The university is the clear leader in The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2017, a position it has occupied for four years in succession, albeit jointly with its main rival Oxford in 2014.
The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2017 is published over three days, beginning with a free 60-page supplement published yesterday in The Sunday Times (September 25). It provides the most comprehensive overview of higher education in Britain. It includes an analysis of student satisfaction with the quality of the teaching at each institution.
A fully searchable website with full university profiles and 67 subject tables has been published at www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/gooduniversityguide for subscribers to The Times and The Sunday Times.
Top in East Anglia
|
Regional rank |
Name |
Rank 2017 |
Rank 2016
|
2016 National student survey Teaching excellence (%) |
2016 National student survey Student experience (%) |
Graduate prospects (% in professional jobs or graduate-level study) |
Completion rate (%) |
|
1 |
Cambridge |
1 |
1 |
82.9 |
85.5 |
88.3 |
98.5 |
|
2 |
East Anglia |
15 |
18 |
83.0 |
87.4 |
74.2 |
92.2 |
|
3 |
Essex |
30 |
35 |
82.4 |
87.2 |
73.4 |
88.3 |
|
4 |
Norwich Arts |
88 |
61 |
79.3 |
79.1 |
57.7 |
88.5 |
|
5 |
Anglia Ruskin |
108 |
108 |
83.5 |
84.0 |
56.8 |
80.6 |
|
6 |
Suffolk |
126 |
- |
77.8 |
79.4 |
61.0 |
76.2 |
Cambridge is among the five best universities in the world
Cambridge finishes out front once more in The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2017, dominant in four of the nine measures on which universities are rated. It came top in the most recent research ratings, has the highest entry standards, the best degree completion rate and the highest spend on services and facilities of any university.
With around five applicants for each place, the competition for places appears less intense than at the popular civic universities, but the difference is that nine out of ten entrants will gain at least three A grades at A-level.
Even so, the university has barely increased the size of its intake with the relaxation of recruitment restrictions. Four out of five applicants are interviewed – a much higher proportion than at Oxford – but only one in three receives a conditional offer of a place.
Cambridge produced the best results in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (Ref), these results helping keep Cambridge ahead of its main rival. However, both Cambridge and Oxford registered significant declines last month in student satisfaction with teaching quality, for which Cambridge now ranks 32 (Oxford 43) in the UK.
Cambridge entered 95% of eligible academics for the 2014 research ratings – no university involved a higher proportion – and 87% of their work was rated as world-leading or internationally excellent.
More than 60% of undergraduates now come from the state system, but the proportion of working-class undergraduates remains low, at only 10%. Summer schools, student visits and, in some colleges, sympathetic selection procedures are helping to attract more applications from comprehensive schools and further education colleges.
Cambridge is not for everyone, however bright. The amount of high-quality work to be crammed into eight-week terms can prove a strain, although the projected dropout rate of 1.4% is the lowest at any university.
Anglia Ruskin gets top marks for teaching excellence
At 83.5%, Anglia Ruskin has the best teaching excellence score in the region – and good enough to earn a top 20 UK ranking on this measure. The university was the Times Higher Education magazine’s Entrepreneurial University of the Year in 2014, and is one of five institutions shortlisted for the 2016 Duke of York Award for University Entrepreneurship. The university’s successes celebrate its work with 2,000 businesses, but also its efforts to instil entrepreneurial values among both students and staff.
Many courses are recognised by industry and a large number are professionally accredited. The university's Lord Ashcroft International Business School in Chelmsford houses the £7m Centre for Enterprise Development and Research, which includes a StartupLab for students to test and develop their ideas, and the high-tech Bloomberg Financial Markets Lab space. Three-quarters of the full-time undergraduate leavers who find jobs in the UK stay in East Anglia.
Despite all of this, Anglia Ruskin has seen a sharp drop in performance this year in The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2017 league table measure for graduate prospects, where Anglia now ranks among the bottom 10 institutions. This decline is sufficiently large to wipe out ranking gains in six of eight indicators where there is new data this year, leaving the university occupying the same overall rank as last year, just outside the UK top 100.
East Anglia has the region’s most satisfied students
The University of East Anglia's (UEA) position in the top 20 nationally is cemented by another three-place rise in The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2017 league table. It increased the size of its undergraduate intake by more than 900 students in 2015, when applications were up by more than 14%.
The university produces some of the best scores in the National Student Survey (NSS). This year's excellent results in the NSS earn it a top-30 ranking for teaching quality and a top-20 rank for the wider student experience. However, they are actually some of the weakest results seen at UEA since the NSS was first published in 2005, but they are still of a calibre that most universities at the top of The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2017 league table would crave.
Ever keen to please its students, UEA has even stolen a march on its rivals with its "nap nook". Based on a development at James Maddison University in the United States, it offers students a room with comfortable furniture and blackout curtains where they can have 40 minutes’ sleep between lectures. Eyeshades and anti-microbial pillows provided. The idea is to provide respite after an all-night session in the library, or elsewhere, aiding concentration and promoting good health.
Throughout the university, students can bring any inquiries to four learning and teaching hubs, one for postgraduates, another for nursing and two for undergraduates in the other 25 schools.
Nine out of 10 undergraduates come from state schools or colleges, although only a quarter have a working-class background.
Most undergraduates have the opportunity of work experience as part of their course. An academic adviser guides all students on their options under the modular course system and monitors their progress through to graduation.
The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2017 published on September 25 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. The league table is made up of nine indicators including student satisfaction with teaching quality and their wider student 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 today (Monday September 26) and tomorrow (Tuesday, September 27). These will focus on the best universities for teaching and the universities that come top in different subject areas.
Credit: The Sunday Times