Warwick cream of the crop in league tables

University of Warwick has come 4th and 6th in the latest edition of UK University league tables from the Guardian and Times, respectively. The Boar has spoken to the Head of Press and Media Relations Peter Dunn and SU Education Officer Mohammed Surve about the University’s reaction to this success.

“Everyone is very happy that Warwick is 4th in the Guardian and has come 6th in The Times and Independent’s tables,” commended Surve, “a lot of people in Warwick are very contented and very proud of the fact that we are in the top – top 5 in one of them and top 10 in the other.”

Notably, the success of this academic can be interpreted as a step towards Warwick’s goal to its Vision 2015, where it had been suggested that Warwick would aim to improve itself as one of the top 50 universities worldwide.

Surve noted the Vision 2015 is a “very ambitious vision”, even though the university is “doing its best” towards that vision. “I personally think that anything is possible,” said Surve, “if you put your might through it.” He also believes the current rate of change that has been casted by the university would have positive effect on raising the international ranking of Warwick.

Understandably, the scientific factuality of league tables has always been questioned and has been opened to different interpretations from different perspective. Surve explained peoples are always bound to have criticism about league tables and different people do have different emphasis on the importance of the league table when deciding which university to attend.

“There might be criticism and there might be problems that a lot of people identify but at the end of the day league tables are very important in terms of education.”

In terms of careers, moving up the league tables like this does make Warwick a more “reputable institution nationally and internationally”, resulting more employers recognising Warwick as a university which “delivers high standards of education” and “equip students with the right kind of skills” which employers are looking for.

As Dunn says, “Each of the individual league tables uses their own methodology and often the detail behind that methodology is not fully spelt out so one has to take each individual table with a pinch of salt.” However given the fact that Warwick was ranked top 10 in both of the newspaper despite their different methodologies suggest we must be doing “something right”.