Rankings are just meaningless. And this isn't the evidence for it! Actually in the past they've more or less admitted that they play around with the weighting and discard if the outcome is unexpected, meaning that even by its own standards it's circular. But the fact is that rankings are one dimensional and universities are very obviously multidimensional. You can't get anything meaningful out of such compression. The researchers and students at oxbridge are higher quality, that's more or less undisputed. Other than that though, it's so subjective and personal.
Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK
171–180 of 446 posts
Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK
#172I wasn't even aware Oxford has ever loses top 2. May be I am way too stuck in the past. Also surprised Imperial and UCL are lower than what I expected. I remember the joke in "Yes Minister" about LSE. How times have changed. I also wonder the world is now more American focused, how do they rank against Harvard, MIT or other US Universities. 1. LSE 2. University of St Andrews 3. Durham University 4. Oxford and Cambrid…
Given that this is Hacker News, I think it is worth pointing out that Durham's strong suit traditionally is the humanities. In my opinion a CS degree from Oxford, Cambridge, or ICL is considerably more impressive than one from Durham.
I've found graduate students at Edinburgh to be fairly good as well thanks to the EPSRC's preference for the uni.
Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK
#173Be cautious with university rankings. Universities can be assessed by research, student satisfaction, teaching quality, cost, accessibility, or by specific fields. Some excel in computer science, others in medicine or the humanities. A single overall ranking is therefore meaningless - look instead for the measure that matches your priorities. For instance, for research impact in computer science, see: https://csranki…
This is a cool site. For anyone who doesn't feel like clicking, the top overall is Carnegie Mellon. There are three from China in the top 10, the other seven are American. ETH Zurich is the first outside of China/USA at number 12.
However if you select only AI, Carnegie Mellon drops to 3rd and only two of the top ten are outside Asia (mostly China but also National University of Singapore and KAIST in South Korea).
Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK
#174I'm a researcher at Oxford, and I've both taught and studied here and in the US.
The undergraduate teaching here is phenomenal. It's incredibly labor intensive for the staff, but the depth and breadth students are exposed to in their subject is astonishing. It's difficult to imagine how it can be improved.
My favorite study of university rankings comes from faculty hiring markets, which compute implicit rankings by measuring which institutions tend to hire (PhD->faculty) from others. [1] It's not perfect, but at the very least it's a parameter free way to get a sense of how different universities view each other. The parameters in most university rankings are rather arbitrary and game-able.
Some have pointed to things like contextual admissions [2], and more broadly some identity politics capture of the administration for declining standards. While this might be true, in my view Oxford is still far more meritocratic than US institutions on the whole. There are no legacy admissions, and many subjects have difficult tests which better distinguish between applicants who have all done extremely well on national standardised tests (British A Levels are far more difficult than the SAT/ACT/AP exams.)
Lastly, admissions at Oxford are devolved to the individual colleges, of which there are ~40. The faculty at each college directly interview and select the applicants which they will take as students. This devolved system and the friction it creates is surprisingly robust and makes complete ideological capture more difficult.
The most pressing issue for Oxford's long-term viability as a leading institution, in my view, is the funding situation. For one the British economy is in a long, slow decline. Secondly, even though Oxford has money, there are lots of regulations/soft power influence from the British govt to standardise pay across the country, which makes top institutions like Oxford less competitive on the international market for PhD students, postdocs, and faculty in terms of pay.
[1]: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1400005
[2]: https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/applying-to-ox...
Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK
#175I am a Durham graduate, still somewhat involved with the university via some voluntary roles, and a bit of a 'booster' in the sense that I'll sing its praises to anyone. I also have a postgrad degree from Cambridge and did a little teaching while there. So, I'm quite familiar, and while I'm happy to see Durham get some love, this is bunk. There is a gulf in undergraduate teaching between Oxbridge and the pack. The su…
> The supervision system guarantees all Oxbridge students weekly, small-group tutorials, We had that in Physics at Manchester in the 2000s. 4 students. I'm guessing they got the idea from Oxbridge, but I don't think it's been a USP for a very long time.
