Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Per rankings above, Bath is one that never gets talked about here.

My guess, unfortunately, is that the name of the school affects the way Americans perceive the university.
DCUM’s families from CT or DC cant possibly have a discussion in their circles about their kid going to Bath….just doesn’t sound right, so they all avoid it….

Did you just think this up? It doesn't really seem viable.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Times really is center-right not very right. The Torygraph and the Daily Rail are the very far right newspapers in the UK. The Guardian is left. The Independent is center-left.

That is all great. But what does that have to do with their rankings?

I don't think it has much to do with anything, personally.
The complete university guide looks at research and ranks according to academic excellence. What is helpful about the CUG is you can search by subject, by RG, by region.

Anonymous wrote:The Times really is center-right not very right. The Torygraph and the Daily Rail are the very far right newspapers in the UK. The Guardian is left. The Independent is center-left.

That is all great. But what does that have to do with their rankings?

The Times really is center-right not very right. The Torygraph and the Daily Rail are the very far right newspapers in the UK. The Guardian is left. The Independent is center-left.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Durham indeed is a good option.

Durham is up there in the rankings. It does however, have almost 40% of its students coming from private / independent UK schools which is a wealthy and tiny minority of the country. Outside of Oxford & Cambridge it has the highest percentage of these kids.

Exeter and St Andrews also have very high % of students from these schools. Even Edinburgh is like this. It is not a Durham issue. I’m not sure what the “However” means in your comment. For a portion of US kids going to these UK schools, their parents on avg had the ability to pay for Private schools in the US, so the fact that 40% of the students at these schools come from Privates would not even ring a bell with any of the US parents sending their kids to the UK. If they truly wanted a very Ethinic diverse student body, they could have just sent their kids to a Public school in the US.

6% of UK all students attend private or independent schools, just to put this in perspective for you.
St Andrews has 56% from state schools and 20% overseas so around 30% from private and independent. Exeter similarly has 30% private and independent UK school leavers.

There are outreach, contextual offers (slightly lower academic expectations if you come from an impoverished area) and other long term efforts to create equity within the UK university system. Not something perhaps you'd know about as a US appliant though.

Quite frankly, I think most US applicant families to these schools could care less what the breakdown of Privates/Ind vs State schools. We didnt care. According to UCAS, St Andrews is 39% International, not 20%. 20% is just Americans…

For Privates…here is the proper %: https://thetab.com/2024/09/23/its-official-these-30-universities-are-crawling-with-the-most-private-school-students-in-2024

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Durham indeed is a good option.

Durham is up there in the rankings. It does however, have almost 40% of its students coming from private / independent UK schools which is a wealthy and tiny minority of the country. Outside of Oxford & Cambridge it has the highest percentage of these kids.

Exeter and St Andrews also have very high % of students from these schools. Even Edinburgh is like this. It is not a Durham issue. I’m not sure what the “However” means in your comment. For a portion of US kids going to these UK schools, their parents on avg had the ability to pay for Private schools in the US, so the fact that 40% of the students at these schools come from Privates would not even ring a bell with any of the US parents sending their kids to the UK. If they truly wanted a very Ethinic diverse student body, they could have just sent their kids to a Public school in the US.

6% of UK all students attend private or independent schools, just to put this in perspective for you.
St Andrews has 56% from state schools and 20% overseas so around 30% from private and independent. Exeter similarly has 30% private and independent UK school leavers.

There are outreach, contextual offers (slightly lower academic expectations if you come from an impoverished area) and other long term efforts to create equity within the UK university system. Not something perhaps you'd know about as a US appliant though.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am about to start an MA at Bristol in Sept. But it does not include the innovation.

This is a long thread and I see on this page LSE has been mentioned.

50% of undergrads are from overseas, 70% overall students (under & post) are from overseas.

It is also hugely more prestigious than UCL and Kings London.

One of the best places to guage quality of courses and institution (rankings) is The Complete University Guide. Priceless tool for anyone considering sending their kids to the UK to study.

https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/

The one you mentioned plus

Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/education/ng-interactive/2024/sep/07/the-guardian-university-guide-2025-the-rankings
Times: https://www.thetimes.com/uk-university-rankings/league-table

The Times is ok, but a very right wing publication so to be taken with a pinch of salt
The Guardian is completely useless because it is entirely based on student satisfaction surveys which do not get answers from every single student and anyway, student "satisfaction" is not an arbiter of success.

I get the Guardian angle. They make a different set of rankings that include a lot of Student satisfaction data, which is a good thing. Why be a copy cat. By providing a different view, it allows students to put the propert weight on each of these rankings.
As far as the time being conservative, what does this have to do with their rankings? Their rankings are the most established in UK society as they are the oldest ones. at least all of the 3 are pretty transparent about how they rank. It is up to you the parent and your kids to evaluate them for what they are worth.

I do like that in the UK all of these rankings are really undergraduate focused. Whoever averaged the 3 rankings earlier did a great job. You combined the more academic rankings (2/3) with the more student satisfaction rankings (1/3) to come up with a fairly decent ranking.
Thanks. It has been posted earlier. There are 3 different league tables used in the UK.

average of all 3 look about right for an undergrad:

1. **University of Oxford** - 2.0
2. **University of St Andrews** - 2.67
3. **University of Cambridge** - 2.67
4. **London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)** - 2.67
5. **Imperial College London** - 5.33
6. **Durham University** - 6.0
7. **University of Bath** - 7.67
8. **University College London (UCL)** - 8.33
9. **Loughborough University** - 8.67
10. **University of Warwick** - 9.17
11. **Lancaster University** - 11.17
12. **University of Aberdeen** - 13.0
13. **University of Bristol** - 14.0
14. **University of Exeter** - 14.67
15. **University of Sheffield** - 17.33

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Durham indeed is a good option.

