Rating top UK universities vs top US universities

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Hi all, </p>

<p>I was wondering how do the top UK universities (Oxbridge, Imperial, LSE and UCL) compare against top US universities in terms of reputation and prestige?</p>

<p>Please give your input in such a manner (for example): </p>

<p>Tier 1
UK: Oxford, Cambridge
US: Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford, Princeton</p>

<p>Tier 2
UK: Imperial, LSE
US: Columbia, UPenn, Uchicago, Duke, Caltech</p>

<p>Tier 3
UK: UCL
US: Cornell, Northwestern, Brown, Dartmouth, Johns Hopskin</p>

<p>As much opinion as possible would be appreciated! Explantions for your ranking would be great too! </p>

<p>Thanks loads(:</p>

2

<p>Outside of the UK only Oxford and Cambridge would be “very” well known. The London universities on your list would raise an eyebrow or two in Western Europe and perhaps in Financial circles in New York City.</p>

<p>So I would think that if you took all the universities on your list and rated them together, Cambridge and Oxford would rate below Caltech, and all the London schools would rate at the end of the list.</p>

<p>There are lists of international universities that you can reference that sort of bear this out.</p>

<p>As for rationale? There are major differences between the education process/student selection process in the United States and the UK. In the UK the process is highly biased toward A-Levels and grades. I think that the student body in the top UK universities is much less diverse (by all measures) than that in the US, and that the educational experience differs as a result. The London universities are more like our State Flagships. Cambridge and Oxford are special – with long established traditions of excellence.</p>

3

<p>^ I have such a very different opinion than this poster. Then again I’ve lived in the US, canada and Europe and have been teaching business in all those places for 20 years, and consulting in all those places for 15 years. </p>

<p>Cambridge and Oxford are easily at the top and LSE and Imperial are extremely well regarded in business. I almost feel silly actually writing this out loud. In all my circles this would be so obvious it need not be stated.</p>

4

<p>Cambridge and Oxford have formal exchange or study arrangements for undergraduates with a handful of US schools, implying some degree of rough equivalency. The ones I know of include:</p>

<ul>
<li>Cambridge-MIT Undergraduate Exchange </li>
<li>Oxford-Princeton Exchange </li>
<li>Dartmouth-Oxford Exchange </li>
<li>Williams-Exeter Programme at Oxford </li>
</ul>

<p>I believe these are all limited to certain departments or colleges at their respective institutions. For example, the Princeton program focuses on engineering specifically; the Dartmouth program is with Keble College of Oxford specifically; the Williams program (which may be the oldest and largest) is with Exeter College of Oxford specifically.</p>

5

<p>sorry i have to do this. bump!</p>

6

<p>

So Cambridge and Oxford (which are the top-ranked schools in the UK) partner with US schools like Princeton, MIT, Dartmouth, and Williams. These are all among the top-ranked and most selective schools in the US.</p>

<p>Compare with Bristol, which is at #10 in the UK in the 2010 Times Good University Guide. Bristol’s [US</a> partners](<a href=“http://www.bris.ac.uk/international/yearabroad/study/country-links.html#usa]US”>http://www.bris.ac.uk/international/yearabroad/study/country-links.html#usa) don’t include any Ivies or top LACs, but do include well-known public schools like the University of California system, Illinois, Wisconsin, UNC, and Texas, plus a few highly ranked non-Ivy private schools, like Chicago and Rice. </p>

<p>Compare with Leicester, which is at #15 in the UK. Leicester’s [US</a> partners](<a href=“http://www.le.ac.uk/americanstudies/abroad.html#partners]US”>http://www.le.ac.uk/americanstudies/abroad.html#partners) tend to include less prominent state universities, like Kansas, LSU, Oklahoma State, Arizona State, and SUNY-Buffalo.</p>

<p>Evaluating US vs. UK schools by their study-abroad/exchange partners is certainly not a completely perfect or consistent methodology, but I suspect that there are probably some valid (if rough) generalizations that can be drawn from this approach.</p>

7

<p>^Well, what about the following?</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>[Welcome</a> to Visiting Students — Keble](<a href=“http://www.keble.ox.ac.uk/admissions/visiting]Welcome”>Visiting College - Keble College)</p>

