The University of Cambridge has been named the top university in the country according to The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2016. After sharing first place with Oxford last year, Cambridge trumps its rival following the outcome of the new research ratings published last December, which once again saw the university come out on top.
The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2016 is published over the course of three days, beginning with a free 56-page supplement this weekend in The Sunday Times (September 20). It provides the most comprehensive overview of higher education in Britain. A separate analysis of student satisfaction with the quality of the teaching at each institution is published for the first time this year. A fully searchable website with full university profiles and 66 subject tables will be published at www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/gooduniversityguide on Sunday for members of The Times and The Sunday Times.
Top in East Anglia
|
Rank |
Name |
Ranking 2016 |
Ranking 2015 |
2015 National student survey Teaching excellence (%) |
2015 National student survey Student experience (%) |
Graduate prospects (% in professional jobs or graduate-level study) |
Completion rate (%) |
|
1 |
Cambridge |
1 |
1= |
83.8 |
86.3 |
89.3 |
98.4 |
|
2 |
East Anglia |
18 |
14 |
83.2 |
88.8 |
70.3 |
91.9 |
|
3 |
Essex |
35 |
32 |
83.7 |
88 |
64.1 |
85.6 |
|
4 |
Norwich Arts |
61 |
- |
83.8 |
83.5 |
63.4 |
88.7 |
|
5 |
Anglia Ruskin |
108 |
110 |
82.5 |
83.9 |
65 |
79.3 |
Cambridge has moved back into a clear lead of The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide league table. The university tops more than half of the guide’s 66 subject tables and is in the top five in all three main world university rankings.
Cambridge entered 95% of its eligible academics for the Research Exercise Framework 2014 — no university involved a higher proportion — and 87% of their work was rated as world-leading or internationally excellent. It achieved the UK’s best results in aeronautical and electronic engineering, business and management, chemistry, classics and clinical medicine.
Cambridge has the highest entry standards of any UK university, demanding at least A*AA at A-level in arts subjects and A*A*A in the sciences. With about five applicants for each place, the competition shows no sign of easing since the university has barely increased the size of its intake with the relaxation of recruitment restrictions. Indeed, there were 640 more applications in 2014 and just 70 additional places.
More than 60% of undergraduates now come from the state system (appreciably more than at Oxford). There are bursaries of up to £3,500 a year, according to parental income, and the dropout rate of less than 1.6% is the lowest in the country.
The University of East Anglia (UEA) invariably produces some of the best scores in the National Student Survey and another ranking just outside the top 10 nationally on this measure makes this year no exception.
Applications to UEA recovered strongly in 2014 and the university has embarked on a development of 915 residential places to allow for expansion, the first 500 of which should be ready in September 2016.
Environmental science is traditionally the flagship school but social work and pharmacy produced even better results in the 2014 research ratings, when 82% of all the work submitted was placed in one of the top two categories.
The University of Essex is among the 10 fastest-growing universities in the UK. Having spent many years trying to live it down, Essex is now embracing its radical past, telling prospective applicants that it welcomes “rebels with a cause”. It appears to be working: applications are up 15% in 2015, seven times the national average — good news for a university that plans to increase student numbers by 50% over five years.
The Colchester-based institution has set itself a target of reaching the top 25 in The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide league table. It went up seven places last year, although it has fallen slightly this year.
Students have pushed Essex into the top 10 nationally under The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide analysis of this year’s National Student Survey, a rise of two places on last year. For student experience, just seven institutions achieved higher scores.
Essex has moved into the top 20 for research, with almost 80% of a large submission rated world-leading or internationally excellent.
Norwich University of the Arts (NUA) marks its first appearance in The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide league table this year, after the relaxation of restrictions on specialist institutions which excluded it when full university status was awarded in 2013, by claiming a place among the top 10 modern universities.
Norwich has long enjoyed a powerful reputation in its field and plans to double in size over the next few years. The university is already expanding: enrolments have risen for three years in a row and, with applications rising by 7% in 2015, following a much bigger increase in the previous year, there appears to be plenty of scope for further growth.
Unlike the other arts universities, NUA makes a virtue of focusing entirely on the arts, design and media, rather than venturing into business or the humanities and social sciences. More than half of the work submitted to the 2014 Research Excellence Framework was judged to be world leading or internationally excellent.
The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2016 published on September20 provides students and their parents with an invaluable first reference point on the path to finding a university place. It contains full profiles of all universities and the leading colleges of higher education. The league table is made up of nine indicators including student satisfaction with teaching quality and their wider university experience, research quality, graduate prospects, entrance qualifications held by new students, degree results achieved, student/staff ratios, service and facilities spend, and degree completion rates.
The Times will complement coverage in The Sunday Times with two further supplements to be published on the following Monday and Tuesday, September 21 and 22. These will focus on the best universities for graduate jobs and the universities that come top in particular subject areas.
Alastair McCall, editor of The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide, and John O’Leary, one of its principal authors, are available for interview
For further information, please contact:
Andrew Mitchell
[email protected]
0207 291 1523
Dan Vaughan
[email protected]
020 7291 1536
Notes.
About The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide
The Times and The Sunday Times have produced university guides since 1993 and 1998 respectively. Since 2013, they have published a combined Good University Guide to provide the most comprehensive guide to higher education in Britain in print and digital formats across The Times and The Sunday Times.
The newspaper content is accompanied by a book, published by Times Books, an imprint of HarperCollins: The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2016, edited by John O’Leary, the former Times Education Editor and former editor of the Times Higher Education Supplement.
The newspaper editions and book include the definitive rankings of British universities, based on their performance in a number of key areas for undergraduates. These cover student satisfaction with the quality of their teaching and academic feedback, course content and facilities; graduate job prospects; the likelihood of achieving a high-class degree; entry standards; dropout rates; research quality; student/staff ratio; and spending on library and other student services.
There are also more than 60 subject tables, highlighting centres of excellence. These tables will be based on an analysis of student satisfaction with teaching quality and their student experience, entry standards, research quality and graduate prospects.