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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

#351

Post by krastanov »

growse wrote: post #224
skippyboxedhero wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ha…

> No, you can get a scholarship Of course! So easy! What percentage of foreign students applying get aid or scholarships? > Again, this is really the best of the best, those with the highest merit. You're assuming that "the best of the best" are applying. This is not true. "The best of the best who are encouraged to apply and/or have the means", apply. This is not the same population. > All they had to do was convinc…

While I sympathize with some of your arguments, you are wrong about scholarships. Getting financial aid as a foreign student at an institution like Harvard, Yale, or MIT is the norm.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#352

Post by lwhi »

patanegra wrote: post #281
lwhi wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've lost me on your reasoning, but I would like to state that I wholly disagree with your politics. Describing a family that doesn't have money as 'bad' is outrageous.

By bad, I mean being in a bad situation. I don't say people are evil for not having much money. I grew up in a family with very low income (my dad was earning about £12000 per year, when he retired a few years ago, my mum about £6000, I am from Central Europe, so things are a bit cheaper there, but not much). He worked shifts, and my mum worked 1.5 jobs. Yet, I was able to achieve everything I wanted. Maybe you shoul…

I see your point, I really do. We all have the ability to achieve, and there shouldn't be a limit on that potential.

However, that's exactly what the class system in the UK does. The potential of oeople born into lower classes of society is actively limited.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#353

Post by Retric »

krastanov wrote: post #351
growse wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, you can get a scholarship Of course! So easy! What percentage of foreign students applying get aid or scholarships? > Again, this is really the best of the best, those with the highest merit. You're assuming that "the best of the best" are applying. This is not true. "The best of the best who are encouraged to apply and/or have the means", apply. This is not the same population. > All they had to do was convinc…

While I sympathize with some of your arguments, you are wrong about scholarships. Getting financial aid as a foreign student at an institution like Harvard, Yale, or MIT is the norm.

Some financial aid isn’t the same as being able to afford to go to a college in another country across an ocean.

Collage loans seem like a great solution when you’re entering a highly lucrative career, but that’s not true for every top student.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#355

Post by lazyasciiart »

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…

Let’s pretend what you say is true in the slightest. What does it have to do with the ranking of universities in England? You are arguing that the best undergrad students in England are now at Durham?

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#356

Post by nextos »

nine_k wrote: post #348
rando001111 wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

On one hand, fair. On the other hand, an MIT or Stanford graduate is more likely to be immediately hired by Google, or NVidia, or Barclays, or something else top-notch, without having to make intermediate career steps.

DeepMind and top firms from the City of London have recruiters chasing Oxbridge students in CS, Math, and Statistics before graduation, sometimes even a year or two ahead. You hear more about MIT or Stanford because you are based in the US. Ranking or prestige-wise, in case that matters (I think it's just a lazy filter), they are indistinguishable: https://www.shanghairanking.com/rankings/arwu/2025

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#357

Post by saghm »

nine_k wrote: post #348
rando001111 wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

On one hand, fair. On the other hand, an MIT or Stanford graduate is more likely to be immediately hired by Google, or NVidia, or Barclays, or something else top-notch, without having to make intermediate career steps.

My perception is that the further you get from the time of graduation, the less it makes a difference where someone went to school. A year or two, I felt like where I got my degree might have made a difference in terms of my ability to find jobs, but coming up on a a decade since I graduated (which is a pretty small portion of what I expect will be a decades-long career), it might as well be entirely irrelevant. Amusingly, I said something similar to one of my colleagues recently when we were discussing the level of stress their teenager was having around their upcoming college applications, and they agreed, mentioning that no one cared that they didn't even have a degree, which was clearly true since I had absolutely no idea that was the case! It never came up in the past despite us chatting fairly regularly about our personal lives because it ultimately just didn't matter to either of us, and while it affected their initial attempts to break into the software industry, it pretty quickly stopped mattering even to their prospective employers compared to their actual work experience.

Obviously there are some industries where degrees are necessary (law, medicine, presumably academia, although I'm not certain), but outside of those, the limiting factors of how far you can go are independent of where you graduated from. There are some places where the initial hiring process will be mostly filtered by where someone graduated, but in the long term, most people will either hit a point of diminishing returns regardless, or they'll be able to make up the difference.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#358

Post by maest »

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…

> Stanford, Harvard, MIT

Those are not in the UK?

Anyway, you are making some bold statements and have zero substance backing them up. Please refrain from spreading nonsense.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#359

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

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…

These are rankings by "national student survey", which is - how can I put this politely? - possibly not the most rigorous way to measure merit.

Oxford has long had a reputation for being a dual university - a raw academic track for smart people, and a political/establishment track for people with money, connections, ambition, and the kind of entitled self-assurance that comes from easy privilege.

"Political" doesn't just mean politics, although the notorious PPE degree often means exactly that. It also means media/journalism, and law.

There's some overlap between the talent intake and the connections intake, especially in the humanities. (Science is a little more rigorous.)

Generally if you're on the political track Oxford opens doors no other university will. Cambridge is a good second choice, and St Andrews has a minor presence in Scotland. But realistically the rest - Durham, York, Bristol - don't really count.

The difference is that tutors don't just teach, they talent scout. A good word and an introduction from a tutor - quite likely to be face to face at a social event - opens doors and plugs you straight into the network.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#360

Post by eli_gottlieb »

calf wrote: post #298
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're either blithely (in fact, stupidly given electoral results this past decade) assuming everyone shares your normative goals and values, or you just asked ChatGPT to write you a "kritik" like some kid in a school debate league.

Edited: I think what's really going on is that you've internalized oppression so as to be so cynical and toxically jealous that someone else online can actually blithely/stupidly say what they think on a Sunday afternoon. Because you're professional working at a university, and you can't just do that and speak out. Noam Chomsky famously described this behavior amongst his peers. I'm Asian American and LGBT+, and I wa…

Wow, you think Bernie and AOC are the limits of the spectrum at that end?

> So as much as you were trying to suggest the problem is on my end, the problem is with you and your narrowminded (and frankly, one with a racist tenor because surely you would not have said that comment to my face) reply, eli_gottlieb. It's too bad you're actually a postdoc, if I were an evil SJW or Democrat (or whatever politics it was you were insinuating) I'd be cancelling you through your own institution or something.

Oh yeah, you're asking ChatGPT for kritiks. Fuck off.

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