8

<p>Good question. However…</p>

<p>The quote above mentions the “University of Washington”, but this seems to be in error. It’s [url=<a href=“Overseas Programs | Washington University in St. Louis”>Overseas Programs | Washington University in St. Louis]actually[/url</a>] a small program with “Washington University in St. Louis”. WUSTL is a highly ranked US school (currently tied for #12 by USN&WR), closely comparable to Dartmouth in this regard (#11 USN&WR). Both schools send up to four Visiting Students to Keble annually. Since WUSTL, like Dartmouth, is a highly-ranked US school, this isn’t really an effective counterexample.</p>

<p>The University of Georgia operates a study-abroad program in Oxford. The UGA program includes the use of some Oxford faculty and facilities, but as far as I can tell, the participants are not technically students of Oxford University or Keble College. The UGA program has arranged for participants to become “Associate Members” of Keble; this apparently means that they a social affiliation with Keble, but (unlike those from Dartmouth or WUSTL) are not actually enrolled as Visiting Students there. So this isn’t really an effective counterexample either.</p>

9

<p>I don’t think one can compare Imperial, LSE or UCL to Columbia, Cornell, Penn or Chicago. For one thing, Columbia, Cornell, Penn and Chicago are more well rounded academically. They all have top notch MBA programs, Law schools and Medical programs. They also all have excellent departments across most academic disciplines. LSE focuses primarily in the Social Sciences. Imperial is excellent in the hard sciences, Engineering and Medicine, but not really that good in other academic disciplines. UCL is more well rounded, but again, does not have the depth that the likes of Columbia, Cornell and Penn have. </p>

<p>Secondly, the American elite have stratospherically larger endowments to support their operations. Here’s a look at endowment figures:</p>

<p>OVERALL ENDOWMENT:
Columbia University: $5,700,000,000 (as of July, 2009, after the financial meltdown)
University of Pennsylvania: $5,600,000,000 (as of July 2009, after the financial meltdown)
University of Chicago: $5,100,000,000 (as of July 2009, after the financial meltdown)
Cornell University: $4,500,000,000: (as of July 2009, after the financial meltdown)
University College of London: $150,000,000 (as of 2007, prior to the financial meltdown)
Imperial College: $100,000,000 (as of 2007, prior to the financial meltdown)
London School of Economics: $100,000,000 (as of 2008, prior to the financial meltdown</p>

<p>That’s not even close. Cornell’s endowment is 30 times greater than UCL’s, and UCL actually has more students than Cornell. Columbia’s endowment is almost 60 times greater than LSE’s. On a per/student basis, UK’s elite universities (other than Oxbridge which are very wealthy) have endowments of $10,000 per student or less, compared to America’s elite, which have endowments per student of $100,000 or more. </p>

<p>[List</a> of UK universities by endowment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_UK_universities_by_endowment]List”>List of universities in the United Kingdom by endowment - Wikipedia)</p>

<p>[Columbia</a> University - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_University]Columbia”>Columbia University - Wikipedia)</p>

<p>[University</a> of Pennsylvania - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Pennsylvania]University”>University of Pennsylvania - Wikipedia)</p>

<p>[University</a> of Chicago - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Chicago]University”>University of Chicago - Wikipedia)</p>

<p>[Cornell</a> University - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_University]Cornell”>Cornell University - Wikipedia)</p>

<p>That is not to say that LSE, UCL and Imperial aren’t great, because they are, but comparing to universities that are far more diversified and wealthier isn’t accurate.</p>

10

<p>Oxford and Cambridge = HYPSM + Caltech, Berkeley</p>

<p>LSE, Imperial, UCL, Warwick = Georgetown, NYU and the like</p>

11

<p>

</p>

<p>Um, no… it’s more like</p>

<p>Oxford/Cambridge = Harvard/Yale</p>

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<p>^ I have sources for my claims. Do you?</p>

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<p>The OP asks to compare UK universities with top US universities in terms of reputation and prestige. </p>

<p>Without question, the top two schools in terms of reputation and prestige in the US are H&Y, and the top two in UK are Oxbridge. There is no need to consult studies or rankings or whatever you want to pull out of the thin air to support your obsession with grouping HYPSM, HYPS or HYP or whatever…</p>

