Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

hotminute.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 446 posts

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#331

Post by neilv »

dan-robertson wrote: post #84

When I was a student, no one would seriously say they had a ‘doxbridge education’ for the same reason that saying you went to an ‘Ivy League school’ meant you went to a shit one like Brown (idk about the US rankings tbh; basing that on a Lisa Simpson nightmare). That’s still obviously true today. I expect new hires at my employer and our competitors to continue mostly coming largely from Oxford and Cambridge (plus to…

> basing that on a Lisa Simpson nightmare

https://quahog.org/FactsFolklore/Trivia/Limelight/TV/The_Sim...

> Brown ('81) alumnus and Simpson's writer Ian Maxtone-Graham takes credit for chosing his alma mater as Lisa's less-than-top choice: "I chose Brown because I went there, and I felt like the school could take a joke,"

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#332

Post by programjames »

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.)

I interpret "Computer Engineering" as electrical engineering for computers (e.g. the people making the new iPhone). I don't know if I mean "Computer Science" or "Software Engineering", because I was just using the article's terminology which may differ between all three of us (they call it "Computer Science").

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#333

Post by afavour »

programjames wrote: post #329
afavour wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> vaguely hinting about ideological picks doing ideological things, you knowing this is what they're doing, but then stubbornly refusing to acknowledge that and just repeatedly saying, "show me the connection!" when you know very well what it is? > You're making this out to be some kind of final stand, when this is the first time you have even gotten close to putting your point in writing. “show me the connection” is…

> “show me the connection” is a request for evidence. Evidence... yes, that narrowed it down a lot. You're looking for evidence! In a debate! I never could have guessed! Luckily for you, @TMWNN did, and tried to help twice, but clearly they didn't know you were looking for evidence , not whatever they provided. In case it wasn't clear, I'm being sarcastic. You asked for evidence of a connection, they gave you it twic…

[EDIT: forget it, already spent far too much time on this thread today, not falling victim to sunk cost fallacy! Any more than I already have, that is…]

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#334

Post by calf »

jltsiren wrote: post #319
calf wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is such a thing conceptually as distinct from how American PhDs are selected and developed. I've alluded to this already without elaborating in full on it.

My point was that there several major university traditions in Europe. The differences between them are almost as significant as the difference between any particular European tradition and the American tradition. The UK is a particularly poor example of how things are done in Europe. In many aspects (such as whether the primary university degree is Bachelor's or Master's) it's closer to the US than the average conti…

The problem with this view is that it actively obscures the central role that neoliberalization of academic institutions plays in these formations of quality. So I'll give a logical argument: the US remains the most powerful nation on Earth, and it "in-sources" the world's talent to maintain and reproduce its scientific and technological leadership. Inasmuch as political conditions are changing, European neoliberalized academia shall change and develop as well.

Pointedly, I don't define results or leadership as "research output". I mean who was responsible for Crispr? For LLMs? All roads lead to Rome; but today, empires also change shape and form.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#335

Post by musicale »

WaltPurvis wrote: post #317
danlitt wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, and I believe most or all of the other Ivies, all fund 100% of the demonstrated financial need of every student, and they do not consider the financial needs of applicants when making admission decisions.

> demonstrated financial need

Higher education is a strange purchase that is engineered to extract the maximum amount of money (up to full-cost tuition, fees, etc.), based on financial records which you are forced to provide.

Any asset except for a residence is typically considered something that could be tendered to the university, and is accordingly deducted from financial need.

This means that external scholarships are limited as to how much they can reduce the expected parental or student contribution. Anything beyond this limit is deducted from need and pocketed by the university.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#336

Post by rayiner »

cauch wrote: post #321
rayiner wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The notion that the British A levels have “cultural bias” is absurd, given that Asians outperform white British: https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/education... . In the U.S., research shows the SAT is highly predictive of college performance: https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/education-week-educatio... (summarizing research).

