For the first time in history, St Andrews outranks Oxbridge | Hacker News Reader

For the first time in history, St Andrews outranks Oxbridge

thetimes.co.uk

30 pointss1562469 comments

As a student I used to obsess over university rankings, but I realize now that most of them are massively gamed. My alma mater, the UPMC (Université Pierre et Marie Curie) e.g. merged with other universities in Paris to form the Sorbonne University, mostly to move up in the worldwide ranking. So, it's still largely the same university with the same funding and the same chairs, but since it's bundled up in a larger package it now gets some extra vanity points.

IMHO, as a PhD student, what really matters is not how well your university is ranked but how well your research group is organized and how much the people there support you. I know students who went to do their PhDs in the groups of nobel prize winners because of the associated fame, only to find out that they're not very "hungry" anymore (in the sense that they're already at the top of their fame and not always eager to pursue new risky and innovative research) and are often so busy that they could only speak with them for a few hours over the entire duration of their PhD. So my advice is to go to a group with people that are still "hungry" and that actually have time to coach you.

> IMHO, as a PhD student, what really matters is not how well your university is ranked but how well your research group is organized and how much the people there support you.

I've noticed this as well and I'm not even a PhD student! For example, the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam doesn't rank super high. Yet, when I look at their cyber security department, then they're top notch.

In most cases though, industry doesn't care about any of this. So only do it if you're actually interested in research. PhD to industry doesn't translate well (high variability in where people end up).

That is more of a case of Department than group being highly ranked.

Department reputation in the field is very important, particularly how they are seen by industry.

> well your research group is organized and how much the people there support you.

Controversial perhaps, but when academics are being dicks, nobody ever calls them out on it, academics close ranks and protect their own. Students come and go, professors are there for life.

If there are issues with ones research group, there is no support. Chose wisely, but it is hard to know in advance what sort of environment there really is and how things will really play out.

PhD to industry doesn't translate well

Really depends on the field. On the whole people who have a PhD in Not-Computer Engineering tend to end up working in fields connected to what their PhD was in.

I work in Civil Engineering and not only are there lots of PhDs around here most of them are working on things pretty close to what their research topic was, and where in fact specifically hired to do so. The PhDs who aren't working in their 'field' are generally more senior people who used to work or more relevant stuff but are now in more management roles.

> In most cases though, industry doesn't care about any of this.

That's not my experience, actually. There is a lot of snobbery in some cases. Some places (UK) make a point of only hiring from certain universities. A friend of mine did his PhD at Birmingham - good university, and excellent at his field, but not a top-5 one. He was on the LIGO experiment, and on the first gravitational wave detection. Got grilled about "why on earth did you go to study at Birmingham???" at a job interview.

You might say, not a good place to work, and you'd be right, but the trend is real.

Also, if you want the university's reputation to boost your CV, these things change over time. So the "brownie points" of "my university is top of a ranking" may not last very long.

So pick somewhere reputable that will give you a good education and don't obsess about rankings.

On the other hand, the fact there were so many different universities in Paris in the late 20th century was also pretty artificial: De Gaulle got sick of all these spicy students having opinions and split the whole thing up.

But it's all just rather arbitrary rankings of rather arbitrary social constructions anyway, and as you say it's not that helpful for making accurate decisions for where you should apply anyway as what really matters is your supervisor and the support from the administration.

Aberdeen used to be very proud of the fact that for a long time they had the same number of universities as England:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_universities_of_Scotla...

Or even better is just not do a PhD. Doing a PhD is one of the worst things that most people do to themselves. It mainly exists to provide cheap labour to exploitive universities while creating a huge opportunity cost for students. And worse does not provide any employable skills to more than 9 out of 10 PhDs who need to find a job outside academia. If you are thinking of doing a PhD you are better off just doing a master's.

[1] https://medium.economist.com/why-doing-a-phd-is-often-a-wast...

