Exeter ranked top university in South West

The University of Exeter is the top university in the southwest according to The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2017.

The university, which was The Times and The Sunday Times University of the Year for 2012-13, ranks 9= in this year’s league table. The Southwest region is well represented in the wider top 20 with Bath ranking 12th in the UK and Bristol 19th.

The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2017 is published over three days, beginning with a free 60-page supplement published this weekend 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 will be published at www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/gooduniversityguide on Sunday for subscribers to The Times and The Sunday Times.

The University of Exeter is always among the leading universities in the National Student Survey (NSS), which measures student satisfaction with teaching quality and their wider university experience. This year, Exeter ranks 22nd in the UK for teaching quality, according to the newspapers’ analysis of the NSS outcomes, while ranking 10= in the UK for the student experience it offers.

It also recorded much-improved results in the 2014 assessments of research. More than 80% of a large submission to the Research Excellence Framework was rated as world-leading or internationally excellent, with clinical medicine, psychology and education producing particularly good results.

The university has also been introducing a raft of new degrees, including several undergraduate Masters courses and five new pathways in the medical sciences. A legal practice course taught by the University of Law for graduates who want to become solicitors will be added in 2016.

Exeter’s longstanding international focus is exemplified by a growing range of four-year programmes “with international study”. All students are offered tuition in foreign languages and even some three-year degrees include the option of a year abroad.

Career management skills are built in and students have a wide range of work experience opportunities. The Career Zone has been expanded to increase career support and internships, while the university’s Exeter Award provides official recognition of extracurricular activities. The number of student volunteers is among the highest at any university.

The University of Bath is never far from the overall top 10 in The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide league table. It was the University of the Year in 2011-12. The university is ranked fifth nationally for student retention and seventh for graduate prospects, the best results in the region. It has retained its overall ranking of 12th this year.

Most degree courses have a practical element, and assessors have praised the university for the work opportunities it offers students. More than two-thirds of undergraduates take courses with placements, in the UK or abroad, or a period of overseas study. Graduates enjoy some of the highest rates of employment — with 85.4% of graduates landing professional jobs or going into further study within six months of leaving – and also some of the highest salaries. The average starting salary for Bath graduates is in excess of £26,000.

With 16,000 students, a third of whom are postgraduates, the university remains relatively small. But it has invested £215m to improve the campus and cater for the extra students it has taken in recent years.

Bournemouth University has risen 20 places this year in the new university league table contained in The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide. Designated as England’s only centre for excellence in media practice, the university hosts the National Centre of Computer Animation.

Such is the university’s strength in media subjects that 60 animation graduates worked on special effects for the Oscar-winning film Gravity; another won a Bafta for special effects on Star Wars: the Force Awakens; while Mark Ardington collected a 2016 Oscar for visual effects in person as part of a team for their work on the film Ex Machina.

There have also been successes in other areas, however. The university’s decision to invest £1m a year on academic appointments and the fusion of teaching and research paid off in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework, when 60% of the university’s entry was judged to be world-leading or internationally excellent.

All honours degree students have the opportunity to do work experience as part of their courses. In 2013, almost 90% of undergraduates took up the offer, the highest proportion in the UK. The policy has improved graduates’ employment prospects, one of the strongest areas for Bournemouth in The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide league table.

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 on Monday and Tuesday, September 26 and 27. These will focus on the best universities for teaching and the universities that come top in different subject areas.

Article credit: The Sunday Times.