Unique Selling Point?
Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK
#176pg thinks this is because of letting in poor people: https://xcancel.com/paulg/status/1969334665375813679
Is pg generally aligned with this line of thought or is this out of character? Not what I expected but also not unexpected given most powerful tech bros slides into that side of politics
> Is pg generally aligned with this line of thought
Yep, but this is a fairly common take I've noticed in England (not as severe in Scotland).
The air is thick with a semblance of classism, and I've found the business culture to be horrid due to this "old boys club" mindset.
Imagine an America where the only way to open doors to the upper echelons is to attend only an Ivy.
And I say this as an Ivy grad.
To a large extent I feel this is because the British economy is so heavily tied to legal, financial, and media services, and as such the "Magic Circle", "The City", and the media consolidation in Greater London has such an outsized impact.
Ironic too because there are fairly decent clusters of engineering research like DefenseTech in Southwest England (which tbf is fairly posh) and Robotics and HPC in Edinburgh.
Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK
#177I am a Durham graduate, still somewhat involved with the university via some voluntary roles, and a bit of a 'booster' in the sense that I'll sing its praises to anyone. I also have a postgrad degree from Cambridge and did a little teaching while there. So, I'm quite familiar, and while I'm happy to see Durham get some love, this is bunk. There is a gulf in undergraduate teaching between Oxbridge and the pack. The su…
> The supervision system guarantees all Oxbridge students weekly, small-group tutorials, We had that in Physics at Manchester in the 2000s. 4 students. I'm guessing they got the idea from Oxbridge, but I don't think it's been a USP for a very long time.
Same, at Imperial in 80’s
Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK
#178Be cautious with university rankings. Universities can be assessed by research, student satisfaction, teaching quality, cost, accessibility, or by specific fields. Some excel in computer science, others in medicine or the humanities. A single overall ranking is therefore meaningless - look instead for the measure that matches your priorities. For instance, for research impact in computer science, see: https://csranki…
compare contrast
https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-sch...
Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is a very fair read of Paul's take. I attended one of the worst secondary schools in the country. Less than 10% of my year earned the qualifications necessary to go on to university. I know that many of these people, who have gone on to be successful in life, would have excelled at an independent school and would have excelled at university. They were in poverty, not stupid. You cannot compare the achievements of…
> You cannot compare the achievements of a student at an independent school to those of a student at a state school based on grades. State school and independent school are a fundamentally different educational experience. While I agree with this as a conclusion, I believe you cannot really go there without acknowledging that this has been a deteriorating situation ever since most of the UK abolished the grammar scho…
As someone who went to a grammar school, they are a terrible idea and comprehensive schools are a better system.
Students are not equally capable across all subjects, and their ability changes over time. Grammar schools mean there is no room to give you what you need in subjects you fall behind on, and students who start to struggle or start achieving post-11-plus have to transfer schools to fix it, creating huge friction and basically ensuring they'll miss out on the education they should have.
Comprehensives that have a full range of sets to teach at the skill level of the student for each subject are infinitely better for actual education.
I was one of the fortunate ones who was pretty generalist and so I didn't suffer too much by it, but I consistently saw people just give up on subjects because they were too far behind and the school had no other options because there were no lower sets.
Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK
#180It doesn’t matter. UK education is flawed already by the time a student reach tertiary. A levels leave such a gap in people that I would go as far as adding it to the reasons for the country issues. People in the UK, even if they study at Oxford, are likely more ignorant than many Europeans having done classical studies in high school.
The UK system ranks a fair bit above the antiquated German system, you should be aware that there are 3 types of schools, with only one that teaches Latin etc., and the other two of them are considered shit, one German even told me that if you go to the lowest level of secondary school, your best bet is to just kill yourself. But it's certainly neat meeting lots of young Germans who studied Latin in school but nevertheless know absolutely no Latin once you ask them about it. Fabulous system.