Some things are hard to do outside a PhD or research context. I knew my PhD probably wouldn't "pay off" financially but that wasn't the goal to begin with. It gave me the opportunity to do some great research and work with amazing people, so I'm really happy to have done it. I also did research as part of my Diploma (M.Sc.) thesis, but it's just not comparable to a PhD.

I agree, but like you said, PhDs are valued more in terms of career progression and prospects for those working in research and academia, and if you don't get on that PhD train, you just kinda stall.

A ranking that is (was?) used by a magazine in Canada asked university presidents something like which university (apart from their own) that they regard most highly. It always seemed to me that this was a good question.

Universities nowadays focus a lot on these rankings, to the detriment of students. If the rankings added a category for clean washrooms, universities would stop buying books and start scrubbing. Bean counters perform cost:benefit analyses to set policies and redirect funding. You don't want to be the person in the meeting saying "um, but library books are important, aren't they?".

Deciding on a university based on an overall score is not a good plan. Focus on the things you care about. You'll likely find that there is no ranking category that matches up to your interest. So, visit the website. Or visit the university. Or (for graduate studies) contact professors and students. Talk with people, generally. And don't forget that there are other factors. Are you keen on cities or the country? Do you want to be near your family? Can you afford the university?

Due to student satisfaction.

It should be noted that Scottish students don't pay (significant) tuition fees.

Only if you're Scottish though, if you're English, Welsh, or Northern Irish you still have to pay full fees.

Good point, but with 30% of the students there from Scotland (more than three times the UK population average), I'm guessing it's a factor in satisfaction ratings.

As a former lecturer, I found that student satisfaction often came down to things like how "easy" the lectures are. Big name universities like Oxford traditionally haven't (until recently?) felt the pressure to hit these objectives since they can ride on their reputation.

What do you mean by easy in this context?

Students are happier with courses they get good grades in. Students who fail aren't very happy.

Good question, it is slightly nebulous but to do with how much the course requires students to deeply understand the underlying concepts, and how much independent effort it asks of them. For example...

Easy: Lecture contains an algorithm for diagonalising 3×3 matrices and an example. Tutorial/exam has students do a very similar example (e.g. both matrices have lots of zeroes in the same cells).

Harder: Lecture contains an algorithm for diagonalising 3×3 matrices and an example. Tutorial/exam has students do a matrix that is structurally very different.

Hard: Lecture contains an algorithm for diagonalising 3×3 matrices and an example. Tutorial/exam has students extend the ideas of the algorithm to a specific 4x4 matrix.

My own undergraduate experience was largely in the "hard" category, whilst as a lecturer at a different university there was pressure to move increasingly towards the "easy". It was even fairly explicit: student feedback surveys would be aggregated and you'd be informed that the students are unhappy because the tutorial exercises cover things they "haven't seen" in lectures.

I friend of mine was a lecturer, and she set exams and tasks which explicitly tested the students' understanding of the material she was teaching, as you would expect - scores for her tests followed a bimodal distribution - indicating that they were working.

She got terrible satisfaction scores, and got pressure from 'higher-ups' to reweight the exams so the people in the "fail" group passed.

I'm not sure how to read this. I could interpret the bimodal outcome as the initial skill of the student being the main factor. Either you get it, or you don't, and the lecturer had no real influence on the outcome.

The reweighting is not a good solution, but I would ask questions to the lecturer why a good chunk of her students are failing. It's her responsibility to teach them after all, and not to filter out the elite.

Before Brexit it was free for all the EU/EEA/CH... but not for England, Wales, Norther Ireland.

I always though it was quite fun detail.

Recent student satisfaction is also going to be heavily influenced by Covid. It's not difficult to imagine that Oxbridge students are less satisfied with many of their interactions with professors being moved online than students at other universities...

It can be an economical option for American students. A young woman from my neighborhood in Washington, DC, just finished here degree there.