Durham is up there in the rankings. It does however, have almost 40% of its students coming from private / independent UK schools which is a wealthy and tiny minority of the country. Outside of Oxford & Cambridge it has the highest percentage of these kids.

Exeter and St Andrews also have very high % of students from these schools. Even Edinburgh is like this. It is not a Durham issue. I’m not sure what the “However” means in your comment. For a portion of US kids going to these UK schools, their parents on avg had the ability to pay for Private schools in the US, so the fact that 40% of the students at these schools come from Privates would not even ring a bell with any of the US parents sending their kids to the UK. If they truly wanted a very Ethinic diverse student body, they could have just sent their kids to a Public school in the US.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am about to start an MA at Bristol in Sept. But it does not include the innovation.

This is a long thread and I see on this page LSE has been mentioned.

50% of undergrads are from overseas, 70% overall students (under & post) are from overseas.

It is also hugely more prestigious than UCL and Kings London.

One of the best places to guage quality of courses and institution (rankings) is The Complete University Guide. Priceless tool for anyone considering sending their kids to the UK to study.

https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/

Thanks. It has been posted earlier. There are 3 different league tables used in the UK.

The one you mentioned plus

Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/education/ng-interactive/2024/sep/07/the-guardian-university-guide-2025-the-rankings
Times: https://www.thetimes.com/uk-university-rankings/league-table

The Times is ok, but a very right wing publication so to be taken with a pinch of salt
The Guardian is completely useless because it is entirely based on student satisfaction surveys which do not get answers from every single student and anyway, student "satisfaction" is not an arbiter of success.

Anonymous wrote:Durham indeed is a good option.

Durham is up there in the rankings. It does however, have almost 40% of its students coming from private / independent UK schools which is a wealthy and tiny minority of the country. Outside of Oxford & Cambridge it has the highest percentage of these kids.

Anonymous wrote:Per rankings above, Bath is one that never gets talked about here.

Bath is a STEM only university and it is not Russell Group. It has risen in the rankings for specific subjects and has become a coveted place to attend.

Anonymous wrote:Per rankings above, Bath is one that never gets talked about here.

My guess, unfortunately, is that the name of the school affects the way Americans perceive the university.
DCUM’s families from CT or DC cant possibly have a discussion in their circles about their kid going to Bath….just doesn’t sound right, so they all avoid it….

Per rankings above, Bath is one that never gets talked about here.

Based on these 3 UK rankings, it is pretty easy to average them out for the top 15:

Based on the average ranking across the three sources, here is a simple list of the top 15 UK universities:

1. **University of Oxford** - 2.0
2. **University of St Andrews** - 2.67
3. **University of Cambridge** - 2.67
4. **London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)** - 2.67
5. **Imperial College London** - 5.33
6. **Durham University** - 6.0
7. **University of Bath** - 7.67
8. **University College London (UCL)** - 8.33
9. **Loughborough University** - 8.67
10. **University of Warwick** - 9.17
11. **Lancaster University** - 11.17
12. **University of Aberdeen** - 13.0
13. **University of Bristol** - 14.0
14. **University of Exeter** - 14.67
15. **University of Sheffield** - 17.33

NotebookLM explanation on the differences between 2-3-4

All three universities have the same calculated average ranking of 2.67 when considering their ranks in the Guardian University Guide 2025 [1, 2], the UK university league table 2025 from The Times [3], and the University Rankings and League Tables 2025 [4, 5].

However, to differentiate between these universities with identical average ranks, the individual rankings from each source were considered more closely.

* **St Andrews** is ranked 2nd in the Guardian [1] and The Times [3], and 4th in the University League Table [5].
* **Cambridge** is ranked 3rd in the Guardian [1], 4th in The Times [3], and 1st in the University League Table [4].
* **LSE** is ranked 4th in the Guardian [1], 1st in The Times [3], and 3rd in the University League Table [5].

**The ranking order (St Andrews, Cambridge, LSE) in the generated list is based on a slight favoring of consistency across the sources when the average is the same.** St Andrews has a higher individual rank (2nd) in two out of the three sources, compared to Cambridge which has one 1st place and one 3rd and 4th place, and LSE which has one 1st place and one 3rd and 4th place. While this is a minor distinction given the identical average, it provides a method for ordering when the primary metric is the same.

Anonymous wrote:I am about to start an MA at Bristol in Sept. But it does not include the innovation.

This is a long thread and I see on this page LSE has been mentioned.

50% of undergrads are from overseas, 70% overall students (under & post) are from overseas.

It is also hugely more prestigious than UCL and Kings London.

One of the best places to guage quality of courses and institution (rankings) is The Complete University Guide. Priceless tool for anyone considering sending their kids to the UK to study.

https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/

Thanks. It has been posted earlier. There are 3 different league tables used in the UK.

The one you mentioned plus

Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/education/ng-interactive/2024/sep/07/the-guardian-university-guide-2025-the-rankings
Times: https://www.thetimes.com/uk-university-rankings/league-table