# After Oxford and Cambridge, which are the UK's most prestigious universities? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 19, 2008, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/after-oxford-and-cambridge-which-are-the-uks-most-prestigious-universities/464304 "2008-09-19T13:25:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2008, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/after-oxford-and-cambridge-which-are-the-uks-most-prestigious-universities/464304/1 "2008-09-19T13:25:26Z")
Beyond Oxford and Cambridge, I have heard of the following: the University of London, University of Surrey, University of Sussex, University of Manchester, University of Edinburgh, University of Glasgow, and Cardiff University. Probably forgotten some others, as well. What I’m wondering, though, is after Oxford and Cambridge, which universities considered to be next in line – regarding both reputation and actual academics (as well as that can be ascertained)? ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2008, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/after-oxford-and-cambridge-which-are-the-uks-most-prestigious-universities/464304/2 "2008-09-19T13:35:01Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > Beyond Oxford and Cambridge, I have heard of the following: the University of London, University of Surrey, University of Sussex, University of Manchester, University of Edinburgh, University of Glasgow, and Cardiff University. Probably forgotten some others, as well. > > What I’m wondering, though, is after Oxford and Cambridge, which universities considered to be next in line – regarding both reputation and actual academics (as well as that can be ascertained)? Imperial College London; maybe LSE? ---
**Author:** ![MarcusF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/67e7ee/32.png) [@MarcusF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarcusF)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2008, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/after-oxford-and-cambridge-which-are-the-uks-most-prestigious-universities/464304/3 "2008-09-19T13:39:27Z")
It can be argued over endlessly but the [Russell Group](http://www.russellgroup.ac.uk/)see themselves as the top of the tree: University of Birmingham University of Bristol University of Cambridge Cardiff University University of Edinburgh University of Glasgow Imperial College London King’s College London University of Leeds University of Liverpool London School of Economics & Political Science University of Manchester Newcastle University University of Nottingham Queen’s University Belfast University of Oxford University of Sheffield University of Southampton University College London University of Warwick Note that London is made up of a number of colleges a number of which are in the top flight, as noted LSE, Imperial, etc, but others are not. ---
**Author:** ![PaulParkhead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@PaulParkhead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaulParkhead)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2008, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/after-oxford-and-cambridge-which-are-the-uks-most-prestigious-universities/464304/4 "2008-09-19T13:41:29Z")
The next in line would probably be St Andrews. I won’t say it’s actually any better than London, Edinburgh etc., but it is regarded as prestigious. My guess would be that this reputation is based on its age. ---
**Author:** ![Wallenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b5a626/32.png) [@Wallenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallenstein)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2008, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/after-oxford-and-cambridge-which-are-the-uks-most-prestigious-universities/464304/5 "2008-09-19T13:45:34Z")
[_Blackadder thinks Nurse Mary is a German spy_] Captain Blackadder: \*And then the final, irrefutable proof. Remember, you mentioned a clever boyfriend… \* Nurse Mary: \*Yes. \* Captain Blackadder: \*I then leapt on the opportunity to test you. I asked if he’d been to one of the great universities, Oxford, Cambridge, or Hull. \* Nurse Mary: \*Well? \* Captain Blackadder: \*You failed to spot that only two of those are great Universities. \* Nurse Mary: \*Swine! \* General Melchett: \*That’s right! Oxford’s a complete dump! \* * * * As noted, the [Russell Group of 20 Universities](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Group_of_Universities) are regarded as the elite. But from “man in the street” perspective, I would suggest the following: **Bristol Uni** has the highest proportion of private school pupils, plus the highest application/places ratio. \*\*Imperial College \*\*is regarded as the leading Science / Engineering university **Durham Uni** is also quite upper crust (arranged in a collegiate system like Oxbridge) and is popular with students from private schools St Andrews is old, and attracted Prince William recently. ---
**Author:** ![MarcusF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/67e7ee/32.png) [@MarcusF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarcusF)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2008, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/after-oxford-and-cambridge-which-are-the-uks-most-prestigious-universities/464304/6 "2008-09-19T13:48:30Z")
Missed the edit! Should have added that the Russell Group does not line up with the Times list of the [top 100 universities](http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/tol_gug/gooduniversityguide.php)which takes a range of factors into account. Top 20: 1 Oxford 2 Cambridge 3 Imperial College 4 London School of Economics 5 St Andrews 6 Warwick 7 University College London 8 Durham 9 York 10 Bristol 11 King’s College London 12 Loughborough 13 Exeter 14 Leicester 15 Bath 16 Nottingham =16 Southampton 18 Edinburgh 19 Lancaster 20 Newcastle =20 Glasgow ---
