This article is more than 7 years old

Guardian League Table 2017: Your pre-TEF ranking

Latest Guardian league table is now out. And it couldn't be more exciting if it was called the White Paper.
This article is more than 7 years old

Paul Greatrix is Registrar at The University of Nottingham, author and creator of Registrarism and a Contributing Editor of Wonkhe.

New Guardian League Table for 2017

Top 25 of the full list (available here) is as follows (last year’s position in brackets):

1 (1) Cambridge

2 (2) Oxford

3 (3) St Andrews

4 (4) Surrey

4 (11) Loughborough

6 (6) Durham

7 (8) Imperial College

8 (10) Lancaster

9 (6) Warwick

10 (5) Bath

11 (9) Exeter

12 (13) London School of Economics

13 (17) Birmingham

14 (12) UCL

15 (15) Coventry

16 (23) Leeds

16 (14) Southampton

18 (37) City

19 (22) York

20 (19) Sussex

21 (31) Falmouth

22 (20) Edinburgh

23 (16) Kent

24 (20) UEA

25 (28) Nottingham

Obviously the new Teaching Excellence Framework will have a profound impact on this in future. Or perhaps not. Kind of suspect the Cambridge will be right up there again.

A precise commentary of the new ranking is included:

Cambridge, which held on to the top spot in the Guardian’s main league table for the sixth year in a row, increased its dominance across the specialist tables, coming top in 12 subject areas. Oxford (2), Imperial (7) and St Andrews (3) each ranked number one in three subject areas.

Other universities rising through the rankings include Leeds (moved from 23 to 16), Falmouth (31 to 21) and City – which jumped from 37 to 18, making it the fastest climber in this year’s top 20.

The Guardian’s league tables rank universities according to: spending per student; the student/staff ratio; graduate career prospects; what grades applicants need to get a place; a value-added score that compares students’ entry qualifications with their final degree results; and how satisfied final-year students are with their courses, based on results from the annual National Student Survey (NSS). Specialist tables also rank universities by subject area.

It was a rise in satisfaction ratings – especially among journalism and accounting and finance students – that helped drive City University’s climb through the tables.

So, Cambridge top and breakthroughs for Loughborough, City and Falmouth (in the news for different reasons last week).

It couldn’t really be more exciting.

5 responses to “Guardian League Table 2017: Your pre-TEF ranking

  1. Got trigger happy there … Meant to say that I saw what you did there, Paul. Making the cut-off at 25? Could have been the more popular culture informed Top 20. But, of course, you have your reasons … 😉

  2. Your transparency was visible from the other side of the world. Currently on my way to a country that features a copycat university campus building built by one of the Top 25 in the Guardian University League Table.

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