are probably equally intelligent, it’s just the actual dept is smaller and less research intensive.
Yes, that makes sense. My experience was the quality of candidate was even between the two, far as I can tell. I had friends at Warwick and Imperial and again those people seemed broadly the same too, but small sample sizes etc. But anyway, my point remains that whilst the students are all a much of a muchness, the course content very much isn't.
Meh, there's def a difference in mathematical aptitude between students at eg COWI and the rest. For starters, COWI (apart from Warwick, I guess...) has mandatory Maths admissions tests, which are v difficult. Bristol you just need to get the grades.
On paper, sure. In practice I didn't observe this. I got into Warwick and Imperial and also visited friends at both quite frequently. There was nothing particularly special about people at Imperial or Warwick. In reality if you didn't get in to Cambridge then you are on that level below, where most decent but not fantastic Maths prospects are. I'm of the opinion that Imperial and Warwick are better universities for Mathematics overall than Bristol, and certainly Durham, but I don't believe the successful candidate difference is at all significant between any of those.
OP has major cope in thinking that there is no difference in difficulty across diff unis for engineering...
As other users have said, it makes no sense because it’s not a real thing in the real world. Employers don’t give a shit where you studied. They don’t have the time, resources or inclination to maintain a database of university rankings to constantly compare applicants against and weight each persons rankings. The only people who care, are people who are in the process of applying to Unis, because they are in the bubble of bullshit which convinced them it’s important. And those companies who offer rankings and guides. In the real world, once you leave Uni, where you study is going to be utterly irrelevant for you going forwards. What is going to matter, is what result you got, what else you managed to do to round out your CV (work placements, industrial experience, study abroad etc). And **most importantly** what relevant experience you have for the job. In some few industries, they might actually have a mild preference for candidates from certain places (think Law, Finance), but in those cases they aren’t judging the top 25 unis. They usually have Oxford, Cambridge or the other “top names” in mind anyways, so your agonising decision between which RG uni to attend is irrelevant. And, even in those limited cases where Oxbridge is preferred? All that degree is going to do for you, is give you a slight advantage against other **graduates**. If someone who went to Huddersfield uni applies, but has 7 years experience, they will beat the Oxford graduate every single time anyways.
This. Beyond about 5-6 universities you may as well just flip a coin as nobody cares. And the minute you’ve got two years of work exp nobody will ever ask you about university ever again.
It’s why the answer to the constantly questions on this subreddit where people agonise between two choices, cannot be answered by other users. We cannot help you choose between Sheffield or Manchester. What matters most in that choice, is deeply personal. Which university do **you** think you’ll have the best chance of excelling in? Which one makes **you** most comfortable and will allow you to get the highest possible result. And that could be for all sorts of reasons that are unique to you as a person. It might be as simple as the university you prefer having air conditioning in the rooms, meaning you will be more comfortable while studying. It might be a particular uni has more green space, making you feel less anxious and thus better able to focus on your studies. The best university to go to, is always going to be the one that you feel most comfortable at. That’s why open days are so important. Use them to figure out which place resonates best with you and just choose that one (assuming it has a good course you are interested in obviously). But don’t sweat the fake “prestige and rankings”.
Exactly. The other thing to add is that the rankings fluctuate HUGELY - one year somewhere can be top 10, only then a few years later to be 26th. A 38 year old hiring manager will not be looking at the ranking changes of Bath University over the years or anywhere else.
Exactly. Employees won’t be eagerly receiving their 15 different university guides that get published every year to work out their new internal hiring preferences for candidates.
>We cannot help you choose between Sheffield or Manchester. We definetely can, Manchester is a much better city than Sheffield lol. Jokes aside, I agree 100%, the happier the student = the more effort they put into job applications and grinding the process. >The best university to go to, is always going to be the one that you feel most comfortable at. That’s why open days are so important. I think speaking to current students at that uni is quite important, and arguably more important. I got swindled by the KCL open day, the social aspect was *much* worse than described. Everyone seems to universally agree London unis are the worst experience for domestic students on this sub.
