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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

#441
post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I live in Germany and speak German so that criticism doesn't really apply to me and as far as I'm concerned you're not talking about me, just my home country.

But yes, you hate the UK clearly, though I guess you predictably now refuse to admit it to the person you're trying to troll, because that would be far too vulnerable. To admit to me now that you've indeed wasted 20 years of your life in a country you hate is absolutely tragic, that's a life wasted right there, and there's no way of getting that time back. No wonder you're so angry.

> People who are themselves ignorant cannot see other people gaps

Literally seeing other people's gaps is the easiest thing of all lol, another gem from you, the enlightened continental European who nevertheless refuses to say where they're from (quite cowardly I might add, after all, why do you care what I think?). That's how we can critique, for example, top level footballers despite not necessarily being any good at football ourselves. It's introspection that is hard.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#442
post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK system ranks a fair bit above the antiquated German system, you should be aware that there are 3 types of schools, with only one that teaches Latin etc., and the other two of them are considered shit, one German even told me that if you go to the lowest level of secondary school, your best bet is to just kill yourself. But it's certainly neat meeting lots of young Germans who studied Latin in school but nevert…

Ask anyone from French, Spain, Italy, Greece, etc. living in London and in tech if they believe their British peers are their equals intellectually. There is a reason why these people dominate the top 1% jobs in tech in London. I am flattered you read my bio but I don’t actually live in Germany lol

>Ask anyone from French, Spain, Italy, Greece, etc. living in London and in tech if they believe their British peers are their equals intellectually.

Why are they in the UK then?

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#443
post #434
post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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] differentia…

Not sure what is your point, the "test achievement" mentioned in the document refers to totally different "test" that the ones we were talking about.

Also, on just pure logic, I don't think the document shows what you think it shows. The document you provide (which is 30 years old, so with just this one, we should not assume it reflects today's consensus) explains that the difference is not understood, and that there is no _obvious_ answer, neither from biology, from group culture or from bias in the tests. In other words: the difference is due to something _not obvious_, for example (but not limited to, of course, it's just an example), _not obvious_ form of bias.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#444
post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thi…

That's a fair point: sales has always worked like that. I think there's sales and sales, though. Like, if you're going to be selling high-level stuff, to wealthy and/or sophisticated people, then your background (maybe not always, but generally including, education) really does matter. I don't know, though. I'm not part of that world.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#445
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the provenance of this "30 places year-on-year" assertion anyways? (TFA won't load on my end.) The Times filed Durham 7th @ 859 in FY24[1], 5th @ 898 in FY25[2]. They're now 3rd @ 906 for the current FY. P.S. Chuckling at the perception that a university which ranked top 10 for at least the past decade being characterized as "not as well-regarded"...strikes me as indefensibly elitist. [1] https://archive.is/QN…

I think they are referring to: > Durham University improved by 30 places year-on-year in its students’ evaluation of teaching quality, which was the main driver in securing its third place in the overall university league table Which isn't quite the same as 30 places in ranking as OP suggests, however I agree with their point that moving 30 places on that metric could be fairly suspicious. For example - when I was at…

Yes, seems I misunderstood the original text. Thanks for the clarification.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don’t think it is. There is no billionaire secretly hoarding all the top university spots. And no one is saying immigrants are taking the spots. This seems like completely unrelated political posting

> There is no billionaire secretly hoarding all the top university spots. Do you think Trump got into Wharton on his academic prowess? Legacy admits and donor kids take spots from both middle and lower classes. > And no one is saying immigrants are taking the spots. Sure they are. https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/08/27/trump-administration-pro...

This is about UK universities.
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