<p>Everyone in their right mind knows this!..</p>

14

<p>^^^ You picked the perfect username…</p>

<p>What TROLLnyc doesn’t seem to realize is that in the UK, there is a huge gap between Oxbridge and the rest. The gap between Y and PSM is negligible, if existent. With respect to prestige which is significantly due to the strength of graduate programs (esp. in STEM fields): PSM > Y.</p>

15

<p>If you are comparing the schools with regards to undergraduate reputation and prestige, the tiers would be like this:
Tier one:
Ivy League colleges (all of them), Stanford, MIT, etc. Oxbridge.
Tier two:
The rest.</p>

<p>Consider this, 8000 undergrads graduate from Oxford and Cambridge each year, and about 13000 undergrads graduate from Ivies + Stanford + MIT each year. This suggest Ivies + Stanford + MIT is at least equivalent to Oxbridge if not more prestigious at the undergrad level since brightest students over the world (one who aren’t from wealthy families) view the Ivy League as the pinnacle of undergraduate education, and that Ivies + Stanford + MIT serves a population far greater than one served by Oxbridge (based on what I saw at United World College). Even many British students now view the Ivy League as higher peaks beyond Oxbridge. LSE and the rest aren’t even comparable to Ivy Plus. LSE to business and econ is more like Johns Hopkins to pre-med.</p>

16

<p>Harvard/Yale = Trinity, King’s, etc. >>> most colleges of Oxford and Cambridge.</p>

<p>Many colleges at Oxford and Cambridge are destroying their reputation, and the overall reputation of Oxbridge at the undergrad level, by taking exchange students (mainly for the money) from schools like the College at Brockport (as part of the State University of New York) and Arcadia College, which sends over 15 exchange students to Oxford as integrated member of Oxford’s undergraduate community.</p>

<p>Though, the OP’s list is a pretty reasonable one with regards to graduate level, which would be quite different from the undergrad level. When will people on this board learn to specify/separate undergrad w/ grad?</p>

17

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</p>

<p>And I see that you didn’t pick the perfect username!</p>

<p>Who says the gap between those schools are neglible, if existent? You?! Who also says the strength of the graduate programs is the source of prestige? Are you suggesting Harvard College is primarily prestigious because of Harvard’s grad programs!? That makes no sense! In fact I can argue that it is the exact opposite. Most idiots would think Princeton Law is a prestigious law school, except it doesn’t exist! </p>

<p>What is your agenda! Something tells me you have an axe to grind. Perhaps you didn’t get into Harvard, or in this case Yale… Get over it! This would explain why you feel the need to create these false groupings.</p>

18

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<p>Really? LSE is to business and econ is more like Johns Hopkins to pre-med…</p>

<p>Hopkins is top 10 in over 44**+** graduate fields. Sure Hopkins has the #1 Hospital system in the world…and a fantastic medical school. It is not [it]only* for pre-med.</p>

<p>For example, JHU SAIS is one of the leading IR graduates schools in the nation along with Princeton WWS, Tufts Fletcher, Columbia SIPA, Harvard KSG, Georgetown Walsh SFS etc… Among music conservatories, the Peabody Institute is generally considered one of the most prestigious conservatories in the country along with Juilliard and the Curtis Institute. And a lot lot more!</p>

19

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<p>Correct. “Prodigal” means wasteful or spendthrift and I am anything but that.</p>

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<p>This is implicit in USNWR’s PA ratings which give HYSM a 4.9, but Y only a 4.8.</p>

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</p>

<p>I said GRADUATE programs, not professional schools. No one would argue that Yale has superior graduate programs to Princeton (especially in the STEM fields).</p>

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</p>

<p>Wrong. I turned down Yale for my current school, partially because it is not quite as strong in my fields of interest (math & physics). Admittedly, it was a very tough decision which I didn’t take lightly.</p>

20

<p>Silly, silly thread. I would like to know why the OP places UCL a tier lower than LSE and Imperial though, when it is at least equal, and ahead in many respects.</p>

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</p>

<p>These two quotes are wholly wrong and quite comical really. You clearly both don’t know what you’re talking about.</p>

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