York has continued its slide down the league tables with a disappointing ranking in this year’s Sunday Times University Guide. The university has been ranked joint 15th down from 13th last year, and the university is no longer the top ranked institution in Yorkshire with the University of Sheffield overtaking it for the first time since the guide started in 1999.
York was overtaken in the rankings by Sheffield, which rose to 13th, Newcastle, Loughborough and Exeter. The University of Cambridge ranked top of the overall table this year, switching positions with Oxford. York is also overshadowed by a number of its regional neighbours in individual rankings.
Increased weighting of graduate employment figures, which York has historically under-performed in compared to similar ranking institutions, was partly to blame for the University’s poorer score. York’s graduate unemployment rate of 7.8% was higher than neighbouring Yorkshire institutions such as Sheffield, Hull, Leeds, Huddersfield, and Leeds Trinity University College, defying claims that York graduates struggle to find work because of ‘regional’ reasons.
Similarly York was also let down by a low number of students in graduate-level jobs. 69.1% of York graduates are in jobs deemed to be of a graduate-level compared to 76.9% and 76% at Sheffield and Leeds respectively. In the Yorkshire region the figure was lower than those achieved by Hull, Bradford, Huddersfield and Leeds Trinity. According to the guide York is also beaten by Hull, Huddersfield, York St. John and Leeds Trinity in terms of ‘Teaching Excellence’.
York had the second lowest employment ranking for top twenty universities, only marginally better than the University of St Andrews, and the lowest student satisfaction rating for top twenty universities outside of London.
However, the University was recognised as the 8th best institution in the country for research and was also complemented for its high level of social inclusion. Perhaps hoping not to badmouth the University on a Sunday national, YUSU President Tim Ellis told the guide that the University’s worst feature was the fact that “the one way system in the city centre is a pain to have to drive around.”
Despite the poor result, third year Economics student Peter Spence told Vision that the university experience was not just about league table rankings: “York’s league table position had little bearing on my choice of university, at the time I considered York to be a top-class institution and I still do. People should choose based on the institution and not its ranking.”
The guide is in its 14th year, with this year’s methodology placing greater weighting on employability and parts of the National Student Survey such as the detail and usefulness of academic feedback. This year has also seen the removal of student/staff ratios, according to the Sunday Times “the NSS findings show, it is not the number of students sat in front of a professor, doctor or lecturer that counts, but the willingness of academics to engage and the quality of what they have to say that makes the difference.”
How many students actually take their cars to York? Another example of YUSU dodging the real problems facing York’s students.
I have a car, and there are many worse things about both the university and the town than the one-way system in the centre of town…
I was actually misquoted about the worst thing about York. I’ve never driven and the one-way system wasn’t even mentioned when I spoke to the paper so I’m at a loss as to how they came up with that.
I’m currently awaiting a reply and apology from them.
Meanwhile, I’ll continue to bike into town…
Oh god, this mistake is very reminiscent of Ngwena’s interview with the Sunday Times from two years ago. I can understand mishearing ‘geeks’ for ‘geese’, but this error seems unfeasible.
Any chance Tim you mentioned York’s one way system in a separate conversation sometime in the past? If so, looks like you’ve been Johann Hari’d.
I’m pissed off at no longer have a top-ten-uni degree.
And where will York be in ten years’ time? Number 25?
Please would someone do a timeline for our avg. rankings?
2001:7th; 2002:8th…. That kind of thing.
No longer havING, I mean.
http://i.imgur.com/n1wNE.png
Here it is in graph form.
OpenOffice makes stuff like that entirely too difficult…
Interesting post!
Peter Spence has a very good point here:
“York’s league table position had little bearing on my choice of university, at the time I considered York to be a top-class institution and I still do. People should choose based on the institution and not its ranking.”
I totally agree with him that we should not be affected with this ranking.
Thanks for the graph, anon. It’s interesting.
That’s what happens when departments (eg. mathematics) dumb down the curriculum to suit “students” who are more interested in drinking every night than studying.
Why on earth would anybody want to come to York for a science subject now? It’s terrible, and the only way it can get better is by spending more time on improving the courses, and not setting exams that anyone can pass after two hours of study.
@blah
Although I’m not disagreeing that the Maths Departments could speed up the curriculum and teach some modules earlier than they do, a number of other high ranked universities still manage to teach at a slower rate than us when it comes to more advanced maths. Hopefully the changes in the modular structure that I believe are occurring across all departments will help to solve this.
Also, if you’re not a mathematician I invite you to sit an exam after studying a module for just two hours. It’s not as easy as it might seem.
@Maths Students
Which universities are you referring to? Consider Cambridge, Oxford, Warwick, etc: I would be surprised if any of our final year students would even be allowed to take the final year modules at Cambridge and Oxford simply because we do not get taught enough. Compare Part III at Cambridge to York, and it’s absolutely no question: our courses are about a thousand times easier.
As I understand it, the mathematical physics modules are slightly different, but I don’t have experience of that.
The test is what other academics think of York: I travelled a few universities and I after I told them I had studied some module in York, almost all of them asked “Was it rigorous?”
I don’t doubt that the department has excellent mathematicians; they just go easy on us.
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