This article is more than 16 years old

2008 Sunday Times UK University Rankings

Sunday Times League Table published The final UK league table of the season is now out, courtesy of the Sunday Times. Not too many surprises here: 1. Cambridge 2. Oxford 3. Imperial 4. LSE 5. St Andrews 6. UCL 7. Warwick 8. Durham 9. York 10. Bath 11. Loughborough 12. Southampton 13. Nottingham 14. Exeter … Continued
This article is more than 16 years old

Sunday Times League Table published

The final UK league table of the season is now out, courtesy of the Sunday Times. Not too many surprises here:

1. Cambridge
2. Oxford
3. Imperial
4. LSE
5. St Andrews
6. UCL
7. Warwick
8. Durham
9. York
10. Bath
11. Loughborough
12. Southampton
13. Nottingham
14. Exeter
15. Edinburgh
16. Bristol
17. King’s College London
18. Leicester
19. Sheffield
20. Lancaster

One of the distinctive features of this table is the surveys undertaken involving small numbers of head teachers and, this year, academic staff:

More than 2,000 heads of department and admissions tutors across 30 subject areas were contacted for our peer assessment exercise. They were asked to grade from one (poor) to five (excellent) undergraduate provision in their specialist area in fellow institutions. In all, 219 responded.

Not a great response rate and perhaps not too surprising then that:

The final results show a remarkable correlation with our main league table. The top five institutions for peer review all feature within the top six of our overall league table.

Meanwhile in the paper’s other survey:

In our parallel survey of head teachers, questionnaires were sent to the state and independent senior schools that feature in our Parent Power guide of the top academic schools. They were asked to cite universities they felt provided high-quality undergraduate provision. These 1,000-plus schools are putting large numbers of students into the university system every year and we asked their heads to base their judgments on direct experience and feedback from former pupils. More than 1,000 opinions were expressed across 29 subject areas.

Still looks like a pretty limited response given that each head could express, we assume, up to 30 opinions. Again, it would be expected that these results are similar to the main table. We don’t get the details but do know that Oxford is top of both surveys.

4 responses to “2008 Sunday Times UK University Rankings

  1. With Due Respects, conventry University is really moving at faster pace and been to warwick uni, its suprising to see how neglectible, her (coventry uni) recognition and improved academic quality with better students welfare is geven, coventry uni offers is not noticed in this year ranking and its could cost the institutin the decation of work it has for students and prestige. the times Annual Award of Entreprenuer recognition to coventry uni is one, improved faciliies is another… please kindly visit coventry and see the state of art and better academic performance…

    1. University of Wales is usually ranked by its constituent members. Thus

      * Aberystwyth University
      * Bangor University
      * Glyndŵr University
      * Swansea Metropolitan University
      * Swansea University
      * Trinity University College
      * University of Wales Institute, Cardiff
      * University of Wales, Lampeter
      * University of Wales, Newport

      All appear separately in the league tables.

Leave a Reply