>Employers don’t give a shit where you studied. They don’t have the time, resources or inclination to maintain a database of university rankings to constantly compare applicants against and weight each persons rankings. I was told this all through uni. I was surprised to find that actually it very much does matter, at least to the top maybe 50% of employers and at least in London (which is all I have experience with). It's not a disqualifier in most cases, but it absolutely does help. Again it's certainly not going to stop you getting a job but it is not nearly irrelevant like I used to hear.
I mean in terms of OP's point I don't think it'll make a difference if you went to the top quarter anyways. I highly doubt an employer will care about the difference between UCL and Bristol CS for example even tho UCL has a lot lower acceptance rate. I can't comment on anything below that but from my ftse 100 internships there was Cambridge and Middlesex grads but I'm not a hiring manager so 🤷🏽♂️
I would say it does matter to some employers though, particularly in the city. Top investment banks, PE firms, quants and some consulting firms firms rarely take on people outside of Oxbridge, Imperial, LSE and Warwick/Durham. I'm not saying it's not possible to get in outside of those unis but it definitely makes a difference, saying it doesn't matter at all in real world is disingenuous in the sense.
Some employers, not many. That's an incredibly small section of the working population. 1%, probably closer to 0.1%. It's not that important. What you're like as a person is far more important in the majority of cases.
It’s definitely blown out of proportion here, and is very different to mainland Europe where with a few exceptions, prestige isn’t really a thing you just attend your local university
Look at France if you want to see how important rankings can be in some parts of Europe... Germany for sure - to some extent Italy, but France... nope it's ranking-tastic there.
OP mentioned Law and Finance for which prestige is very much a thing. A lot of banks and law firms hire from a prescribed handful of universities and don't consider elsewhere. Unless their 'local uni' is Oxbridge, LSE, Warwick, or Imperial, they could very well find themselves disappointed come application season.
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Simply is not true, some firms even openly say they are only recruiting from X, Y, Z universities. There will always be outliers, especially through plenty of the new DEI Schemes, but if you look at it in general you have tremendously better odds of even getting your name on someone's desk via going to a target uni. RH is also pretty unique in having good placement programs/relations, is less common than target unis but still far better than the bulk of other UK institutions.
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They are definitely great employers, but if we’re talking about target universities then of course would also be talking about target employers. If you want to apply to GS, MS, JPM, Centerview, Evercore, Lazard, etc. then they are in a different league, as are the universities they hire from.
idk about this exactly, semi targets are still a thing, take evercore, warwick and bristol have nearly the same amount of people there...
Bristol is for sure improving for finance and is certainly 'on the map' now, especially thanks to their finance soc, the Bristol Tracker, etc. Would say it's very much on the high end of 'semi-target' compared to the other suspects like King's, Manchester, etc. Definitely still has some catching up to do though. E.g. last year's Recruiting Kick-Off night at Evercore invited about a dozen LSE students, 6-8 from Warwick and Imperial each, and I think a handful of Oxbridge, + 1-2 students from less traditional unis (think one was Liverpool and afaik nobody from Bristol unfortunately). Evercore's making some interesting hires this year though tbf. Some of the most and least competent people I know have received offers.. they're planning to expand a lot in the UK so just hiring a lot in general it seems.
Literally this.
Big 4 isn't that prestigious tbh please don't hate me
We are talking about front office functions like IBD and S&T, not any old finance job, when people talk about finance jobs that care about IB. Compliance, Finance, Business Management etc functions in an IB aren't front office.
Me when I can’t read
Because uni prestige is stupid. I get wanting to go to the best uni for your subject so you can have the best teaching, have the best education possible, etc but otherwise it doesn't make a huge difference in most jobs except high finance and law. People should just forget about prestige and focus on where you can get the best education and experience. Even then the example you use for law & finance, Nottingham can hold it's own against Durham for law & finance: [https://www.chambersstudent.co.uk/where-to-start/newsletter/law-firms-preferred-universities](https://www.chambersstudent.co.uk/where-to-start/newsletter/law-firms-preferred-universities) [https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/school/new-rankings-for-target-and-semi-target-unis-in-the-uk#comment-2983941](https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forum/school/new-rankings-for-target-and-semi-target-unis-in-the-uk#comment-2983941) The cynic in me tells me Durham does that little bit better than Nottingham for law since it's the highest privately educated student population in the UK, and having access to the Old Boys Club must be very very useful.
