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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

#301

Post by ninalanyon »

owlbite wrote: post #159

So my experience with moving from a Cambridge undergrad to an Edinburgh postgrad, albeit a couple of decades ago now, was the expectations between the two were nowhere comparable. Cambridge if you'd not done the homework before the tutorial, you got sent packing for wasting everyone's time, but in Edinburgh it was common for all but the best students to only start the homework at the tutorial (thus wasting their oppo…

How very odd. In most of my finals at Exeter Uni. Physics department in the 1970s regurgitation of course notes got you nowhere because all the exams were open note so the examiners didn't bother asking questions of that kind. The Quantum Mechanics exam was an outstanding example, not only did it not ask for any regurgitation most of the questions required the student to provide answers to problems that had not been more than hinted at in the course.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#302

Post by 2dvisio »

exe34 wrote: post #147
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 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.

I used to teach tutorials at Keble college (Oxford). Not sure how they were run in Manchester.

Tutorials in Oxford are impressive for me for many reasons: 1. Those teaching were generally of a higher level beyond Ph.D., post docs or professors, all paid, all assessed against an NPS from students, and the performance of the students in exams 2. Tutors are generally teaching more adjacent topics (creating connections), students are challenged to think beyond the assignments (which are generally tough), 3. Tutorials are calibrated and personalised to students and made sure all students are challenged at the right level, I had tutorials where I had to teach 1:2 because the students were excellent and needed a higher level of complexity.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#303

Post by geodel »

OhMeadhbh wrote: post #275
programjames wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From [1], these are the rankings for CS: 1. Stanford 2. UC Berkeley 3. MIT 4. Caltech 5. Harvard I'm a little surprised MIT and Caltech are lower than Stanford and UC Berkeley. I know that MIT has a culture of sending its undergraduates to different graduate schools (so, if the top CS students go to MIT for their undergrad and professorships, they often would not have a PhD from MIT, lowering their prestige rating),…

MIT has it's own peculiar pedagogy that doesn't work for everyone. Stanford is a little more mainstream (in terms of pedagogy) but I'm surprised UIUC and CMU don't appear on this list. Also... do you mean Computer Science or Software Engineering or "Computer Engineering" (a term that makes me shudder.)

We should be able to fit 50 universities in top 5.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#304

Post by growse »

patanegra wrote: post #286
rcxdude wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Well, isn't it because kids in independent school are in the school from 8am till 6pm, including Saturdays, since the age of 9, and by the age 11 they board, and all their lives revolve around learning? No, it's nowhere near that intense on average. And also, this sounds like it very much is about the quality of the schooling, no? But, if you're also going with 'all kids aren't equally smart', then that would sugges…

I am not sure, if it isn't so intensive in other schools. It is so intensive in our prep school. All kids aren't equally smart. Not all kids can also handle such a regime. It isn't for everyone. Those, who succeed in such schools, deserve not to be discriminated against, because their dad has a Range Rover and tweed suit. If a good independent school prepares a child better than a state school, the child should have…

> Otherwise, all those years of preparation and all that talent is wasted.

In other words, the parents should get a return on their investment?

Your child is not entitled to an Oxbridge place over a state-educated child because they might have more potential and ability, they're entitled because you paid extra for it?

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#305

Post by 2dvisio »

exe34 wrote: post #217
quietbritishjim wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a similar idea but I doubt it's to the same extent. When I was at Cambridge in the early noughties, supervisions for maths and computer science (and physics I believe but I didn't go to any of those) were 2 students in 4 1-hour sessions per week (1 per 24 hour lecture course). [Edit: hmm, actually maybe it was just 2 per week.] In maths, if there were an odd number of students then one would get 1 to…

cue the Harvard graduates tell us they had 5 teachers for 1 student in their tutorials. A large part of uni is about learning to learn on your own and learning in groups - if everything is spoonfed, it might not be the best training.

Tutorials are all but spoon-feeding. Tutors are strongly encouraged not to give just solutions, but actually to teach the approach to solving problems and creating connections with adjacent topics where possible.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#306

Post by [deleted] »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #255
alephnerd wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> high school students preparing to go to university are most interested in rankings Wouldn't league tables like Norrington and Tompkins be more important for them? I remember during my Britishphilia phase in HS and imagined doing a CS Tripos at one and then a BCL at he other before I removed the emotion and realized the services and network was inferior to a good UC like Cal or UCLA or a B10 like Mich, I was concent…

Anglophilia

[deleted]

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#308

Post by ceejayoz »

rayiner wrote: post #225
ceejayoz wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’ve done all sorts of dumb things for thousands of years. It’s one metric of many. We know that paying for a tutor can change test scores. We know that a shitty home life can, too. They’re just harder to measure.

If you’re suggesting that having “a shitty home life” can make people perform badly on tests, but not perform badly in real world tasks, we don’t “know” that. It’s something people want to be true, but there’s not much evidence for it. Meanwhile, there’s reams of evidence that standardized tests scores are highly predictive of performance.

Most people don’t go to Oxford just to go right back home to said shitty home life.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#309

Post by danlitt »

_hark wrote: post #290
danlitt wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mean talent at Oxbridge and at the Ivy League is pretty similar. The talent level of Ivy League scholarship holders is significantly higher than either. Obtaining a scholarship is a significant hurdle that not all applicants clear - so it is very naive to act as if any Oxbridge candidate could just walk into a scholarship. And if you agree that they couldn't walk into it, then it obviously is a hurdle, contrary t…

There aren't merit-based scholarships to any Ivy League schools, they all offer need-based financial aid packages.

Do they have enough money available to fund everyone who can't afford to come, or do they have to decide who to fund from a wider pool of otherwise good applicants?

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#310

Post by alephnerd »

alephnerd wrote: post #189
fsckboy wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think high school students preparing to go to university are most interested in rankings not least because for graduate schools specific areas of research are more important. and I agree with much of the parent post, and would add that "oxbridge" and/or "high ranking schools in subject areas" provide many of the professors to "lesser" schools or programs, so you can get a fine education from anywhere. however, the…

> high school students preparing to go to university are most interested in rankings Wouldn't league tables like Norrington and Tompkins be more important for them? I remember during my Britishphilia phase in HS and imagined doing a CS Tripos at one and then a BCL at he other before I removed the emotion and realized the services and network was inferior to a good UC like Cal or UCLA or a B10 like Mich, I was concent…

^ inferior as an international student from the US with options at peer universities.

A portion of Russell Group programs are amazing, but I felt I could get similar exit opps at at a good domestic state flagship in the US with less headaches around AP-to-A level equivalencies, admissions exams, and logistics.

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