" Pupils unaware of university rank"

melancholly

Lokolo wrote: »

Well done on £3k posts btw.

it's not a good thing - i have a phd thesis to be writing instead! lol

The_One_Who

melancholly wrote: »

well that's why there are multiple league tables (and even though they are all using different criteria, the fact that end up pretty much the same says quite a lot in itself!)

I don't think they end up the same at all. Maybe in the top ten(ish) but outside of that it is very, very mixed. Also, in The Times they give subject rankings. Cambridge have more first ranked subjects than Oxford, yet Oxford is still ranked number one. Anyway, some random universities picked and their differing positions:

The Times:
Sheffield - 22
Manchester - 29
Glasgow - 31
Strathclyde - 44

The Guardian:
Glasgow - 20
Manchester - 24
Strathclyde - 29
Sheffield - 37

The Independent:
Glasgow - 16
Sheffield - 26
Manchester - 27
Strathclyde - 31

As you can see, Glasgow ranges from 16 to 31. That's fifteen places of a difference, which is quite a lot. I'm sure if I looked up more universities and their differences I could find more which ranged quite a lot.

All the information for students is available either online, in the school library, or at request from teachers. All they have to do is ask.

celyn90

melancholly wrote: »

but when so many students apparently run to get a student loan without reading any of the rules on how it gets paid back etc, i guess i'm a little sceptical that they will go out of their way to find it out!! yes they should, definitely, but clearly they're not and in a very high proportion according to this article.... is that lack of advice from schools or parents or something else?! it is just too much to expect them to do or are they used to be spoonfed information lower down in the education system?! i don't know the answer, but something isn't working at the moment.

But that's the sad thing - with the student loans, the information is handed to you prior to signing the papers and people still get into trouble. To me it is the same with this - the information is there and freely accessible and people choose not to research properly. They may not decide to apply to X university on the basis of it, but you would have thought they would have wanted to gather all available information about the place, the course, the rankings, the long-term, the life, the finacial implications before they made the choice. I know I did. I don't think that the advice is lacking - but how is a tutor supposed to give advice when the students don't even ask? I was always willing at school to chat to them if the knocked on my office door or e-mailed me and offer my perspective, but I can't make that decision for them. I still have links with schools and go in and do the whole UCAS chat with them and they often do have questions, but the vast majority of them haven't looked at what is availble in terms of advice even if it is handed to them in an information pack. You can lead a horse to water....

You shouldn't have to spoonfeed an 18 year old, they aren't children and I think it shows a lack of respect towards them to treat them as such. But I do think you've hit the nail on the head there - too much of education is spoonfeeding rather than encouraging independence - this was one of the reasons I left school teaching because I was bored of trying convince students to think beyond memorising stuff for an exam.

I remember having a little chat with my first supervison group when I started tutoring undergrads and they were very very shocked when they realised they weren't going to get into trouble for not handing the tutorial work in. The tute work wasn't for me - it was for them and I made this very clear. If they wanted to do it I could teach them, if they didn't then it was their decision. They were *very* freaked out by this concept and it didn't adversely affect the amount of work I got in to mark.

(I should be writing my thesis too :rotfl: :rotfl: make me work!!!)

[Deleted User]

celyn90 - go and write your thesis! I don't want to see you back online without writing at least 500 more words

Just think of the relief after you finish it

robnye

part of the problem is..... too much information if you look hard enough..... but not a lot of it is any good...

having gone through the university selection process... with my daughter (that is i was supporting her and took her to open days) her sixth form college didnt give a lot of help, she virtually went through every university that gave an indication of supplying her favoured course, before finding one that she liked, then re-researched using the course code..... she is an 'A' grade student..... yet she has opted for a university with lower acceptance grades.... the one with higher grades didnt offer the options she wanted... so whilst the leagues tables serve a purpose, they have to be taken with a pinch of salt...... it may be the best university in the country/world but as far as day to day living/social life is concerned it is the pits.......

you only have to look at the bbc story recently where students where offered incentives to give higher ratings at one university in particular (kingston)

Lokolo

rob, same with me. I got ABC in my alevels. Same as one of my close friends. He went to York to do Maths. I went to Staffordshire to do Computer Games Programming.

I love it at my uni and wouldn't change it for a thing. My friend down in Southampton who got AAB and is doing Management with Entreprenership and I went to visit him for a week, and I absolutely hated it. He has to get bus anywhere or walk for 40min to get to lectures and lessons etc.

But meh nevermind eh!

tr3mor

Lokolo wrote: »

rob, same with me. I got ABC in my alevels. Same as one of my close friends. He went to York to do Maths. I went to Staffordshire to do Computer Games Programming.

I love it at my uni and wouldn't change it for a thing. My friend down in Southampton who got AAB and is doing Management with Entreprenership and I went to visit him for a week, and I absolutely hated it. He has to get bus anywhere or walk for 40min to get to lectures and lessons etc.

But meh nevermind eh!

It's all very well loving your course while you're at uni. You have to consider its effects on the rest of your life though.

The_One_Who

tr3mor wrote: »

It's all very well loving your course while you're at uni. You have to consider its effects on the rest of your life though.

You're more likely to get a good degree class if you like the course. There's no point in going to Oxbridge if you don't like the courses they offer, because you'll just end up hating it. Going to a lower ranked university with a course you love and an environment you love makes it more likely to achieve higher grades.

Lokolo

tr3mor wrote: »

It's all very well loving your course while you're at uni. You have to consider its effects on the rest of your life though.

I want to be a games programmer... so its pretty much good that I am studying computer games programming

melancholly

celyn90 wrote: »

I remember having a little chat with my first supervison group when I started tutoring undergrads and they were very very shocked when they realised they weren't going to get into trouble for not handing the tutorial work in. The tute work wasn't for me - it was for them and I made this very clear. If they wanted to do it I could teach them, if they didn't then it was their decision. They were *very* freaked out by this concept and it didn't adversely affect the amount of work I got in to mark.

(I should be writing my thesis too :rotfl: :rotfl: make me work!!!)

i find that more and more, university teaching is heading down the spoonfeeding route too..... the more importance that student feedback is given, the more we have to give in to their demands, however unreasonable they might be!! maybe i'm just moody from writing up (well that's a given!), but i find the attitude frustrating.

how can there be this many students who haven't researched their course properly (painfully obvious from the surprise at having to do things like statistics!), can't contemplate the idea of extra reading and have no idea how much their loan will cost them!?!! i've had multiple instances where they reply to emails asking questions covered in the one sent to them! how do you fix it?! i blame a lot of it on the introduction of fees (students are now customers!), but it's still a major problem. there are still brilliant students but there are also a hell of a lot of lazy ones who don't go to lectures, or office hours, or tutor groups and then complain that they don't know information....

indeed, you can only take the horse to water but it still genuine frightens me.