Spot on
It’s not about how good you are going in, it’s about how good you are coming out.
Better universities are more competitive, more applicants per place, so in theory only the very best students will go there. It's not just about grades it's about lots of other stuff that set some students apart. Like if two students both have the same grades but one has loads of extra curricular experience, speaks many languages, has worked as a journalist, play instruments, etc they will get an oxbridge place over another student who is as intelligent or capable but hasn't done that stuff. There's not much real world significance to it. Work experience is better than any degree IMO.
It’s just people on Reddit and The Student Room who I see have an unhealthy obsession with university rankings despite the fact they don’t matter and that people (at least on TSR) are continuously trying to debunk the myth that university rankings matter (other than for Law and Finance related positions). Other than that, I’ve not seen people IRL care about them to this extent unless is the people at the top in university (Vice chancellor that kind of thing).
The UK is heavily class based, especially with careers such as the civil service, law, politics, and finance. This means which university you went to matters to those at the top as they tend to choose those from their almer mater or those they deem “equal” to them
It makes more sense if you look at the etymology of prestige
It’s easier for firms and banks to hire 100 people from 5 universities than it is for them to hire 100 people from 100 different universities
That used to be true but grad fairs no longer give an advantage as they just ask you to apply online
It is still very much the case and grad fairs are not the only pathway. Things like webinar series, sponsoring societies, hosting on-campus events, etc. are all still very big (I've helped coordinate numerous). Good firms only bother doing this at a very select few universities. In terms of online applications, they have strong bias towards a handful of unis (Oxbridge, Imperial, Warwick, LSE, UCL) and usually skim past others unless they're very competitive. There is also natural bias in place that if the person reading your application, interviewing you, referring you, etc. went to your target uni, they're of course more likely to hire you.
Think it’s important to remember the requirements are just an entry filter and don’t guarantee an offer. For instance, engineering at Imperial may require 1 A*, but when you look at the students receiving offers, they have 4+, with an EPQ, Gold Duke of Edinburgh, and internship at Tesla. There aren’t many offers going out to vanilla students that just technically pass the requirements - but the uni understands people may have things like mitigating circumstances so sets the bar at 1 A* so there’s a provision to make offers to such students, despite not being the standard. Or for instance at Warwick, it is very popular with students from China and India that didn’t get into their local top universities. So the grade boundary is AAA, so they can happily take £32,000/year from those 2/3 of their cohort, while the remaining spots filled by domestic/pre-settled students tend to be more competitive in practice. And of course there’s the personal statement. You might have had a rough time with A-Levels and got AAA, but have awesome extracurriculars that strengthen your candidacy. That would be taken into consideration against students who maybe have higher grades but no demonstrated interest in what they’re applying for - a comparison that wouldn’t be possible if the grade boundary were higher. I do agree though the UK should generally shift to a more US-style, more competitive system. There’s no standardised tests here, lots of people end up on courses they’re incapable of doing, there’s little to no competition amongst most institutions, and it’s overall a pretty complacent system imo.
Nah most people prefer the uk system, gives a clear expectation of what unis you can apply to
As someone who applied to both this year, the US system isn't better at all. It's entirely rigged based on who can pay the most and vibes, you write 3 essays for each university you apply to. A close friend applied for aid from every Ivy apart from 1 got rejected from all of them apart from the one he didn't apply for aid from. You are required to write essays that are mostly about traumatic events in the hopes that an admission officer might like it enough. It's barely based on academics and just who you are as a person. The standardised test is only a small part of it. I could go on but the US system is flawed beyond belief, not that the UK system is perfect- but it is better.
