Oxford still ahead in 'The Times Good University Guide'

Cambridge has the highest entry standards of any British university and notably higher than those for Oxford. It also has a better completion rate and its graduates have better employment prospects.

But Oxford kept its top slot thanks to a significantly higher proportion of its undergraduates achieving good honours degrees, either a 1st or 2:1, spending on student facilities, lower staff to student ratios and a higher satisfaction rate among undergraduates.

Cambridge is top of half of the 62 subject tables in The Times Good University Guide. It continues to dominate in science and engineering while Oxford, which leads in 14 subject tables, makes the running in the arts and social sciences. A dozen other universities lead in at least one subject, with Warwick and Loughborough each topping three of the tables.

St Andrews is still Scotland’s top university and Glasgow has risen nine places to breathe down the neck of its ancient rival Edinburgh. Coventry registers the biggest rise, moving up 21 places. However, one of the most prominent fallers is Buckingham, Britain’s only private university, which drops from 21st  last year to 41st after an expansion in undergraduate numbers hit its staff: student ratio and facilities spend her student.

Greg Hurst, education editor of The Times: "Higher tuition fees, the recession and an exceptionally tough graduate jobs market  mean that the stakes are higher than ever for the next group of applicants preparing to apply to university.

“While universities are being required to publish more information such as contact hours for each course, prospective students and their families will want to make careful use of the mass of detail in The Times Good University Guide to see how universities and courses compare on admissions standards, research, student satisfaction, spending on facilities, staff-student ratios, degree achievements and completion rates, and graduate prospects.”

John O'Leary, Editor of The Times Good University Guide since its launch in 1992, said:  "With 20 years' experience of ranking universities, The Times Good University Guide now has an international reputation for reliability. In an era of rising costs and narrowing course options, students need all the help they can get in choosing a degree that will set them up for life. Both the institutional table and the 62 subject rankings can point them in the right direction to make a final decision."

Top 20 universities (figures in brackets indicate position last year):

 1.       Oxford (1)
 2.       Cambridge (2)
 3.       London School of Economics (3)
 4.       Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine (4)
 5.       Durham (6=)
 6.       St Andrews’s (6=)
 7.       University College London (5)
 8.       Warwick (8)
 9.       Bath (12)
 10.     Exeter (10)
 11.     Bristol (13)
 12.     Lancaster (9)
 13.     York (11)
 14.     Edinburgh (15)
 15.     Glasgow (22)
 16.     Loughborough (20)
 17.     Leicester (17=)
 18=.   Southampton (19)
 18=    Sussex (14)
 20.     Nottingham (16) 



The Times Good University Guide is the most authoritative and widely respected guide to universities in the UK and is an essential and comprehensive tool for students and parents at home and abroad. It ranks 116 UK universities according to eight criteria, including student satisfaction, research quality and degree results. The guide is published today by HarperCollins. Full details can be found at www.thetimes.co.uk/gug and in a print supplement in The Times today (June 14).

The Times Good University Guide, identified by a government-funded review as the most influential of its type*, contains far more than league tables. There are chapters on employment and going abroad to university, profiles of every university and special sections for overseas applicants and for parents.

 

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For further information or interview requests, please contact Laura Westcott

laura.westcott@thetimes.co.uk or telephone: 020-7782 5971


 

Notes

*The report, Counting What Is Measured Or Measuring What Counts? League Tables And Their Impact On HEIs In England, was commissioned by the Higher Education Funding Council for England, from the Centre for Higher Education Research and Information at the Open University and Hobsons Research, and published in April 2008.

The Times Good University Guide is the leading university guide in the UK and has been published every year since 1992. It is edited by John O’Leary, one of the country’s most distinguished education journalists.

The Times Good University Guide 2012 is published by Harper Collins and is available from all good bookshops, at £16.99.

Tables for the guide have been compiled by Exeter Enterprises Ltd, an arms-length subsidiary of Exeter University and verified independently.

The Times is one of the world's most trusted quality newspapers, with a circulation of 394,102 (ABC Mar 2012), 1,455,000 (source NRS) readers, a combined paying digital and paper audience of over 500,000 and more under-45 readers than any other title in the UK quality segment (NRS July –Dec 2010). The paper has more business readers than both the Financial Times and The Daily Telegraph combined (British Business Survey). In October 2009, The Times demonstrated its commitment to investing in quality journalism with the launch of Eureka - a 60-page monthly magazine dedicated to science, life and the planet. The Times relaunched its features section, Times2, in October 2010, which delivers 24 pages of news, lifestyle and arts features every day.