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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

#391

Post by StopDisinfo910 »

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…

I would (and did) take Oxford in front of any American university. You can stay in a sane country for one and you don’t have to deal with the US absurd elective system. Also Oxford is like ten times less expensive.

Frankly speaking, the only advantage of US universities is how much fund they have for postgraduates.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#392

Post by blitzar »

hnhg wrote: post #129
curiousgal wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now they have lower standards for applicants from poor families or bad schools. As a result Oxford and Cambridge have sunk to fourth place in the latest Times Good Universities Guide. He did say exactly that.

He also provided no numbers or evidence - did his children fail to get in or something?

Yes, eldest was rejected

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#393

Post by krisoft »

andmikey wrote: post #383
krisoft wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This was also my observation but in the reverse direction. I don’t see the “reverse direction” part. What you are describing and what owlbite is describing is the same thing seemingly. What do you mean by “reverse direction”?

As in, having observed the UG experience at Edinburgh first-hand but at Cambridge only second-hand. Whereas the GP did the reverse.

I see! That makes sense. Thank you for the explanation!

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#394

Post by physicsguy »

Anyone who has ever worked in a University department knows full well how ridiculous these rankings are. They are largely gimmicks. The Guardian's one has been literally compiled by one person for decades. The others heavily weight 'student experience'. Student experience is a terrible way to rank the quality of the University education, because students complain when material is difficult.

When I worked at one University, I remember sitting and having a coffee with the admissions tutor for my department and another staff member, who'd got a teenage kid who was going to University to study the same subject he was a lecturer in. He'd gone round taking mental notes for the admissions tutor and was relaying all the good and bad things that they'd done at each of the Universities he'd visited with his son for open days.

Frankly in the UK, there's basically a few Universities that are incredible at everything (Oxford, Cambridge), some that are good at specific things (LSE, Imperial), and then the remainder of the Russell Group are much of a muchness in quality with some departments better than others. There's really not much difference in quality between a student from Durham and a student from Nottingham or a student at UCL; they have similar entry grades, the quality of education is similar, the departments are staffed similarly.

One of the biggest differences which actually has an impact is more about the later year courses and what is available, usually as a result of the research interests of staff. For e.g. where I did my undergraduate degree in physics had a very strong condensed matter theory group, and so there was a focus on that sort of thing in some of the more advanced mathematical courses, where in another University there might have been more of a focus on astrophysics or particle physics.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#395

Post by vmilner »

Quekid5 wrote: post #261
vmilner wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's scary how relevant a 1970's/80s comedy show is... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgkUVIj3KWY (Salami tactics)

Incredibly good writing throughout... only Armando Ianucci gets close, IMO. Of course he leans a bit more heavily into straight up farce, which may not be to one's taste, but still...

I hope he does something like Death of Stalin again.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#396

Post by physicsguy »

fatfox wrote: post #113
afavour wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know anyone at Oxford but do have friends who work in higher education. From what I hear from them Brexit has turned UK higher education upside down when it comes to funding and research. I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is a consequence of some universities navigating that better than others. But you don't get anywhere near as much online outrage with that theory so "leftists are ruining western civili…

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/

The big fall in income is nothing to do with Brexit, and it's worth saying that international students from within the EU paid the same as home students pre-Brexit.

What happened was a massive expansion to non-EU students paying the larger uncapped fees because of an expansion of student visas to allow (a) dependents to come (b) a route to staying in the UK. It led to over a million immigrants in one year, was massively criticised politically, and so got scrapped. There's no a lot of arguing that we should as a country remove/change the Indefinite Leave to Remain route because those graduates (and dependents) are from January starting to be eligible to apply and stay permanently.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#397

Post by beojan »

arethuza wrote: post #390
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 selection effect of every bright child in the UK having Oxford or Cambridge as their first university pick" When my son and I visited St. Andrews a few years back we were informally told that they really only select people who make that university their first pick - and given that St. Andrews doesn't seem to have any problems attracting students then I would question whether everyone puts Oxbridge first. I certa…

How do they know they're your first pick? Unless things have changed, you don't provide a ranking until the universities have made their offers.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#398

Post by physicsguy »

OJFord wrote: post #347
_hark wrote: post #174

I'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 m…

> British A Levels are far more difficult than the SAT/ACT/AP exams. I think we just teach people to pass exams, really. Not to say it's necessarily wrong - you do need a grasp of the subject matter still - just that 'how the exam works' is an additional thing you learn. I'm British, always lived here, took A levels naturally, and took SATs & ACTs too because I applied to MIT - I think I did extremely poorly. (vs. de…

Depends on the subject right? A Level Further Maths modules were (at least when I did it) typically at a very high level, and you couldn't wing them, you really needed to understand the material.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#399

Post by physicsguy »

patanegra wrote: post #5
abxyz wrote: post #2

pg thinks this is because of letting in poor people: https://xcancel.com/paulg/status/1969334665375813679

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? That assumes that the grade is a fair differentiator between two students. But we know that that's not true because the gulf between private education and state education is enormous.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#400

Post by arethuza »

beojan wrote: post #397
arethuza wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the selection effect of every bright child in the UK having Oxford or Cambridge as their first university pick" When my son and I visited St. Andrews a few years back we were informally told that they really only select people who make that university their first pick - and given that St. Andrews doesn't seem to have any problems attracting students then I would question whether everyone puts Oxbridge first. I certa…

How do they know they're your first pick? Unless things have changed, you don't provide a ranking until the universities have made their offers.

From what I can recall (it was a few years back) they said you should write that in your personal statement.
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