**Author:** ![Wallenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b5a626/32.png) [@Wallenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallenstein)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2008, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/after-oxford-and-cambridge-which-are-the-uks-most-prestigious-universities/464304/7 "2008-09-19T13:53:04Z")
Loads of different ways of arranging British universities here: > **[Rankings of universities in the United Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_tables_of_British_universities)** > > Three national rankings of universities in the United Kingdom are published annually – by The Complete University Guide, The Guardian and jointly by The Times and The Sunday Times. Rankings have also been produced in the past by The Daily Telegraph and Financial Times. UK Universities also rank highly in global university rankings with 8 UK Universities ranking in the top 100 of the three major global rankings - QS World University Rankings, Times Higher Education World University Rankings an... Totally different orders, depending on which one you choose 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![DaphneBlack](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/daphneblack/32/5389_2.png) [@DaphneBlack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaphneBlack)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2008, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/after-oxford-and-cambridge-which-are-the-uks-most-prestigious-universities/464304/8 "2008-09-19T13:57:05Z")
There is less emphasis generally on exact numerical rankings for universities in the UK as compared to the US. Different universities in the top flight (the Russell group as mentioned) tend to attract different top students, depending on the individual strong areas of the university (Warwick for maths, say). I’d agree that St Andrews, Edinburgh, LSE and Durham have a lot of ‘reputation’ going for them. Durham and Exeter are considered here (Oxon. ;)) to be full of ‘Oxbridge rejects’ but I’m not sure how accurate that impression is. At Cornell, though, pretty much everyone I knew (in the Arts college anyway), myself cheerfully included, were Harvard-Yale-Princeton rejects. Reports from Brown indicated something similar. I don’t know what this says about the different systems… ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2008, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/after-oxford-and-cambridge-which-are-the-uks-most-prestigious-universities/464304/9 "2008-09-19T13:59:30Z")
It really depends on the subject area. Imperial College, the London School of Economics and SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies), all part of the University of London, have prominence in their own fields. In music, Oxford and Cambridge don’t stand out above (for example) York, Goldsmiths or Manchester. There’ll be similar situation in other specialities, too. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2008, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/after-oxford-and-cambridge-which-are-the-uks-most-prestigious-universities/464304/10 "2008-09-19T14:05:17Z")
> [@DaphneBlack](#): > > There is less emphasis generally on exact numerical rankings for universities in the UK as compared to the US. Yeah. I was thinking in terms of how, in the US, most people can easily spit out that Harvard, Yale, & Princeton are the top. After that, most folks could probably rattle off some other Ivy league schools, with Stanford and Duke being at about that reputational level. Beyond that, in the US, it’s a free-for-all. Many, many schools have good reps, though – especially if you consider schools that have great reps in specific fields. And of course, in real life, you can get a rock-solid education at hundreds of universities & colleges – and it stands to reason the same is true in the UK. I was thinking that UK universities might fall into reputational tiers in much the same way. I definitely was aware that it wouldn’t be a strict 1-2-3-4 system, of course. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2008, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/after-oxford-and-cambridge-which-are-the-uks-most-prestigious-universities/464304/11 "2008-09-19T14:16:17Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > I was thinking that UK universities might fall into reputational tiers in much the same way. There certainly are reputational tiers, but they tend to represent prejudices and outdated views as much as they really inform. There’s the Russell Group already mentioned, and [‘red brick universities’](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_brick_university). ‘New universities’ used to be a way to refer to those founded in the 1950s and 60s, and includes places such as York, Surrey, UEA, Warrick and Sussex. Now, the term generally gets used to mean the [post-1992](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_universities) generation of institutions, which still sometimes get derided as a block, through snobbery at their origins as much as through reasonable assessment. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2008, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/after-oxford-and-cambridge-which-are-the-uks-most-prestigious-universities/464304/12 "2008-09-19T14:27:26Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > Yeah. I was thinking in terms of how, in the US, most people can easily spit out that Harvard, Yale, & Princeton are the top. After that, most folks could probably rattle off some other Ivy league schools, with Stanford and Duke being at about that reputational level. One way of looking at it is “where did your leaders go to school” - ie. your chances of becoming POTUS decrease massively if you didn’t go to Harvard or Yale at some point. By that standard, I think the next school down is the LSE, but again, that’s purely by reputation. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2008, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/after-oxford-and-cambridge-which-are-the-uks-most-prestigious-universities/464304/13 "2008-09-19T14:33:15Z")
