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Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

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Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#191

Post by paganel »

rayiner wrote: post #161
ceejayoz wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only 1 in 2600 gets 4 A. > And 1 in 83 gets 3 As. And what if that’s not always an indication of which person is smarter ?

But we know that it’s true. That’s why we have been using objective metrics like test scores for millennia, across societies are different as China, India, and Britain.

You could fairly say that China’s pre-Opium Wars obsession with testing and meritocracy based on said testing is what brought them into all that mess, I’m pretty sure that the Portuguese that had gotten all the way from their small country all the way to Southern China using some stingy boats were not clerks nor great (potential) test-takers, and yet it was those Portuguese seafarers that were to change the fate of most of Asia forever, not the test-taking Chinese.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#192

Post by growse »

skippyboxedhero wrote: post #190
rm445 wrote: post #124

I 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 time of every bright child having Oxbridge as first university pick ended quite a few years ago. Not accurate that parents are saying this either, the change has largely come from parents who are often people doing hiring and have seen the change over the past few years. The very top aren't applying there any more at all, you don't need to: Stanford, Harvard, MIT, all better. Oxford, in particular, has made their…

> The very top aren't applying there any more at all, you don't need to: Stanford, Harvard, MIT, all better.

The only people applying to those from the UK are the wealthy.

If by "very top" you mean "richest", then maybe. But I'm not sure we care about that?

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#193

Post by cal85 »

joefarish wrote: post #25

I'm not saying it's wrong but people are reacting to this as if the Times university guide is some objective truth. Regarding the potential lowering of standards for widening participation purposes, this doesn't change the fact that the entry standards for Oxford and Cambridge are still higher than LSE and St. Andrews.

> I'm not saying it's wrong but people are reacting to this as if the Times university guide is some objective truth.

I can’t see a single example of anyone reacting to it that way.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#194

Post by skippyboxedhero »

ceejayoz wrote: post #11
patanegra wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is extremely unfair framing. Oxford University has been discriminating people from independent schools for a while now. To get in, you need 4 A* from an independent schools, or just 3 As from state schools. That's not "letting in poor people" as you framed it. It's letting in dumber people, worse students. Lots of that is mainly based on classism (against people from middle class), racism (against white people).…

> It's letting in dumber people, worse students. Is it? Maybe a kid managing to struggle through a shitty school has to work harder than, say, Prince Charles with his private school and dedicated personal tutors.

How would you measure this?

Before you continue, there are governments in the UK that have created formulas to mathematically measure your level of "struggle"...these happen to, in a massive coincidence, benefit areas that vote for them.

The same logic is also being applied within universities to boost grades as managers at universities have quotas to hit from government. This leads to odd situations where a subject like Scottish Law at Edinburgh has no quota for students without appropriate social credit because it is a subject which, unlike other courses at that university, gets largely Scottish students applying so it has to be used to fill quotas. And these students have to be carried to the end of their course because they are there to fulfill a quota.

Sounds like a great idea but, as with everything like this, the assumption is that a university administrator or bureaucrat can accurately measure your struggle...they can't, I am sure the wisdom of this approach will dim when you are being operated on by someone who filled a quota at medical school.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#195

Post by growse »

rayiner wrote: post #161
ceejayoz wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only 1 in 2600 gets 4 A. > And 1 in 83 gets 3 As. And what if that’s not always an indication of which person is smarter ?

But we know that it’s true. That’s why we have been using objective metrics like test scores for millennia, across societies are different as China, India, and Britain.

I got six A's at A level, over 20 years ago.

Am i objectively smarter than every single other peer who only got 4 As?

(I, for one, am confident I know the answer to this question).

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#196

Post by skippyboxedhero »

cs02rm0 wrote: post #185
fatfox wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I’d agree with that. International student income dropped, rounds of layoffs. Some universities are better at optimising for rankings, see also REF research funding and how much effort and resources are spent on it, which varies by university: https://2029.ref.ac.uk/about/what-is-the-ref/

How did international student income drop with Brexit, when the UK now have 4-600k student visas granted in each of the last few years vs 2-300k pre-Brexit?

Because universities borrowed staggering amounts of money and hired massive numbers of people.

The assumption was that international student numbers would be allowed to grow as fast or faster than in the past, ignoring the fact that the UK is not able to provide infrastructure for the people who live here let alone temporary inhabitants. There is no way to keep the bubble going (as with every bubble, for government and university administrators it just seemed unlimited because there are no limits to resources, dangerous).

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#197

Post by tqi »

> Durham University improved by 30 places year-on-year in its students’ evaluation of teaching quality

To me an improvement of that magnitude needs a plausible explanation of what they changed, or else my immediate assumption is this is an example of metric gaming.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#198

Post by ralph84 »

growse wrote: post #192
skippyboxedhero wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The time of every bright child having Oxbridge as first university pick ended quite a few years ago. Not accurate that parents are saying this either, the change has largely come from parents who are often people doing hiring and have seen the change over the past few years. The very top aren't applying there any more at all, you don't need to: Stanford, Harvard, MIT, all better. Oxford, in particular, has made their…

> The very top aren't applying there any more at all, you don't need to: Stanford, Harvard, MIT, all better. The only people applying to those from the UK are the wealthy. If by "very top" you mean "richest", then maybe. But I'm not sure we care about that?

The network value of knowing a rich person far exceeds the network value of knowing a smart person.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#199

Post by skippyboxedhero »

growse wrote: post #192
skippyboxedhero wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The time of every bright child having Oxbridge as first university pick ended quite a few years ago. Not accurate that parents are saying this either, the change has largely come from parents who are often people doing hiring and have seen the change over the past few years. The very top aren't applying there any more at all, you don't need to: Stanford, Harvard, MIT, all better. Oxford, in particular, has made their…

> The very top aren't applying there any more at all, you don't need to: Stanford, Harvard, MIT, all better. The only people applying to those from the UK are the wealthy. If by "very top" you mean "richest", then maybe. But I'm not sure we care about that?

No, you can get a scholarship. Again, this is really the best of the best, those with the highest merit. If you have that, why would you study somewhere that has no people of merit? All they had to do was convince a bureaucrat their life was hard (usually based on rather unobjective criteria), everyone else has to pass exams.

If you can't get the grades, you don't have merit.

Debase the currency, surprised when it has less value? Lol.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#200

Post by programjames »

afavour wrote: post #93
TMWNN wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patanegra wrote: > To get in, you need 4 A* from an independent schools, or just 3 As from state schools. In reply, I provided a recently prominent example of someone recently admitted to Oxford with lower than 3 A grades on the A-Levels. I only mentioned Kirk's murder as context because, as I keep repeating, the person a) only became prominent because b) he publicly cheered said murder c) after debating Kirk in pers…

> I don't know what else you can ask for here. Perhaps a demonstration of any kind of connection between his grades and his views on Kirk? The implication in what you're saying is that an ABB student is saying bad things than a 4 A* student would never say. I'd love to see anything backing that up. There are plenty of ABB students who said nothing of that nature and I'd wager you could find 4 A* students (albeit with…

I believe you're being purposefully dense here. I get it, and probably do the same sometimes, but the connection is pretty obvious: someone gets in (allegedly) due to ideological fit instead of merit, and then becomes one of the most prominent voices for that ideology at the campus. It shows "wokism" has finally solved the reproduction crisis, and for people opposed to certain aspects (like affirmative action), that's pretty worrying.
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