IMHO, as a PhD student, what really matters is not how well your university is ranked but how well your research group is organized and how much the people there support you. I know students who went to do their PhDs in the groups of nobel prize winners because of the associated fame, only to find out that they're not very "hungry" anymore (in the sense that they're already at the top of their fame and not always eager to pursue new risky and innovative research) and are often so busy that they could only speak with them for a few hours over the entire duration of their PhD. So my advice is to go to a group with people that are still "hungry" and that actually have time to coach you.

But it's all just rather arbitrary rankings of rather arbitrary social constructions anyway, and as you say it's not that helpful for making accurate decisions for where you should apply anyway as what really matters is your supervisor and the support from the administration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_universities_of_Scotla...

[1] https://medium.economist.com/why-doing-a-phd-is-often-a-wast...

I've noticed this as well and I'm not even a PhD student! For example, the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam doesn't rank super high. Yet, when I look at their cyber security department, then they're top notch.

In most cases though, industry doesn't care about any of this. So only do it if you're actually interested in research. PhD to industry doesn't translate well (high variability in where people end up).

Department reputation in the field is very important, particularly how they are seen by industry.

> well your research group is organized and how much the people there support you.

Controversial perhaps, but when academics are being dicks, nobody ever calls them out on it, academics close ranks and protect their own. Students come and go, professors are there for life.

If there are issues with ones research group, there is no support. Chose wisely, but it is hard to know in advance what sort of environment there really is and how things will really play out.

That's not my experience, actually. There is a lot of snobbery in some cases. Some places (UK) make a point of only hiring from certain universities. A friend of mine did his PhD at Birmingham - good university, and excellent at his field, but not a top-5 one. He was on the LIGO experiment, and on the first gravitational wave detection. Got grilled about "why on earth did you go to study at Birmingham???" at a job interview.

You might say, not a good place to work, and you'd be right, but the trend is real.

Really depends on the field. On the whole people who have a PhD in Not-Computer Engineering tend to end up working in fields connected to what their PhD was in.

I work in Civil Engineering and not only are there lots of PhDs around here most of them are working on things pretty close to what their research topic was, and where in fact specifically hired to do so. The PhDs who aren't working in their 'field' are generally more senior people who used to work or more relevant stuff but are now in more management roles.

Also, if you want the university's reputation to boost your CV, these things change over time. So the "brownie points" of "my university is top of a ranking" may not last very long.

So pick somewhere reputable that will give you a good education and don't obsess about rankings.

Universities nowadays focus a lot on these rankings, to the detriment of students. If the rankings added a category for clean washrooms, universities would stop buying books and start scrubbing. Bean counters perform cost:benefit analyses to set policies and redirect funding. You don't want to be the person in the meeting saying "um, but library books are important, aren't they?".

Deciding on a university based on an overall score is not a good plan. Focus on the things you care about. You'll likely find that there is no ranking category that matches up to your interest. So, visit the website. Or visit the university. Or (for graduate studies) contact professors and students. Talk with people, generally. And don't forget that there are other factors. Are you keen on cities or the country? Do you want to be near your family? Can you afford the university?

It should be noted that Scottish students don't pay (significant) tuition fees.

She got terrible satisfaction scores, and got pressure from 'higher-ups' to reweight the exams so the people in the "fail" group passed.

The reweighting is not a good solution, but I would ask questions to the lecturer why a good chunk of her students are failing. It's her responsibility to teach them after all, and not to filter out the elite.

Easy: Lecture contains an algorithm for diagonalising 3×3 matrices and an example. Tutorial/exam has students do a very similar example (e.g. both matrices have lots of zeroes in the same cells).

Harder: Lecture contains an algorithm for diagonalising 3×3 matrices and an example. Tutorial/exam has students do a matrix that is structurally very different.

Hard: Lecture contains an algorithm for diagonalising 3×3 matrices and an example. Tutorial/exam has students extend the ideas of the algorithm to a specific 4x4 matrix.

