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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

#431

Post by eszed »

DiscourseFan wrote: post #388
eszed wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech might be the only high-paying (or, hell, reliably middle-class white-collar) field where this is true.

Not true tbh. Tech was the first place where that was the case, but increasingly high-paying professional jobs don't require an undergraduate degree, since its losing its value as an indicator of ability. Postgrad degrees still have a lot of value, and open a lot of doors. There are things I learned in my Master's that I probably wouldn'tve been able to get at a deep level working in industry, and for that same reaso…

What fields? Or what regions? My experience is limited, of course, and this is all anecdotal. I'd be happy to be proved wrong.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#432

Post by arp242 »

ionwake wrote: post #410
arp242 wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have always been the occasional silly "Monty Python type moments" throughout the history of humanity, even in the best of institutions. We just didn't have the right-wing outrage media to jump on every tiny incident to stoke up anger among the base.

I dont see how anything I said has to do with politics, the left or right stuff. Also I am confused why you are pointing out the obvious. Its as if you have been personaly offended by the suggestion Oxford has Monty Python moments and are trying to reassure everyone its only because all institutions do. This was not an attack, it was just a couple of anecdotes. Like I said I still think Oxford is a great institution.…

All of these are very minor incidents that have been hugely exaggerated by the right-wing outrage media. And you're bringing up this unrelated minor years old drama in a "Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK" story, as if its somehow related.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#433

Post by wulfstan »

physicsguy wrote: post #403
wulfstan wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The truth is that if you have an intelligent child, independent school is a complete waste of money. In the UK you will be spending in the vicinity of £200k over a child’s education to finish a levels, and although they will get better a levels on average, their results at university do not reflect their a level achievements. This is why independent schools find themselves downgraded in university offers. This isn’t…

> You also end up with a very narrow program of study This just isn't true in my area (Physics), the courses at Oxbridge are just as broad but go much deeper than you'd study in another University. I don't think it's true of written subjects either, from friends that studied there it sounds like the cranking out of essays is weekly or more at Oxbridge whereas my housemates at University were doing termly stuff.

By narrow program of study I don’t mean “breadth within the discipline” I mean “credit for work outside the discipline”. My son is studying maths but has taken two semesters of biblical Greek, previously did a music subject and this term is doing Hebrew. Can’t do that at Oxbridge.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#434

Post by xyzzyz »

cauch wrote: post #427
rayiner wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your argument would have been more convincing if the Asians were getting the same as British people. But as soon as the Asians do better, it means that the whole comparison is meaningless. It means that Asians and British scores differently. Maybe Asians normally should score 14 and British score 10, but they score 12 because the test is culturally biased. (sure, we expect that a small difference in "normal situation…

There is no reason to expect that the test results would be the same across all demographic groups, and in fact, everything we know about psychometry (i.e. the science of mental testing) suggests that we should expect exactly opposite. See e.g. "Intelligence: Knowns and unknowns", which described the consensus position of the American Psychological Association as of 1995:

> The cause of [test achievement] differential is not known; it is apparently not due to any simple form of bias in the content or administration of the tests themselves.

https://www.mun.ca/biology/scarr/APA%201985%20Intelligence%2...

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#435

Post by twixfel »

Halan wrote: post #429
twixfel wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is there to explain? Your examples make no sense, aren't even bad things, or are purely anecdotal. For example, that smart people from Southern Europe can move to London and thrive is something Britain can be proud of. There certainly aren't any immigrants moving to any continental European countries and getting the top jobs, they're invariably reserved for the locals. The fat coke thing is nonsense, it's just a…

I am just in the 1% top UK earners working 25 hours a week from the comfort of my sofa with my average European education, broken English and working class background. I feel shame for how easy was for me to get a great life in this country when most locals struggle with social mobility. I get that full fat coke is an idiomatic phrase but it stems from honest ignorance towards macronutrients. I am a diabetic type 1,…

> I get that full fat coke is an idiomatic phrase but it stems from honest ignorance towards macronutrients

You don't understand. It's literally just a reference to full-fat and semi-skimmed milk, like a small joke. It's OK to not understand, you're not from the UK, but it's a bit outlandish to turn your own failure to understand a very basic joke into grand claims about British education lol.

