Latest UK university league table has been published by The Times (last year’s ranking in brackets):
1 Oxford (1)
2 Cambridge (2)
3 Imperial College (3)
4 St Andrews (5)
5 University College London (7)
6 Warwick (6)
7 London School of Economics (4)
8 Durham (8)
9 Exeter (13)
10 Bristol (10)
11 York (9)
12 King’s College London (11)
13 Bath (15)
14 Edinburgh (18)
15 Leicester (14)
15 Southampton (16=)
17 Loughborough (12)
18 Sheffield (22)
19 Glasgow (20=)
20 Nottingham (16=)
Not a huge amount of movement since 2009 with the Top 20 largely unchanged although the press release draws attention to some modest changes:
The biggest climbers at the top of the table include Liverpool (up from 34 to 28), Leeds (from 31 to 27), Sheffield (from 22 to 18), Edinburgh (from 18 to 14) and Exeter (from 13 to nine). Lower down the tables, big climbers include Cumbria (from 99 to 83), Hertfordshire (from 79 to 66), York St John (from 91 to 80) and De Montfort (from 77 to 67), Bedfordshire (from 89 to 71), Lincoln (from 103 to 86) and UWIC Cardiff (from 85 to 76)
The strict demarcation line between pre- and post-92 institutions seems to remain as strong as ever though with no newer universities making it into the top 50. A very different picture to the recent Guardian table.
Registrarism 
What on earth has happened to Nottingham. Its ranking has plummeted, going from a well respected and solid top 10 university, to barely top 20 and ‘average.’ Moreover, its entry standards have also plummeted, along qith its application to place ratio, the only university in the top 20 who has seen a drop. Nottingham seems to be the only university in the country at the moment taking a huge step backwards in reputation, and many of my friends at other universities have expressed relief that they turned down Nottingham because “its not that good anymore.”
It would be nice to think that the university has realized how much they are slipping in reputation and are trying to halt it. We all now how much rankings influence reputation, and ultimately graduate prospects. I fear for the future of my university at the moment.
Out of interest, does the university actively try to rank well, or are they ambivalent.
Ofcourse they activley try to rank well, there is curently a 350 million pound campus investment taking place at Leeds uni , it is expected to propel the Uni to a top 50 world ranking. Sound pretty active to me!
What do you think about Nottingham’s constant league table fall-back?
Nottingham was ever a Top 10 UK university in many league tables last time, but it has dropped out of top 10 in the recent years and now further down to 20th, the university should set up strategy to improve their rankings.
Max – You (and your friends) should probably take these tables with at least a grain or two of salt. The suggestion that Nottingham has rapidly gone from being an outstanding to an average institution simply because it’s slipped a few places in a couple of league table is a bit misleading. Still, if that’s the perception I suppose it’s something the University needs to take seriously…
Trust me , that is the perception amongst a lot of students at the moment. Nottingham is seen as the one university most on the “decline,” and top students no longer seem to apply there, largely fueled by its ranking and drop in entry standards. Sure the university, as an enterprise, has grown in recent years, but a university is only as good as the students attending it. The university needs to act quick before its reputation amongst school leavers is tarnished beyond repair
Oh and if your suggesting that all the comments are from the same person, then they are not. It seems there is a lot of ill feeling about this on campus
No, I wasn’t suggesting that.
It would be interesting to know what the “powers that be” think about all this.
I am looking for pre-university for my niece , she will be graduate F.5 course in Hong Kong, she is 17 year old and now we are looking for some pre-university in UK, would you mind to give me some suggestion which university for study in business is good for our consideration.
Thanks
Hello. I’m not best placed to offer this kind of advice but would suggest you might want to look at, say, The Times league table for a list of universities offering business courses:
http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/tol_gug/gooduniversityguide.php?AC_sub=Business+Studies&x=28&y=10&sub=11
Information and advice about Nottingham University is available from our International Office here
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/InternationalOffice/prospective-students/index.aspx
And broader information about pre-university study in the UK can be found here:
http://www.educationuk.org/pls/hot_bc/bc_all_home.page_pls_all_career_search?x=&y=&a=1
Hope this is helpful.
Paul