In our first post on what to consider when choosing a university, we talked about university reputation. In this article, we’ll cover the influence of rankings and league tables.
In recent years, rankings have become increasingly popular tools for making decisions about which university to attend.
Of course, rankings shouldn’t be the determining factor when considering your university choice.
Preparing to go to university is a multifaceted process. Your decision will undoubtedly be influenced by other considerations, like university reputation and employability.
League tables should be viewed as one tool among many to help you narrow down your shortlist of institutions to attend.
How rankings and league table can be helpful
League tables combine a variety of information sources about universities to summarise factors that prospective students might find useful when deciding where to study.
They rely on a variety of metrics to rank the institutions. Some of the metrics used in league tables include, but are certainly not limited to: research quality, student satisfaction, teaching environment, employability, student staff ratios, international outlook etc.
Rankings are easily accessible online, and many of them offer helpful features, like filters and custom reports, to simplify the decision-making process based on your own needs.
How should you use league tables when it comes to making your university choice? We advise narrowing down your top choices, and then using the league tables to compare them based on your own priorities.
For instance, if you’re looking for a university with lower tuition fees and costs of living, you can use league tables to compare your choices based on those criteria to find the best match.
League tables are especially useful for international students who want to study in the UK but prefer to avoid London (due to high living costs) and other big-name universities. Since some league tables also rank universities by region, they can give international students who aren’t familiar with UK geography an idea of where they might like to study.
Many students find student satisfaction metrics very helpful. Although there are some issues with how metrics are measured (which we’ll discuss next), student satisfaction is useful to painting a picture about student life at a particular university.
The student satisfaction rating accounts for many aspects of the student experience. Most importantly, it is a metric that gives students a voice. Each year, the National Student Survey gives students the opportunity to provide a satisfaction score for 27 aspects of student life, including academic and career support, campus community, graduate prospects, and even university management.
League tables are helpful source of information for prospective students. Additionally, as noted by the Higher Education Policy Institute, they create media coverage, putting areas of supposedly stronger and weaker provision in the spotlight.
This media attention ensures that policy makers and institutional stakeholders take required action – which is beneficial for students.
The Problem with League Tables
All that said, not all league tables are created equal. Not all tables use the same metrics, and some of the metrics themselves are subjective and difficult to measure empirically.
For instance, how does one measure teaching quality? Are test scores the key determiner of quality? Or student satisfaction? What about attendance? Or a mixture of the three? Then, who decides which is the most important or influential factor in determining teaching quality?
Of course, if you wanted to find out more about how league tables measure their metrics, you could always read up on their methodologies. (Or, you could keep reading this post instead since we’ve done the hard work for you!)
League tables also measure universities differently, emphasising different factors. For instance, most rankings use research quality as a key metric but place less emphasis on teaching quality.
However, teaching quality is a crucial metric and arguably has more of an impact on the quality of education and outcomes for graduates.
Additionally, rankings don’t always tell you the whole story. Certain institutions have favorable and well established reputations with employers, which does not seem affected by their placing in league tables.
In a previous article, we showed you how top employers targeted their recruitment activity at select universities. If you missed it, you can still read this post and see the top 25 UK universities targeted by employers.
Global Rankings
There are three global league tables which are the most influential due to their scope, reputation, and methodologies.
Times Higher Education World University Rankings
When it comes to global league tables, Times Higher Education is THE household name.
Though THE previously partnered with QS (another big name in the university ranking world that we’ll cover shortly), Times created a new methodology for ranking universities in 2009. THE focuses primarily on research-intensive universities all over the world and ranks the top 1,000 schools.
THE’s rankings are also one of the easiest to navigate – you can compare your prospective university in the UK to institutions all over the world, which is super helpful for international students and globetrotter hopefuls.
The filter feature also lets you compare and sort universities by subject, accommodation, cost of living, region, and so much more. This can help you narrow down your search based on your individual needs and priorities.
QS World University Rankings
Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings, better known as QS, is another of the most popular ranking systems in the world.
QS keeps it simple by focusing on four key elements when ranking universities: research, teaching, employability, and internationalisation.
Similar to the THE rankings, you can access the QS rankings online, and also filter the results by ranking history, average tuition costs, research activity, number of students, and more.
QS lets you create custom reports based on your preferences, but you’ll need to register for an account on their website to take advantage of this feature.
Shanghai Ranking (Academic Ranking of World Universities)
The Shanghai Ranking is another popular league table. The key difference is this league table is published by an independent organization, the Shanghai Ranking Consultancy.
Some of its metrics include research output, quality of faculty, and per capita performance. You can also filter universities by national rank as well as global rank.
National Rankings
You may also want to see how your prospective university choice stacks up to other universities right here in the UK.
The Complete University Guide
The Complete University Guide (CUG) differs slightly from the ranking tables we’ve covered so far. All data is sourced from the public domain rather than the universities themselves.
Entry standards and graduate prospects are among the metrics used in the CUG rankings.
When it comes to user experience, CUG doesn’t offer as many filters as the global tables, but you can still sort results by subject, year, region, and even university groups like the Russell Group and the University Alliance.
The Guardian University League Table
If you subscribe to The Guardian or you’re a regular reader, you’re probably already familiar with its annual university ranking, which is based primarily on student experience.
In this table, students have more of a voice than the statisticians. Student opinions on metrics like whether they liked the university and whether the teaching quality is worth the tuition fees determine who gets the top spot.
The Guardian is planning to improve its methodology in 2019. The enhanced methodology will incorporate a measure for “the likelihood that a student beginning a full-time first degree will successfully graduate or, conversely, the risk that they will leave with no degree and a lot of debt.” This will be an incredibly useful metric for prospective students.
Conclusion
League tables and rankings can be helpful in guiding your choices for university. However, remember that they are not the only factor you should consider when choosing your university. It is also important to note that league tables measure universities differently, emphasising different factors.
Choosing the right university for your career goals will require thorough research on your part – and league tables are just one of the tools that can help you in your research.
Have you used rankings or league tables to make your university choice? Which rankings did you prefer? Tell us about your experience in the comments!
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