<p>Suddenly my estimation of Oxford has gone down quite a bit...</p>
<p>oxford and cambridge are the only good colleges in the UK.</p>
<p>i guess it's like this, HYP (harard, yale, princeton) and CO (Oxford and Cambridge) are the best.</p>
<p>if you were to say "I go to Brown", you will get the same response, even though brown is an Ivy... most have never heard of it...</p>
<p>I am sure in the UK, people have not heard of Dartmouth like they have Yale.</p>
<p>Well that's like saying the only good schools in the US are HYP, which obviously simply isn't true. Anyway, i don't think the average Briton would even recognise Yale or Princeton...At best most people would have a vague idea, but probably not equate it to Oxbridge or Harvard.</p>
<p>amnesia, if by good you mean HYP prestigious than yes they may be the only good schools in the UK, but in reality, there are numerous quality universities in the UK. for example, UCL, LSE, etc.</p>
<p>"Suddenly my estimation of Oxford has gone down quite a bit..."</p>
<p>That report is not quite accurate. The students were from Oxford Brookes Uni.
Plus, after drinking away all night, I doubt the alcohol-induced people knew what they were really doing ...</p>
<p>"That report is not quite accurate. The students were from Oxford Brookes Uni.
Plus, after drinking away all night, I doubt the alcohol-induced people knew what they were really doing ..."</p>
<p>Observe the last picture. Students are standing in the water, up to their <em>knees</em>, and yet the people on the bridge continue to jump. That takes more than drunkenness.</p>
<p>Yep. That's British+Alcohol for you :D</p>
<p>"what is an A.M. degree?"</p>
<p>It's a backwards M.A., which confers on the recipient the right to dispute.</p>
<p>It's actually a mail-order degree:</p>
<p>Oxford and Cambridge could be stopped from selling masters degrees to their graduates - as a university watchdog seeks to clarify the qualifications system.
At present, students graduating from Oxford and Cambridge with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree can acquire a Master of Arts without undertaking any further academic work. </p>
<p>All Oxford graduates need to achieve an MA is to send a small administration charge. </p>
<p>This is now under review by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, the university standards' watchdog, which wants to remove the anomaly of "unearned" degrees and to create a standardised framework for qualifications. </p>
<p>But the University of Oxford is set to oppose such a reform, saying that its "historical" use of the MA title is "quite distinct from other postgraduate qualifications". </p>
<p>In 1997-98, the university says that 1,497 graduates bought a masters qualification, out of a total of 2,452 BA degrees awarded. </p>
<p>The QAA wants to prevent the anomaly of universities awarding qualifications without any additional work - and to ensure that awards such as MAs and MPhils are made for the same level of study. </p>
<p>For instance, while Oxford and Cambridge students can become MAs with a cheque in the post, the same qualification at other universities will mean a year's postgraduate work, with the likelihood of assessed work, dissertations and exams.</p>
<p>Other British universities have like only 1 or 2 essays per term. Oxbridge make their students write 2 to 3 essays per week, a total of 16 - 24 essays per term.</p>
<p>The reason for the MA (historically) was because of the tremendous amount of work the oxbridge students do in their 3 or 4 years of study. Essentially, the students are all on a Masters degree.</p>
<p>The award of MA after 4 or 5 years after gaining the BA is again a historical issue. The 'paying' of the MA is not really payment for a degree - the amount is very small, which is more like for the purpose of admin charges.</p>
<p>British employers do know the difference between Oxbridge's MA and other universities MA.</p>
<p>Hey, I've got one, so I can dispute if I want. ;)</p>
<p>Oops! :D</p>
<p>Well the QAA is a bit strange sometimes. As for Oxbridge, you should know how hard they try to cling on to their history and traditions (which imho is not really a bad thing actually). It just seems a bit absurb for the QAA to question the MA "quality" when British employers are already aware of what it means. As for students in other universities who have to take an extra year to gain the MA, what's the big deal really. The oxbridge MA is just a name and a title. There's nothing 'fair' or 'not fair' about the award of the MA. How about oxbridge students crying 'unfair' for the ridiculous amount of essays they have to write per term, and yet their BA is treated 'the same' as those from other universities?</p>
<p>jkh, how is that a ridiculous amount of essays per term?</p>
<p>My experience is 30 years old, so take with two truckloads of salt. I graduated from Williams with highest honors in English, PBK, the whole 9 yards, and was awarded their version of a Rhodes (same qualifications, but tied to Worcester College, Oxford) where I "read" for a B.A./M.A. in English.</p>
<p>When I got there, it was quite clear that I was, relative to what was expected, ill-prepared. I knew how to do excellent 20-page completed term papers, with all the footnotes in the right order and format. I did not know how to complete two 2,500-4,000-word "drafts" per week (they would never be completed) that I would then be required to present, only to have my tutor and, usually, one other student, unmercifully slash to bits. I would have to turn out a minimum of 16 of those per term, or 48 per year.</p>
<p>I learned much at Oxford, but it was not such in the information gained, but in verbal dexterity. I think it fair to say that they taught me how to write, and when I returned to U.S. for graduate school, I was truly way ahead in the game.</p>
<p>Sorry, I suppose that is just by my humble standards. 16 - 24 vs. 1 - 2 essays per term is what I would call a 'ridiculous' amount. Other more able beings would call it 'alot more', some even more able beings would call it 'a bit more' only. And the essays I am referring to are clearly not 500 words essays.</p>