League tables can declare what they like, the fact of the matter is that Oxbridge has been considered the gold standard of British university education since the Plantaganets, and I don't see that perception shifting easily.

In my experience the only people who care about these rankings are 17- and 18-year-olds applying for places.

And the rankings can show the opposite of how people actual view the unis. Where I am we have a Russell Group uni and an ex-poly. I went to the Russell Group uni and did computer science, solely because it is a Russell Group uni. In reality, everyone in the local market knows that the ex-poly's computer science course prepares you better for industry.

On the whole though, no one really cares. I can barely remember what I got for my A levels, I can't even remember how many GCSEs I did.

It really doesn't matter in my experience.

It matters a lot in the work place, particularly around the time the list comes out.

Senior management, especially with kids looking at these lists become interested in them. Its a good time to name drop your university around the old boys.

Whenever a rankings table comes out with a result like this it probably succeeds in selling some papers, but it also diminishes the esteem of the rankings table

I'm sure that St Andrews is a brilliant college. But very few in academia would say its as brilliant as Oxbridge

Mind you, these are not colleges, these are universities. Colleges are not as highly esteemed in the UK.

They're basically a different thing in the UK, I think. At the risk of stereotyping, they're where you go to get vocational qualifications (further, as opposed to higher, education).

Not necessarily, vocational qualifications in the U.K. (the NVQ) are often available at sixth-form colleges, but they will also teach the non-vocational A-level qualifications too. I don’t think there’s any consistency to what mix of vocational vs non-vocational certificate you can expect at an institution based on use of the word college.

There is a slight naming clash though, for some institutions such as Cambridge and Oxford, where Cambridge university (for example) is made up of a number of colleges https://map.cam.ac.uk/colleges/

This is not the same as an independent institution which is a college (for example Cambridge regional college https://www.camre.ac.uk/)

Good point. The collegiate universities are a different matter.

Imperial College London has a pretty good rep, no? Even when compared to most universities in the UK?

Despite its name, it is considered a university.

Imperial college is just a part of the university of London.

Like many words in the UK, sometimes “college” is used in a more historical meaning

It's not a part of the university of London anymore.

But this is semantics really, apparently the GP meant a very specific type of college but didn't communicate this and colleges that are universities under the hood aren't part of that unstated definition.

Imperial College is not part of the University of London (it left in 2007).

In any case, the ‘University of London’ is an almost meaningless umbrella institution. Its members function as separate universities for all practical purposes.

To be precise, colleges are usually sixth-form colleges for 16-18 year olds.

The two most common usages of “college” in UK education are:

  - pre-university education for 16-18 year olds. This is where you complete qualifications for university entry, such as A Levels, Scottish Highers, or the IB, as well as more vocationally aligned qualifications like BTEC or NVQ. This stage of education used to be optional but recently became compulsory.
  - institutions within a larger university umbrella. This includes the colleges of Oxford, Cambridge and Durham. For example, Jesus College of the University of Oxford or Magdalene College of the University of Cambridge. Very few UK universities use a college system, it is mostly a historical legacy seen in very old universities.

Another reply mentions Imperial College London: many of the London universities are colleges of the University of London, but I think this system is mostly so they can share/issue one University of London degree, and that they don’t have the same degree of centralised administration that the Oxbridge college system does.

EDIT: updated to reflect that A levels aren’t the only pre-university qualification in the UK

"UK education"

Nitpick: not all of the UK uses A-levels.

Apologies, a good nitpick! Particularly since the thread is for St Andrews so the Scottish Highers are definitely worth mentioning :)

The international baccalaureate is also becoming more widely available.

I thought the international baccalaureate would take over from the old a-levels system years ago. Still hasnt really gained as much traction as I would have expected.

Probably sounds too french.

> Another reply mentions Imperial College London

I guess it was cited as this is a fairly elite forum and it is a fairly elite university. Imperial actially left the University of London system and now issues its own degrees (left in 2007).

