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Issue 8.1
18th May 2012.
kent strong in league tables
Matt Gilley Newspaper News Editor ON 24th April the Complete University Guide published its league table for 2013, ranking the University of Kent 33rd out of 116 Universities across the UK. The CUG uses data on nine categories including entry standards, student satisfaction, research assessment and graduate prospects to calculate an overall score for universities. High scores in student satisfaction and graduate prospects, particularly welcome in the current uncertain jobs market, led to the university’s strong performance, one place higher than last year. UKC’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Dame Julia M. Goodfellow
said of the result: “Kent’s positioning within the 2013 table is welcome news, particularly during such a challenging period for the higher education sector. I am pleased that our strengths in research, and student experience and employability have been acknowledged.” As well as the good overall score, a number of specific subjects were ranked even higher. Five subjects were placed in the top ten: American Studies; Art & Design; Hospitality, Leisure, Recreation & Tourism (which ranked fourth); Social Policy and Social Work. Ten others were in the top twenty, including Anthropology, Mathematics and Economics, which saw a big improvement from 24th last year to 15th.
Although league tables are not the last word on the quality of universities, they are used by many prospective students in making their applications. There is some criticism of the system as universities will deliberately take only higher achieving students in order to move up the tables. Admissions are also set to be shaken up by government proposals, to be implemented in 2013, allowing English universities to take unlimited numbers of students who achieve ABB in their Alevels, down from AAB in 2012. In an effort to encourage universities with lower fees, this year 20,000 places for students below the AAB threshold were stripped from those institutions charging more
than £7,500 and auctioned off amongst the rest. That will be extended in 2013 with an additional 5,000 places for universities charging less than £8,250. How these changes will affect university admissions and league tables remains to be seen. Elsewhere in the CUG league table the top four universities remained the same, with Cambridge first, the London School of Economics rising to second, Oxford third and Imperial College London fourth. Bolton, East London and London Metropolitan were the three lowest ranked universities. Canterbury Christ Church also had a good performance, rising from 100th to 87th with good graduate prospects.