I think you've just been living in the UK too long and should probably go home. You sound completely depressed. 20 years in a country you hate populated by people you despise sounds like Hell. It's not too late to make a change. Where's home for you then?

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#436

Post by dukeyukey »

nicoburns wrote: post #36
dukeyukey wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not talking about individual cases, we're talking about statistical averages.

Statistical averages would tell you that you wouldn't have some schools getting 150 pupils into Oxbridge while others only get 2. But has long been the reality.

No, they absolutely might, because schools group a load of students together with similar attributes relevant to academic success (quality of teachers, school funding, wealth of the surrounding area).

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#437

Post by DiscourseFan »

eszed wrote: post #431
DiscourseFan wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true tbh. Tech was the first place where that was the case, but increasingly high-paying professional jobs don't require an undergraduate degree, since its losing its value as an indicator of ability. Postgrad degrees still have a lot of value, and open a lot of doors. There are things I learned in my Master's that I probably wouldn'tve been able to get at a deep level working in industry, and for that same reaso…

What fields? Or what regions? My experience is limited, of course, and this is all anecdotal. I'd be happy to be proved wrong.

In California, I've met two people in the last two weeks who live comfortably on their income without a college degree. One of them was in medical sales consulting, the other worked at an art gallery managing the sale of works from the artists they represent to clients. The first started when they were in college and dropped out after their career began to take off, the second was promoted out of an internship.

I think sales in general may also be one of those fields where education is not that important.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#438

Post by Halan »

twixfel wrote: post #435
Halan wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am just in the 1% top UK earners working 25 hours a week from the comfort of my sofa with my average European education, broken English and working class background. I feel shame for how easy was for me to get a great life in this country when most locals struggle with social mobility. I get that full fat coke is an idiomatic phrase but it stems from honest ignorance towards macronutrients. I am a diabetic type 1,…

> I get that full fat coke is an idiomatic phrase but it stems from honest ignorance towards macronutrients You don't understand. It's literally just a reference to full-fat and semi-skimmed milk, like a small joke. It's OK to not understand, you're not from the UK, but it's a bit outlandish to turn your own failure to understand a very basic joke into grand claims about British education lol. I think you've just bee…

I don’t hate UK, otherwise I wouldn’t be so critical about it, I wouldn’t care if I hated it.

It’s okay if you wanna keep the head in the sand. I get it. It’s better if you don’t know any better. People who are themselves ignorant cannot see other people gaps.

Btw look up the reasons Coca Cola rebranded the Coke Zero to Coke Zero Sugar, and why it all stemmed from UK.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#439

Post by zipy124 »

vzaliva wrote: post #422
zipy124 wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This website massively skews towards publication count, e.g research quantity over quality. Vastly flawed.

Not true. It quantifies publications in top conferences. These are highly competitive, and you cannot just publish any junk there. If the site were to measure ANY publications, then it would be indeed skewed, as you suggested.

I'm not refering to junk papers by quantity, but that not all papers at the same venue are equal, and some fields take longer. For example a logic/programming-language paper often takes much longer to theorize than an AI paper.

Even within the same field should a paper that speeds up LLM's by 10x be equal to one that improves object detection accuracy in a specific dataset by 2%, or a dataset paper? All could be published at NeurIPS and all are good papers, but that does not make them equal in impact.

A better example might be that a hypothetical paper curing some cancer through some magic technology, or a differnt one detecting cancer better using AI could both target a similar venue (as evidenced by various nature puplications), but are vastly different in impact.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#440

Post by ionwake »

arp242 wrote: post #432
ionwake wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont see how anything I said has to do with politics, the left or right stuff. Also I am confused why you are pointing out the obvious. Its as if you have been personaly offended by the suggestion Oxford has Monty Python moments and are trying to reassure everyone its only because all institutions do. This was not an attack, it was just a couple of anecdotes. Like I said I still think Oxford is a great institution.…

All of these are very minor incidents that have been hugely exaggerated by the right-wing outrage media. And you're bringing up this unrelated minor years old drama in a "Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK" story, as if its somehow related.

I might be massively autistic, usually get double digit upvotes for my random anecdotes but thanks for the feedback

EDIT > To be honest I just reread your comment, I wanted to keep the good faith of mine so I didnt edit what I said, but I didnt realise you said they were minor. Literally banning clapping is not minor its an almost comical affront to free speech.

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