My own undergraduate experience was largely in the "hard" category, whilst as a lecturer at a different university there was pressure to move increasingly towards the "easy". It was even fairly explicit: student feedback surveys would be aggregated and you'd be informed that the students are unhappy because the tutorial exercises cover things they "haven't seen" in lectures.

I always though it was quite fun detail.

And the rankings can show the opposite of how people actual view the unis. Where I am we have a Russell Group uni and an ex-poly. I went to the Russell Group uni and did computer science, solely because it is a Russell Group uni. In reality, everyone in the local market knows that the ex-poly's computer science course prepares you better for industry.

On the whole though, no one really cares. I can barely remember what I got for my A levels, I can't even remember how many GCSEs I did.

It really doesn't matter in my experience.

Senior management, especially with kids looking at these lists become interested in them. Its a good time to name drop your university around the old boys.

I'm sure that St Andrews is a brilliant college. But very few in academia would say its as brilliant as Oxbridge

It's not a 'college' at all.

It doesn't make sense to me how here in Europe universities tries to say that they aren't anything but a university. Americans got this one right. How else would you compare where to study? Do you say "university rankings" but include non universities there that doesn't do research? You go there to do college studies, and try to find the best place to do college studies, why say it is wrong to call it a college?

An undergraduate degree isn't 'college studies' in British English. Nobody would say that.

> why say it is wrong to call it a college?

Why is it wrong to call it a fish? Because it's not a fish.

Why is it wrong to call it a college? Because it's not a college.

Like all these lunatics yesterday talking about 'Sir Sinclair'.

Calling it a 'college' makes it sound like something less than it is. I would try not to mis-title things from another culture myself.

This is hardly a 'slam' for St Andrews; aluminum is more concise than aluminium, as is 'math' compared to 'maths'.

In the US a 'public' school is -not- elite (fee-charging); the general 'public' is welcome there. Not just stuck-up nit-pickers.

  - pre-university education for 16-18 year olds. This is where you complete qualifications for university entry, such as A Levels, Scottish Highers, or the IB, as well as more vocationally aligned qualifications like BTEC or NVQ. This stage of education used to be optional but recently became compulsory.
  - institutions within a larger university umbrella. This includes the colleges of Oxford, Cambridge and Durham. For example, Jesus College of the University of Oxford or Magdalene College of the University of Cambridge. Very few UK universities use a college system, it is mostly a historical legacy seen in very old universities.

EDIT: updated to reflect that A levels aren’t the only pre-university qualification in the UK

I guess it was cited as this is a fairly elite forum and it is a fairly elite university. Imperial actially left the University of London system and now issues its own degrees (left in 2007).

It doesnt actually change the point above, but just a corrections all the same.

Nitpick: not all of the UK uses A-levels.

The international baccalaureate is also becoming more widely available.

Probably sounds too french.

This is not the same as an independent institution which is a college (for example Cambridge regional college https://www.camre.ac.uk/)

Like many words in the UK, sometimes “college” is used in a more historical meaning

In any case, the ‘University of London’ is an almost meaningless umbrella institution. Its members function as separate universities for all practical purposes.

But this is semantics really, apparently the GP meant a very specific type of college but didn't communicate this and colleges that are universities under the hood aren't part of that unstated definition.

So St Andrews outranks Oxbridge for the first time. Outranks in what? What does "best" mean? I think these rankings should better explain in the title what they indicate. It seems to me they compete in prestige and not quality of teaching which is what prospective students look for.

All programmes in the country are standardised and cover the same required topics, so the only major difference there can be is the way these topics are presented to students. The research game is separate from the teaching entirely and shouldn't be considered as an indication of anything in the undergraduate realm.

* https://www.timeshighereducation.com/sites/default/files/bre...

Undergraduate degree courses being standardised - since when? We don't even have the same high school level courses and exams across the UK...

Being the 'best'

> What does "best" mean?

Better than the others

How do we know who is the best? - The Times Univesity Rankings.