<p>I take exception to the idea that LSE is just another 'good' UK university, and, by inference, that Warwick is at least on a par with it.</p>
<p>For example: on the basis of a very small student body LSE has produced some 30 prime ministers and presidents in its 100 years, despite, for most of its existence, being much smaller than Warwick. How many has Warwick produced? LSE is ranked 11th best in the world overall, and 2nd best for social sciences, where is Warwick?</p>
<p>Right at the moment for instance former LSE students include the current president of Kenya and the prime ministers of Poland and Japan (the Japan guy also went to UCL, before anyone says), and there are about 80 members across both houses of the British parliament.</p>
<p>LSE is mentioned in the world's media about three hundred times a month (its academics are always in demand for expert comment and it produces lots of influential research): how often is Warwick mentioned?</p>
<p>Likewise, when you ask Warwick advocates about how many Nobel prizes Warwick has won there tends to be an embarrassing silence (LSE has got 13 to its name, despite the fact that it is a specialist social science institution and Nobels are only awarded in one of its dozen subject areas-economics - and they have only been available since 1969) .</p>
<p>Similar embarrassment is experienced by those who hype Warwick when you ask them to tell us about famous Warwick graduates or Warwick's influence on public life...</p>
<p>We need to be a little less starry eyed about Oxbridge here. </p>
<p>Oxbridge for a start teaches 24 weeks a year, while other universities teach 30 weeks. The fabled tuition, the two essays a week bit, is crammed into a shorter time scale than in other places. That's one reason for doing 'more' in a shorter time.</p>
<p>And get away from the idea that the 'papers' which are presented every week are equivalent to proper academic essays -they are usually drafts which are just read aloud at tutorials. </p>
<p>Now you could say that this is a rigorous training, or you could argue on the other hand that constantly knocking these things up in this way favours the glib and the crafty at the expense of the original and the thoughtful -nobody can write a proper essay in two and a half days from start to finish, for one thing. Come to that no academic can give a considered opinion on the academic worth of a paper which has often simply been read to him and which he does not in any case have the time to read properly (given the production line of student papers that is in constant operation). Oxbridge academics are research intensive, just like those at LSE and Imperial, and they simply would not have the time for any research if they were rigorously to mark 48 proper essays for each student in each academic year (on the basis that students do two courses at a time)..!Think about it..</p>
<p>For another thing students soon learn the tricks of the trade -second years will tell first years about the topics that are coming up and about the quickest way of mugging them up and so on.</p>
<p>Another problem with Oxbridge that is causing increasing embarrassment is the growing grade inflation- Cambridge for instance now gives first class degrees to about 30% of its students (UK universities award their own degrees independently of each other). It's far harder to get a first at the leading London colleges, even though their average entry grades are very close behind Cambridge, or in many subjects the same..(they take more mature and disadvantaged students than Oxbridge, which is why their undergraduate entry grades are a bit lower).</p>
<p>I can certainly confirm the point here, guys. LSE is a top place in the UK and is known to be so. It's unique. There's nowhere quite like it. Warwick is an itsy bitsy johny come lately outfit that performed well in domestic league tables, but it's indistinguishable from another dozen universities in the UK.</p>
<p>Unless you have been to one of those oxbridge tutorials, I guess you can never really know what 'draft' essays mean. Life would be so much easier if the demand on the standard of a 'draft' essay is very light. If you have never been to one, you will never know the experience.</p>
<p>Oxbridge has 3 teaching terms, other universities have 2 teaching terms and 1 exam term. This is at least 48 essays vs. 4 essays per year. That is 48 'opinions' on your essays vs. 4 'opinions'.</p>
<p>Much as you may hate to hear it, oxbridge academics DO spend time teaching, their research being no less important. One of the reasons some of them leave for American universities is because they can avoid teaching over there and concentrate on their research.</p>
<p>Grade inflation has never been a real problem in the UK. It is a more serious problem in American universities, with one Harvard professor confessing that he gave out A grades to students even though they clearly don't deserve it, simply because the university imposed a 'quota' system of A grades. This practice is not uncommon among the Ivies. I guess the embarrassement is on the other side of the continent.</p>
<p>I view schools such as Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, and the like; as being overrated and pretentious. True, they are very old and have solid academic traditions; however, there are many public universities that I feel don't get the proper recognition they deserve, i.e. Berkeley, UCLA, UVA, UCSD, and UNC. Any one of these institutions are capable of being in the top ten, but unfortunately are not. On top of having exceptional academic records, every student deserves to be there. The same cannot be said for their pseudo-illustrious counterparts.</p>
<p>It is like a competition of how OLD those universities are, Oxford, and Cambridge, two of the oldest ones in the world,and Harvard and Yale are two of the oldest in America. Comparatively, these first-rated public universities are too young to compete for a title like the best or the the most prestigious.Certainly an institution needs a very long time to build its reputation. This process takes hundreds years and that's why colleges such as UCLA, Berkeley etc can be pretty good, but never be the best in peoples' minds.</p>