Students read this

Midas

Useful summary of British Universities here.

"As a simplistic guide, Oxbridge tends to be the most reputable, followed by Scottish Ancients and the Red Brick universities (formed in the 19th century). The Plate Glass Universities (formed after the second world war) come next in reputation, although again, it is not completely clear, as some such as Warwick and York are regarded as highly, if not more highly than some of the Ancient universities. The Post-1992 universities, the ex-polytechnics set up in the reforms of 1992 have the poorest reputation, with many of the members regularly appearing in the bottom half of most league tables. Most of this newer group belong to the Coalition of Modern Universities."

talksalot81

cupid_stunt wrote:

can i just ask what percentage of your course got a first if you only needed 67%?
it seems low, but as i said before it depends on how individual unis set questions and mark things. it might be easier to get 90% at talksalots uni than to get 67% at yours

In principle you are right. That said, (at least in sciencey subjects) there is a good degree of normalisation with external examiners. The externs are not going to let away really easy exams and high marks because it effectively degrades their own university.

It also tends to vary with course quite how easy it is to get grades. Physics I can almost accept 70 because there are very few who get that high and really few who get very high. But Mathematics at our uni is a bit different... the way the system works results in it being quite common for people to get 100% in their exams (without actually getting it all right), so you will see a large number of people coming out in the 90's.

melancholly wrote:

how did you get 90% btw? i;m very impressed (and more than a little intimidated!!!)

I didnt get quite as high as 90... I guess everyone is good at something but more than anything I didnt go out very often!!!

cupid_s

melancholly wrote:

i can see how it can look like that...... the explanation is that to get onto it as a third year option you had to get a first in your second year exams - so it's a course that had a lot of high scoring people. other third year options had a distribution of mainly 2:1's and 2:2's and others still had mainly 2:2's and 3rds..... so it isn't that high over the entire yeargroup - but I don't know exact numbers. i do know that my uni didn't have capped numbers of firsts, but exceptional students got starred firsts (although no-one on my course in my year managed that!)

well that doesn't count as being 10-15% then as i'm sure the whole average was much much lower and you did most excellent

though ****ing pompous moronic ***** do tend to do well i suppose

Mrs_pbradley936

But Mathematics at our uni is a bit different... the way the system works results in it being quite common for people to get 100% in their exams (without actually getting it all right), so you will see a large number of people coming out in the 90's.

QUOTE]

My son is a mathematics graduate(from a Russell Group University) and he said you still get marks for ECF (error carried forward). He thinks the biggest stumbling block when you get to university is a psychological one because all through your school years you have been thought of as “clever” A* at GCSE then A grades at A level. When you get to university everyone else is the same so you go from regarding yourself as being capable and good at the subject to being average. Since being average is new to you, you can be in danger of thinking you have become “thick” all of a sudden.

Mrs_pbradley936

Why don't my quotes come out in those little boxes?

DrFluffy

Because you are deleting the quote tags... A quote needs:

at the beginning and

at the end (closing the gap I left to be able to demonstrate!

If you go with

_blaaaahhh_ wrote:

at the beginning, then it will past as

_blaaaahhh wrote:

cos I can

cupid_s

pbradley936 wrote:

My son is a mathematics graduate(from a Russell Group University) and he said you still get marks for ECF (error carried forward). He thinks the biggest stumbling block when you get to university is a psychological one because all through your school years you have been thought of as “clever” A* at GCSE then A grades at A level. When you get to university everyone else is the same so you go from regarding yourself as being capable and good at the subject to being average. Since being average is new to you, you can be in danger of thinking you have become “thick” all of a sudden.

I found it the opposite when I went to uni. Having gone to a (non fee paying) grammar school I was kinda in the middle with regards to cleverness. I actually felt very thick at times because some of my friends were so much cleverer (!) than me.

to be honest getting all A*s and As at GCSE and then all As and Bs at A-level wasn't clever. It was expected.

Then when I went to (a good) uni i expected the quality of student there to be similar to what I experienced at school and it wasn't at all. I went from being in the bottom 60% at school to being in the top 2% at uni and felt really clever all of a sudden.

DrFluffy

I was almost certainly in the bottom 10% of my class at school. I am in the top 6% at med school. That's largely 'cos I hated school and do not cope with didactic teaching, I'm definitely more of a like to work things out for myself kinda chick!

melancholly

cupid_stunt wrote:

well that doesn't count as being 10-15% then as i'm sure the whole average was much much lower and you did most excellent

though ****ing pompous moronic ***** do tend to do well i suppose

thanks!

talksalot81

pbradley936 wrote:

biggest stumbling block when you get to university is a psychological one because all through your school years you have been thought of as “clever” A* at GCSE then A grades at A level. When you get to university everyone else is the same so you go from regarding yourself as being capable and good at the subject to being average. Since being average is new to you, you can be in danger of thinking you have become “thick” all of a sudden.

It didnt work like this for me either. At school I did well but no one knew the subjects well enough to let me really get my teeth in. So I did well enough, but I was not top. Learning facts and figures wasnt my calling.

I got to uni and I went into physics. I almost immediately realised that although I didnt know more than the others, I understood where they didnt... something that didnt gain me anything at A-level. So I rapidly had all the confidence in the world.

This is a big failing of the current system. Everyone is indeed classified the same because 'failure' is not an option! The really bright should work their way through and people will realise they are as such (even if the system fails to show it). But the moderately bright will fall into the 'average' like the quote suggests and everyone below will fall into this as well (because the lower portion are again stopped from failing). So what do you get? A handfull of smart asses and a flock of sheep.