[benevolentDictator]

Recently, we had a discussion related to Canadian college and university rankings; I actually had to do some research to provide relevant information, and I personally find that it's not that easy to find college and university rankings in a certain country. Especially when we want to find rankings of different departments and programs, it takes some time and effort to find any relevant information. So, I'd like us to have a discussion on how to find information about college and university rankings in different countries; this thread focuses on UK college and university rankings. Where should we start? What charts should we check? Is there any authority magazine or institution that provides the information?

[Fares]

Hi ,

I have heard a lot about the Departement of Economics in Essex university.

I know that it is not a very good university, but what I have heard from many experts that it is famous for its departement of Economics.

What do you think?

[benevolentDictator]

Well, according to this list, Essex University is ranked 25th in UK. That's pretty high up there, don't you think?

[adigaskell]

The newspapers have league tables published each year, with this search on Google outlining two of the main ones (Times and Guardian).

Each tend to use slightly different criteria but if you compare them all you can see certain trends develop to help you determine the top universities.

[benevolentDictator]

If you are asked to name the top 10 universities in UK, what universities would you name? Rankings may change every year, but I'm guessing that there are universities that are regarded highly among general public, and they know about those universities without looking at their rankings. Kind of like Harvard and Yale in US?

[adigaskell]

The Russell Group is largely considered to be the premier group of UK universities. The group consists of:

University of Birmingham
University of Bristol
University of Cambridge
Cardiff University
University of Edinburgh
University of Glasgow
Imperial College of Science, Technology & Medicine
King's College London
University of Leeds
University of Liverpool
London School of Economics & Political Science
University of Manchester
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
University of Nottingham
University of Oxford
University of Sheffield
University of Southampton
University of Warwick
University College London

[benevolentDictator]

Something new to learn everyday.

Russell Group

The Russell Group of universities is a self-selected group of large research-led British universities; 18 of its 19 members are in the top 20 in terms of research funding. The group is often wrongly presented in the media, as a kind of British Ivy League, representing the interests of Britain's prestigious universities, although the group does not include some top British universities. However, unlike the Ivy League, all of the Russell Group universities are state-funded.

The group's purpose is to represent the views of their institutions (especially in lobbying government and parliament) and to commission reports to support their case. Their concerns are to lead the UK's research effort; to maximise income; to attract the best staff and students; to reduce government interference; and to exploit their collaborative advantage.

Although not directly related to its purpose, the Russell Group is often taken in studies to be representative of prestigious universities. However, like the Ivy League, the Russell Group is not a comprehensive list of prestigious universities. It may surprise many non-Americans to know that the Ivy League does not include MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, CalTech, Duke, University of Chicago, Georgetown, NYU, UCLA or even the university which receives the highest research funding in the US, Johns Hopkins University. By comparison, the Russell Group is much more representative of prestigious British universities. However, many (including journalists) fail to realise that the Russell Group does not include smaller prestigious institutions such as the Universities of York and Durham.

The group has been prominent in recent years in the debate over the introduction of tuition fees, a measure which it has strongly supported - much to the dismay of the universities' students' unions. Indeed, members of the group argued that even the fees proposed by the controversial Higher Education Bill would not be enough, and argued for the right to charge much higher so-called top-up fees. In response to this and other issues, the Student Unions of the Russell Group universities have formed the Aldwych Group.

More recently a sub group of 'super-elite' universities, with strong international standing, has emerged within the Russell constellation: the 'G5', comprising LSE, Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial and UCL. These, according to press reports, have begun to make separate representations to government in search of additional funding, and for instance the vice-chancellors of these institutions sent a celebrated letter to the Times, in late 2003, on the subject of university finance.

The Russell group is so named because meetings took place at the Russell Hotel in Russell Square, London, generally shortly before meetings of Universities UK (formerly known as Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principals, or CVCP) in Tavistock Square. The group is chaired by Professor Michael Sterling, the Vice-Chancellor of Birmingham.

This was originally published at Wikipedia and the document is licensed under GNU Free Document License. If you'd like to find out more about Russell Group, you might be interested in visiting this page in Wikipedia.

[Sunny Boy]

Try The Association of Colleges. Really is very good.

[benevolentDictator]

Association of Colleges?

[daisygrl]

Thanks for the list of top Universities. Very helpful and informative. The problem with most of these schools is they are very expensive. I would have to pull out a few student loans to attend a semester at any school on the list.