It depends on the subject area. Edinburgh stands head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to e.g. computer science and AI. The closest competitor to Edinburgh is Cambridge for computer science. Edinburgh also has a good reputation in the biomedical fields, with strong medical and veterinary medicine schools. But, don’t trust me, I’m an Edinburgh alumnus 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Martiju](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e8c25b/32.png) [@Martiju](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martiju)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2008, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/after-oxford-and-cambridge-which-are-the-uks-most-prestigious-universities/464304/14 "2008-09-19T14:51:15Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > There certainly are reputational tiers, but they tend to represent prejudices and outdated views as much as they really inform. There’s the Russell Group already mentioned, and [‘red brick universities’](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_brick_university). ‘New universities’ used to be a way to refer to those founded in the 1950s and 60s, and includes places such as York, Surrey, UEA, Warrick and Sussex. Now, the term generally gets used to mean the [post-1992](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_universities) generation of institutions, which still sometimes get derided as a block, through snobbery at their origins as much as through reasonable assessment. This. And bearing in mind that since 1992 a further number of previous Colleges of HE have now also become university colleges or universities. Since the move to mass higher education (the Government is still striving for a target of 50% of all school-leavers being in HE) the whole tier system has become a lot more complex. This is partly in terms of subject, as noted above, but also in terms of what each individual student wants to get from the experience. Naturally, if you want to go into law, for example, you might want to go to a well-known uni for teaching law - but equally you might want to go to a (previously) mid-range university like Oxford Brookes to get a wider grounding in economics and then on to a law school. Similarly, some of the much newer universities specialise in widening participation - that is encouraging those less well-off or with experience but no academic background to embark upon an HE qualification. These also tend to deliver module-based provision, rather than linear courses with final exams, unlike many of the Russell Group - which in turn allows breadth of study rather than depth. In addition, there is always the question of how you measure ‘prestigious’ - it is reputation to a great extent, but the measures are changing. The [National Student Survey](http://www.unistats.com/) has run for 3 years now, and is starting to reveal some interesting factors that demonstrate satisfaction with the HE experience - in turn these threaten the established regime (although arguments about whether students should be happy with a learning experience go on…!?). A short answer then, would be that it just depends on what you’re looking for. My take (as a manager of one of those post-92 universities and therefore biased) is that unless you want to work in a field that explicitly states that they are looking for graduates from x (some engineering firms, for instance), then the choice is yours. As far as bragging rights go, Oxford or Cambridge pretty much stand alone, as as soon as you start work all the undergraduate work becomes relatively irrelevant and the transferable skills that have been learnt (analytical, critical or basic practical skills) become all the more important. ---
**Author:** ![slaphead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@slaphead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slaphead)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2008, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/after-oxford-and-cambridge-which-are-the-uks-most-prestigious-universities/464304/15 "2008-09-19T14:59:45Z")
It’s worth noting that Imperial College [pulled out of the University of London](http://www.lon.ac.uk/653.html)last year, due to a drop in the independent assessments of UL. In future it will issue its own degrees just as Imperial College. I graduated this year and had a choice of whether to have UL or Imperial on the certificate. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2008, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/after-oxford-and-cambridge-which-are-the-uks-most-prestigious-universities/464304/16 "2008-09-19T15:00:38Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > It really depends on the subject area. Imperial College, the London School of Economics and SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies), all part of the University of London, have prominence in their own fields. In music, Oxford and Cambridge don’t stand out above (for example) York, Goldsmiths or Manchester. There’ll be similar situation in other specialities, too. That’s what I was about to ask. Since students in the UK, from what I’m told and like in (most of or all of) Continental Europe have to choose the subject before signing up for classes, it seems perfectly possible that, like in Spain, in the UK a University could be #1 for a given subject and last-choice for another. Thanks, you answered my question before I even asked it! ---
**Author:** ![slaphead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@slaphead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slaphead)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2008, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/after-oxford-and-cambridge-which-are-the-uks-most-prestigious-universities/464304/17 "2008-09-19T15:16:03Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > That’s what I was about to ask. Since students in the UK, from what I’m told and like in (most of or all of) Continental Europe have to choose the subject before signing up for classes, it seems perfectly possible that, like in Spain, in the UK a University could be #1 for a given subject and last-choice for another. To give an extreme example, Imperial College is home of the Royal School of Mines. If you wanna study digging up of minerals to an advanced level, they’re probably your #1 choice, whereas City University is big on Aeronautical Engineering and has transonic wind tunnels and stuff.