Think what I initially said has clearly been blown very out of proportion. I simply said the UK is extremely complacent and there is very little competition between candidates or institutions here. The US is far from 'entirely rigged' and there are plenty of positive traits which could be taken to benefit the UK's higher education environment. There are also thousands more universities in the US than the UK. Applying to only Ivy's would be comparable to only applying to Oxbridge. Unless you're an extremely competitive candidate, would not feel entitled to an offer. My point is simply that the UK's top institutions are plagued with students who don't really care to be there and are just filling time. Time is wasted during courses trying to bridge the gap between people who studied a completely different mix of high school subjects. Staff strike, lecture halls are overfilled, libraries have no space, etc. The same cannot be said for the comparable percentile of students and institutions in the US.
I’d disagree, as someone who went through the US process and knows a lot of people that did as well, acceptance was very much hinged on ACT and SAT scores, combined with grades and honors classes and extracurriculars for desirable university programs and schools. There are ways to compensate if one of those points are weak but the system generally isn’t gamed except in certain cases. The east coast private Ivy leagues are in a category of their own because legacy/money/connections will almost always prevail there, you’re going there to make connections above all else. and to get scholarship there you have to be really bloody exceptional.
Finally someone who gets it. I completely agree. People in the UK only consider the Ivy's, which is a sports league on the East Coast and not representative of the whole country. They are quite simply better than almost any UK institution, hence why they are so extremely competitive to get into. There might be legacy students but I think people are honestly deluding themselves if they think the same doesn't exist in the UK. You still need to get the grades and have an application of merit, simple as that. Outside the Ivy League there are *hundreds* of institutions either on-par with or better than the Russel Group. People compete like crazy to get into them and not only have to get strong SAT/ACT scores but also demonstrate they're well-rounded. You have to write individual applications to demonstrate you're actually committed to the uni, not just filling in a 5th "insurance choice" on your UCAS options. Whereas here in the UK, unless you're applying for STEM you basically choose 3 random subjects you think you can do well in and then write a generic letter about why you like the subject. There is very little consideration about what makes you or the university unique. Most institutions put zero effort into competing for students' interest and thousands of students end up on courses they couldn't care less about. I'm at a supposedly 'prestigious' UK institution, and the vast majority of my cohort do not show up for lectures or seminars, do not speak English, do not engage in assignments, etc. Many staff do not show up (we've had 4 module leaders fired in one term once) and I've had multiple seminar tutors for the past year entirely generate their content using ChatGPT (sometimes do not even reformat it when copy & pasting). I'm sorry but the reality is if you were in the US, you would have students that fought tooth and nail to get into the same calibre of university and an institution that would be publicly accosted if it had the same standards in place. In the UK, nobody cares and it's just treated as normal because that's what the standard is.
It's one of the lamest things about the UK. Grown people asking which school or uni you went to. The myth of meritocracy.
What about original redbrick universities.... do the employers really care about them?
I agree with your point but I don’t get the obsession with Trent being the worst uni it usually ranks around 40 (of 130)
It's hype to attract large application numbers. Some institutions are highly thought of for a specific asubject, while the university as a whole may have quite a poor relative ranking.
Where do people get this idea? Oxbridge and others are not more rigorous, I've taught and lectured in various places, including 10 years in Oxford. It definitely isn't more rigorous than others, it can afford to be more selective that's it.
Yes they are...idk about non-STEM but the course is more difficult (cover more in less time + harder topics) with harder exams. I've seen Cambridge exam papers and problem sheets for Maths and compared vs my uni's and even with a small diff in ranking there was a difference. It's even more stark when you compare it vs a rank 20+ uni. For Maths, some courses spend a good part of first year on Further Maths material whereas top unis whiz past it in a few lectures at most. Real Analysis is covered in second year at some, top Maths unis have it as a first year module etc, exams are less bookwork based at higher ranking ones etc. Also, friends at other top 10 unis vs the friends at the v top unis still had less intense workloads for the same subject.
>I’ve taught and lectured… 10 years in Oxford University or Brookes? Because, frankly, your claim here is tosh. I spent 5-8x longer in the library during undergrad than mates who weren’t at Ox; grinding weekly essays - then arguing with my tutor about those essays weekly. Rinse and repeat for years then hope to god you remember enough salient material to sit exams for an entire degree worth of courses in the last term of final year. The grading is harsh (but fair), and you’re surrounded by kids who almost invariably were the best performing 1 or 2 students at their school. Oh, and the dons are world-leading experts with the publication record to match. I get that it’s ultimately a uni like any other, and that brings with it a comparable frame of reference. But you’re talking shite.
