Why you shouldn’t use rankings
I’ve never been a fan of university rankings - overly outsourcing your value to a third party with commercial agendas (and movable criteria) always feels risky to me.
But here’s another reason to question rankings, if you still need convincing:
I was at UCAS’s Student Mindset Conference yesterday, and speaker Dr Simon Moore shared research where he’d asked students and their parents one question, “How many universities are there in the UK?”
There are over 300 higher education providers in the UK. For those with "university" in the title, it's probably close to 150.
The average answer from parents was that they thought there was only around 43.
For students, it was 35.
What does any of this have to do with rankings?
Well, if you’re plastering your local area with the messages that you’re “top 30”, then out of 35, it doesn’t look too great, does it?
Not that “top 30” was winning you any hearts to begin with.
Don’t rely on rankings.
They aren’t working as hard as you think.