It doesnt actually change the point above, but just a corrections all the same.

They are both colleges and universities by US terminology. For example Harvard is both a college and university, the undergrad part is the college part.

Except the students who went there I guess.

So should they fudge the numbers to maintain the "esteem of the rankings table"?

> I'm sure that St Andrews is a brilliant college.

It's not a 'college' at all.

In American speech it is. Anything which teaches undergraduates and awards college degrees is a college. They can also have a research university attach to it, but it is still a college.

It doesn't make sense to me how here in Europe universities tries to say that they aren't anything but a university. Americans got this one right. How else would you compare where to study? Do you say "university rankings" but include non universities there that doesn't do research? You go there to do college studies, and try to find the best place to do college studies, why say it is wrong to call it a college?

Because in the UK "college" means a variety of things, none of which apply to St Andrews?

But this is a mostly American forum? Why say it is wrong to use the American word? Everyone understands what the poster meant. You wouldn't correct someone using the American billion just because it happened to be about a UK company either.

Given the time of day and the subject matter I suspect most people discussing this on here are not from the US.

"College" in the UK education system already has a definition; it is the place you go from 16 to 18, studying a narrower curriculum than regular school prior to 16. You will also hear references to "sixth form college", which is the same 16-18 education but delivered at the same physical school as under-16 teaching.

> You go there to do college studies

An undergraduate degree isn't 'college studies' in British English. Nobody would say that.

> why say it is wrong to call it a college?

Why is it wrong to call it a fish? Because it's not a fish.

Why is it wrong to call it a college? Because it's not a college.

Seems rude to mis-title something or someone from another culture?

Like all these lunatics yesterday talking about 'Sir Sinclair'.

Calling it a 'college' makes it sound like something less than it is. I would try not to mis-title things from another culture myself.

Whoosh

Someone needs is a good fish-slapping.

In US colloquial English the term 'college' is used to refer to ANY academic (non-trade) schools where a 'college' degree (above 'high' school) can be earned. Like it or lump it.

This is hardly a 'slam' for St Andrews; aluminum is more concise than aluminium, as is 'math' compared to 'maths'.

In the US a 'public' school is -not- elite (fee-charging); the general 'public' is welcome there. Not just stuck-up nit-pickers.

It would be good if people could stop hero-worshiping famous universities and people from those universities. There are quite a few idiots who graduate from these institutions.

I am looking at their document* explaining methodology behind the ranking criteria and I am still to understand which of those indicate quality of programme. All five sections revolve around research and the data is collected mostly from Elsevier.

So St Andrews outranks Oxbridge for the first time. Outranks in what? What does "best" mean? I think these rankings should better explain in the title what they indicate. It seems to me they compete in prestige and not quality of teaching which is what prospective students look for.

All programmes in the country are standardised and cover the same required topics, so the only major difference there can be is the way these topics are presented to students. The research game is separate from the teaching entirely and shouldn't be considered as an indication of anything in the undergraduate realm.

* https://www.timeshighereducation.com/sites/default/files/bre...

"All programmes in the country are standardised and cover the same required topics, so the only major difference there can be is the way these topics are presented to students"

Undergraduate degree courses being standardised - since when? We don't even have the same high school level courses and exams across the UK...

The QAA and BCS have a set of national benchmarks and course descriptors that degree programmes have to follow if they want to be validated or accredited. There's a lot of flexibility within them for specialist modules, but some key topics have to be covered in all.

The idea that these benchmarks have anything meaningful to add is a ludicrous. If you think a 1st from Anglia Ruskin is Comparable with a 2nd from Cambridge you need your slide rule checked.

Only the person who went to cambridge would know what a slide rule is.

And, of course this being the UK, there is more than one QAA :-)

> Outranks in what?

Being the 'best'

> What does "best" mean?

Better than the others

How do we know who is the best? - The Times Univesity Rankings.

Non-paywall https://archive.md/lhXt2

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