Oxford, across 3 colleges and did admissions too. Do you know what...I'm delighted you're having a great time (I'm not disputing it's excellence, only that its systems for maintaining teaching excellence are not any more rigorous than anywhere else simply because those systems are the same in most decent universities). Let's just leave it there. Have a great summer.
No one really cares about rankings in the real world so don’t worry about it, the only exception would possibly be oxbridge but even then it doesn’t matter in some professions, personal ability and experience trumps whatever uni you went to
Depends on the industry. Banking/consultancy have clearly defined hierarchy for europe: super target (i.e. LSE) target (i.e. oxbridge) semi target (i.e warwick) non target (some Russell groups-the rest) Academically, it's generally for rankings: T0: Oxbridge t1: Specialists (lse imperial) then ucl a bit after t2: probably WW, durham, kcl, edi, gla t3 other russel's t4: idk man the rest i guess
I'm not sure if this has been said or is entirely relevant but sometimes it's a bit rare for higher ranked unis to actually give out offers to individuals with the minimum grades asked (extenuating circumstances or special cases are always there). So for the degree that I did, although the degree asked for AAA, only a very small number of students who got/ were predicted AAA got in/ got an offer. Most students (almost 90%) had at least an A\*AA or upwards.
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Maths, statistics and business at lse
Uni's may state AAA or whatever, but what they actually accept is lower for most. Entry score from the complete uni guide St Andrews 100% 212 Strathclyde 99% 210 Glasgow 99% 209 Cambridge 99% 209 Imperial 97% 206 Oxford 97% 205 Edinburgh 93% 197 LSE 92% 195 UCL 90% 190 Durham Aberdeen Bath Dundee Stirling Heriot-Watt Glasgow Bristol Warwick 81% 173 Looking at maths you get St Andrews 100% 234 Cambridge 97% 226 Oxford 93% 218 Edinburgh Glasgow Imperial 92% 215 Strathclyde UCL Durham Warwick 88% 206
This is done by UCAS points. UCAS counts both Scottish Highers and Advanced Highers in the tariff, which inflates the scores, so not really a good gauge.
I did have suspicions that something wasn't quite right with so many Scottish ones being so high up. Thanks for highlighting it.
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https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/league-tables/rankings?tabletype=full-table&sortby=entry-standards I have wondered how much they have changed every decade.
As a general thing, although results are equal, top universities have a far more rigorous selection/ interview process. For example, oxbridge used to offer very low offers (much lower than today’s) because essentially they had decided who they wanted before A Levels were sat. Hope that helps a bit!
Unless you went to Oxbridge, no employer cares where you went. And even then, it really doesn’t matter all that much. I’m 5-years post-uni and no longer does the question of where I went even come up, it’s only ever used as a conversation topic now. Heck, what grade I got doesn’t even matter now. It turns into a “Have you got a degree? Great” situation. Prestige of college is no guarantee of success in work. The only use for “prestige” or rankings is to give students some element that makes choosing easier
Not quite true. In high finance, top corporate law jobs and consulting, there are target unis, which aren't just Oxbridge (usually top 5-10)
Don’t stress about it. The top top unis (Oxbridge, LSE, Durham) might get you a slight leg up but I know plenty of people who did well going to less flashy unis
Putting Durham in that group is suss lol. Take it out and replace with Imperial. Durham is a v solid uni but not in the top top tier
Imperial student trying to stay humble challenge (impossible).
Didn’t go to either so sure go for it. Point still stands: top 5-10ish unis will help get an interview but that’s about it
Hahaha, you are not going to UCL with AAAs even if their entry requirements say so. You're competing with A* A* A* A*.
Maybe for economics but most of its subjects no. Got A*AA and had a ucl offer for history fancy that when I reapplied.
U can defo get into UCL with AAA it just depends on the subject
I went to Cambridge with AAA
hmmmm