It is strange to pretend that there is no cultural bias and then given an example that is usually explained because Asians seem to culturally value more education than white British. How will you explain that Asians outperform white British otherwise, knowing that the idea that Asians and white British are genetically different enough to explain this has been scientifically debunked, or that adopted Asians don't show…

I’m talking about the supposed cultural bias of the test itself, not cultural differences among test takers. A culturally biased test is one that requires familiarity with a particular culture, generally that of the people who wrote the test. If Asians do better on a test developed by British people, that suggests that the test itself is not culturally biased.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#337

Post by jltsiren »

calf wrote: post #334
jltsiren wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point was that there several major university traditions in Europe. The differences between them are almost as significant as the difference between any particular European tradition and the American tradition. The UK is a particularly poor example of how things are done in Europe. In many aspects (such as whether the primary university degree is Bachelor's or Master's) it's closer to the US than the average conti…

The problem with this view is that it actively obscures the central role that neoliberalization of academic institutions plays in these formations of quality. So I'll give a logical argument: the US remains the most powerful nation on Earth, and it "in-sources" the world's talent to maintain and reproduce its scientific and technological leadership. Inasmuch as political conditions are changing, European neoliberaliz…

The US has had to share its scientific leadership for some time already, and China is now seriously challenging its technological leadership. It continues to attract foreign academic talent, mostly because its academic salaries are less competitive against industry salaries than in other developed countries. Because Americans are less likely to pursue academic careers, it's often easier for foreign academics to find opportunities in the US than in other countries.

Who was responsible for CRISPR is good question (I'm less familiar with the advances leading to LLMs). There was a series of incremental advances building on each other from at least Japan, Netherlands, Spain, Germany, the US, France, Sweden, and Lithuania. And the Nobel prize was shared between an American researcher working in the US and a French researcher working in Sweden (and later in Germany).

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#338

Post by musicale »

OJFord wrote: post #280
OhMeadhbh wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a section in Yes, Prime Minister where Humphrey Appleby makes some comment about preserving England's great universities. Then pauses a beat and adds "both of them." (referring, of course, to Cambridge and Oxford.) It's obvious there are other very good universities in the UK and I don't doubt the LSE has programs that surpass the others. But I spent a couple months on a research project at LSE (and even deli…

Sure they'll never have quite the same cachet, but it's the same anywhere - UCLA/Stanford/Yale are extremely respected but nevertheless not Harvard or MIT. No doubt someone more familiar would say not all IITs are equal, but Bombay, Bengaluru & friends lead the pack. &c.

Probably Berkeley (not UCLA) is the top-tier UC.

Yale is part of the Ivy League and was founded ~65 years after Harvard. Also ranking #1-#2 for producing US presidents, Harvard-Yale is probably a somewhat better US university analog to Oxford-Cambridge.

Stanford is well-regarded and may be a solid competitor to Harvard in a number of ways (#1 in Turing awards, #2 in VC-backed startups behind Berkeley, etc.) but it was founded 250 years later (considered a long time in the US) and has a smaller endowment (4th place, behind Harvard, UT, and Yale.) It has also only produced one US President: Herbert Hoover.

MIT is a top tier school though more focused on technology (it's in the name). MIT has a business school (Sloan), but a Harvard/Yale/Stanford will include a business school, law school, med school (etc.) and a range of well-regarded programs in humanities and social sciences in addition to science and engineering.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#339

Post by [deleted] »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #203
afavour wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be wonderful if we could, just once, have a conversation about something happening outside the US without bringing in US culture war talking points.

The current president of a verbal debate club representing Oxford cheering political violence against someone he just debated is actually quite relevant. The society leaders decided it’s okay for him to do that because of racism based on their most recent response.

[deleted]

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#340

Post by rando001111 »

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…

You're talking like Oxford is some school for shitdogs now.

I went to an unranked school here in Canada for electrical engineering and graduated this year. I did a couple co-ops, won a couple engineering competitions and had my EIT job lined up for me after graduation. Started work a week after classes ended.

Rankings are not the end-all be-all for uni.

Post reply on HN