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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

#91

Post by abxyz »

patanegra wrote: post #71
ceejayoz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's letting in dumber people, worse students. Is it? Maybe a kid managing to struggle through a shitty school has to work harder than, say, Prince Charles with his private school and dedicated personal tutors.

It's always the same argument. If you are world-class talent (someone who gets to Oxford), you should be capable of similar results as kids from independent schools. Like Joe Seddon did ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Seddon - growing up with a single parent mom, working as a therapist in NHS). It isn't fair to ask ones to have 4A* and others to have just 3As. Only 1 in 2600 gets 4 A . And 1 in 83 gets 3 As. Maki…

At my secondary school it wasn't possible to do more than 6 GCSEs vs. many of the most academically gifted independent school attendees who obtained at least double that number of GCSEs.

At A level my secondary school couldn't accommodate most A level subjects: students were sent off to many different schools for different subjects, and forced to choose which A levels they did based on complicated scheduling arrangements. The only reason some of them could afford to do A levels was because of the £30 benefits payments they received which covered their transport costs (I believe it was called EMA (something like "Education Maintenance Allowance") at the time, but it was a long time ago).

As far as I recall, the maximum possible qualifications from my secondary school was 6 A* GCSEs and 3 A levels.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#92

Post by Closi »

metaphor wrote: post #83
homeless_engi wrote: post #31

I think the real story here might be the line below: "Durham University improved by 30 places year-on-year" Seems a bit suspicious, no? What methodology change led to this result? How can a university that was previously not as well-regarded become the #3 in the country overnight?

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 university in the UK we got a speech telling us basically that we were going to get sent a survey from the times, and the higher we ranked the university, the higher the universities ranking would be, and that would make our degree more valuable. If the main reason they jumped from 7th to 3rd could be a metric that is potentially 'influence-able' by the university, it could be more of a change in comms-strategy than actual university quality.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#93

Post by afavour »

TMWNN wrote: post #60
afavour wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I provided a citation for the ABB grades, which is relevant to the comment I replied to. An extremely tenuous connection. Abaraonye (and even less his words on Kirk) had absolutely no relevance to the criteria by which the Times assesses universities, thus had no impact on Oxfords placement, thus has no relevance to the conversation.

Patanegra wrote: > To get in, you need 4 A* from an independent schools, or just 3 As from state schools. In reply, I provided a recently prominent example of someone recently admitted to Oxford with lower than 3 A grades on the A-Levels. I only mentioned Kirk's murder as context because, as I keep repeating, the person a) only became prominent because b) he publicly cheered said murder c) after debating Kirk in pers…

> I don't know what else you can ask for here.

Perhaps a demonstration of any kind of connection between his grades and his views on Kirk? The implication in what you're saying is that an ABB student is saying bad things than a 4 A* student would never say. I'd love to see anything backing that up. There are plenty of ABB students who said nothing of that nature and I'd wager you could find 4 A* students (albeit with a lower profile) who did.

Absent that connection it just looks very much like you're using the person's grades as a tenuous excuse to bring them up.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#94

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

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…

Brown is a shit school?

That's a level of elitism I don't often encounter.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#95

Post by pfortuny »

JCM9 wrote: post #40

I don’t think many people place much stock in these rankings, and if they don’t have “shocking” moves then how are they gonna sell papers and get people to click!?! An article on the site says “Durham wins University of the Year and dismisses Oxbridge reject stereotype.” Not to be cold, but willing to bet that a good chunk of the Durham student population are those that were passed over by Oxbridge.

Now Durham has everything to lose... While Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial will live on regardless...

That's the price of fighting for a stupid prize.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#96

Post by scrlk »

afavour wrote: post #3
abxyz wrote: post #2

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

> Middle class students, knowing they'll be discriminated against, are now applying to US schools I can't take that seriously. Middle class students in the UK would not take on the level of student debt required to study in the US, the sums of money required are vastly, vastly different between the two countries. Sounds like PG has a hobby horse he very much wants to ride no matter what the facts show.

Average student debt is £53k (~$71k USD): https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn01...

Given the disparity in middle-class household incomes between the UK and the US, I suspect a majority of UK middle-class students would be eligible for some form of financial aid from US universities (assuming Oxbridge vs US equivalents with need-blind + full-need international admissions), meaning their net cost to attend could be lower than studying in the UK.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#97

Post by [deleted] »

zero_shift wrote: post #87
pxc wrote: post #17

What is the ranking supposed to reflect, exactly? Quality of education? If the programs have the same instructors, same facilities, same curricula, etc., why would we expect a small change to admission criteria to affect rankings of the program? I feel like this kind of change most likely reveals that rankings likely have little to do with quality of instruction; just another case of selectiveness being used (by empl…

> The list is based on analysis of student satisfaction with teaching quality and experience, entry standards, research quality, sustainability and graduate prospects

[deleted]

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#98

Post by lwhi »

abxyz wrote: post #2

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

If you replace 'middle class', with 'upper class' .. you get a much more realistic reading of this thread; which is undoubtedly an apologia for upper class paid education.

I felt the original thread wasn't recognising the social disparity authentically.

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#99

Post by [deleted] »

zero_shift wrote: post #87
pxc wrote: post #17

What is the ranking supposed to reflect, exactly? Quality of education? If the programs have the same instructors, same facilities, same curricula, etc., why would we expect a small change to admission criteria to affect rankings of the program? I feel like this kind of change most likely reveals that rankings likely have little to do with quality of instruction; just another case of selectiveness being used (by empl…

> The list is based on analysis of student satisfaction with teaching quality and experience, entry standards, research quality, sustainability and graduate prospects

[deleted]

Re: Oxford loses top 3 university ranking in the UK

#100

Post by dan-robertson »

geremiiah wrote: post #57
afavour wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Middle class students, knowing they'll be discriminated against, are now applying to US schools I can't take that seriously. Middle class students in the UK would not take on the level of student debt required to study in the US, the sums of money required are vastly, vastly different between the two countries. Sounds like PG has a hobby horse he very much wants to ride no matter what the facts show.

In British English, "middle class" refers to the well off professional classes or merchant traders. In American English, if I understand correctly, everyone who works is considered middle class.

I think usage in the UK can vary a lot. And different people may mean anything from the haute bourgeoisie to something much broader including a majority of the population. Another thing is that obviously class in the UK is a social distinction and includes a lot more than just income or wealth brackets.
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