Sunday Times League Table is now out
The 2010 Sunday Times Good University Guide. Change at the top but not really “a year of upheaval” as billed:
1. Oxford (2)
2. Cambridge (1)
3. Imperial (3)
4. UCL (6)
5. St Andrews (5)
6. Warwick (7)
7. Durham (8)
8. York (9)
9. LSE (4)
10. Bristol (16)
11. Bath (10)
12. Southampton (12)
13. King’s College London (17)
14. Nottingham (13)
15= Edinburgh (15)
15= Loughborough (11)
17. Exeter (14)
18. Sheffield (19)
19. Lancaster (20)
20= Leicester (18)
20= Birmingham
The University of Oxford is on something of a winning streak. After a second successive victory over Cambridge in the boat race this year, the university has now knocked its light-blue rival off the top of The Sunday Times university league table for the first time.
This feat, after 11 years in second place, earns Oxford The Sunday Times University of the Year award. It edged narrowly ahead of its principal British rival in a year of upheaval in our league table, prompted by the first research assessments in seven years and the move to measuring teaching quality primarily by levels of student satisfaction expressed through the annual national student survey (NSS).
The University of Oxford is on something of a winning streak. After a second successive victory over Cambridge in the boat race this year, the university has now knocked its light-blue rival off the top of The Sunday Times university league table for the first time.Not really a huge change to the table since last year apart from the diversion of a bit of a boat race going on at the top. Although new NSS scores and 2008 RAE do figure they don’t seem to have made a big difference. The numbers involved in the survey of Heads and peers, which results in one indicator, aren’t obviously identified.
14th is not as bad as I feared given Nottingham’s dismal performance in league tables recently, but I am still very surprised by its very low tariff score, which now places it at 16th. It used to be consistently in the top 10. In fact, Nottingham is the only Russell Group university to have seen a drop in tariff, all others have seen an average rise of about 20 points in the last 5 years. That makes Nottinghams drop of 20 points massive in comparison. In the University Plan for 2007-2010 it said that the University planned to increase its… Read more »
The position is not straightforward and it isn’t where we want to be. The three measures in the table that account for a downward movement are student satisfaction, the proportion of 1sts and 2:1s and the Sunday Times measure of drop-out rate. The use of 2009 NSS scores has benefited Nottingham a bit but when combined with the final phasing out of any weight for the old teaching quality assessments Nottingham’s rank has dropped on this measure. The proportion of good degrees is only slightly down, but most competitors have increased their score causing a larger relative decline. And Nottingham’s… Read more »
i agree with everything dave says
i agree with everything dave says every league table this year has been appalling for nottingham its the only top university that has seen this sort of drop top students will no longer want to go there and it will become an average university who is in charge what are they doing to stop this decline i dont know who paul is but if you belong to the university dont just say this is not where we want to be then try to justify it do something about it you owe it to the students that are studing there now… Read more »
pauls response to dave comment was all the reasons why nottingham is not doing so well in league tables my question is there for if you know why this is happening why do you not address these issues before you start dropping out of the top twenty!! take for example tarrif points a few years ago nottingham demanded approx 431 now its down to 407 why!! instead of competing with durham st andrews warwick you seem content to drop to leicester etc level why!! when a student joined in 2005 they joined a uni in the top 10 when they… Read more »
It is simply not true to suggest that Nottingham is not seeking to address these issues. However, manipulating the tables in the way suggested here really is not an option. Universities like ours do face particular challenges in the UK tables because of size and breadth of activity – this also impacts in National Student Survey.
The advice to anyone considering applying to University is to look at every aspect of the course and institution and not just at the absolute league table position.
paul no one is asking you to manipulate the tables but i am sorry league tables are very important to a prospective students and no one wants to go to a university that would appear to be on the decline up until recently despite size etc nottingham was always regarded a top ten institution now it appears to be struggling to stay in top 20 it is the only top university that has dropped in the past few years whilst exeter makes leaps and bounds nottingham appears to be floundering so sorry your answer above is simply not good enough… Read more »
I have stumbled across this forum and I do think people are being a bit unfair on Paul here. Nonetheless, people have made interesting remarks. Nottingham is in trouble. This problem arises from the fact that top students, who can pick any universitity, want to go to a place conceived as ‘prestigious’. This is determined by and large by how hard it is to get into the institution. Places like Bristol, Durham, Edinburgh and Warwick have nearly 10 applicants per place and a UCAS tariff average over 450. Therefore they are prestigious. When I applied to Nottingham and chose it… Read more »
Points taken but this really is an unnecessarily gloomy outlook. There is more to a great University than UK league table rankings (although these will improve) and Nottingham is far from in trouble and remains an excellent choice for undergraduate (and postgrad)study.
Yes Paul you are right and there is far more to University than league tables, and in all honesty they are a rubbish measure of quality anyway. Nevertheless, what makes a truly great university is the quality of its staff and students, and its ability to attract the best. Unfortunately, by Nottingham now having the 16th best students and 21st best research (which will not change for a while), there are now far more potentially ‘greater’ universities than Nottingham than there was 10 years ago, and many are consistantly on the up (such as Southamption and Exeter who have greater… Read more »