[size=18pt]Scramble for university places begins as doors close on those without top grades [/size]

[size=14pt]Students lacking AAB grades at A-level are being left in the cold as high-flyers muscle in[/size]

Universities were beginning to put up the "house full" signs to students without AAB passes or better at A-level yesterday – leaving thousands with lower grades struggling to clinch a place.

A survey by The Independent showed that many universities were only taking top-grade students through the clearing system, because the Government will only allow them to expand if they take such students.

That means, though, that the number of places for those with lower grades has been slashed by 20,000 to make way for the extra AAB students.

Southampton University was one of those stipulating a minimum of AAB on the clearing page of its website. It said it had "no fixed limit" on the numbers it was willing to accept.

The university said it was being approached by "large number of students" with lower grades whom it would normally take but who are being turned away because of the Government cap on numbers.

Exeter was also setting aside extra places through clearing for high-flying students. Nottingham said it had set aside an unspecified number of places for AAB students. And Sheffield said it was recruiting more students with AABs through clearing because of the government changes; a limited number of places – for example on its straight law course – were still available for those with ABBs, it said.

Oxford Brookes University was the first in this A-level round to say it was cutting student numbers this year, though it still had 300 places on offer through the clearing system. Sussex, said the government cap meant there were more opportunities for overseas students than for those from the UK.

Academic experts have predicted that the "squeezed middle" universities may cut student numbers this year as fewer places are available for those with lower-grade passes.

At least 10 universities said they were not taking part in clearing this year because all their places had gone. These included Oxford, Cambridge, the London School of Economics, St Andrews, University College London, King's College London, Bristol (even though it had offered 600 extra places this year), Durham and Imperial College, London.

Ucas, the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, has revealed that 170,000 students are chasing around 50,000 places in the clearing system.

The survey also showed that the number of students accepting university places had risen to 379,635 yesterday, well below last year's 407,722; 9,000 of these places were snapped up on the first day of clearing. A total of 70,591 were checking whether places were still available to them.

Meanwhile, the University of Ulster revealed it had emailed offers for 400 places to the wrong students. The offers were later withdrawn.

payless: @Sagamite

Pls, my girl has just been called to bar in Nigeria and currently doing her NYSC. She really intend to proceed to UK for her Masters in Law. I need you to give me five great schools in the UK that will not cost too much money to achieve her goal. Her intention is to come back to Nigeria after her Masters and look for a very good job.

You help is highly appreciated.

Don1Dee: @Sagamite
Good job you're doing. Plz I want to be a full & livelong academic, Early Childhood Education to be specific. Which five schools can you recommend in the field of education. If possible, include their tuition, and as usual your "take" on them.
Thanks

Sagamite:

Early Childhood Education is not an academically rigorous field, it is more a practical and socially-important field and there are loads of jobs which are all of similar prestige you just need to have the qualification. So I don't think there is really any elitism in it. One can go to basically any institution and it is what you learnt and how you performed that matters (even the latter, I am not sure counts for much as long as you finish and pass).

If you are talking about research and being an academic, which is the academically rigorous area, then the top universities are the best place. E.g.

- Cambridge
- Oxford
- Institute of Education (University of London)
- And some of the russell group of universities and other top universsities (like Edinburgh, Durham, KCL, Manchester, Southampton to name a few)

darellrivers: 2. Ask yourself: Why do I want to study at Oxford? Why do I want to have a post graduate degree? (Many Nigerians want to do a masters abroad only so they can "migrate" to that country) and What would I do with it in the future?

Sagamite:

Many Nigerians do a masters because they just want to pack as much certificates as possible. In Nigeria, that increases employability. In the West, it usually counts for little in employability, it is the quality of your institution that matters most times.

[size=18pt]University rankings: which world university rankings should we trust?[/size]

Things looked rosy for Cambridge last month. Yes, the university may have lost pole position in the world university rankings to nerd’s paradise MIT. But in taking second place, three slots clear of its great rival Oxford and two ahead of UCL, it reaffirmed its status as the UK’s leading light in higher education.

Or did it? Today’s world rankings paint a different picture. Cambridge only manages seventh place, while Oxford clambers up to joint-second. UCL is a mere 17th. And what of MIT? Much lauded for its apparently peerless technological research last month, it now gazes up longingly at first-placed California Institute of Technology.

The obvious reason for these discrepancies is the use of different ranking systems. Today’s Times Higher Education tables are a different beast to last month’s QS World University Rankings. Although nominally answering the same question, they don’t share a methodology, a data set or indeed a winner.

Rather than argue over which is right, UK universities should perhaps just be glad that the widely respected Shanghai Ranking is less well-known on these shores – none of our universities come close to ending Harvard’s 10 years at the top of that list.

So, where can prospective students turn for answers? The simple truth is that there is no such thing as a definitive table. But in fact the wildly differing outcomes of these tables make them more, not less, useful. The key is in knowing how to interpret them.

The ‘Shanghai Ranking’, for example, originated in 2003 with Chinese government backing. It was designed to provide a global benchmark against which Chinese universities – enjoying billions in state and private investment – could assess their progress. It is a remarkably stable list, relying on long-term factors such as the number of Nobel Prize-winners a university has produced, and number of articles published in Nature and Science journals.

But with this narrow focus comes drawbacks. China's priority was for its universities to “catch up” on hard scientific research. So if you’re looking for raw research power, it’s the list for you. If you’re a humanities student, or more interested in teaching quality? Not so much.

Likewise the THE and QS rankings have their idiosyncrasies. Between 2004 and 2008 they were one and the same, before THE broke away to form its own tables. For THE, the need for more reliable world rankings that could be used for everything from government policy to shaping institutions’ reputations made the previous QS methodology – largely based on surveys – seemingly too volatile.

“Our rankings stand up to more academic scrutiny,” says THE rankings editor Phil Baty. “We produce high-end rankings which are used by governments around the world. And we’re the only global rankings that take teaching seriously.”

Predictably, QS says good riddance. “We’ve always been clear we’re aimed at prospective international students,” says Danny Byrne of QS. “Our rankings are easy to understand and of direct relevance to students – we’re unique in asking potential employers what they think of the universities, for example.

“THE cater for their audience – they’re a trade publication, and have an academic readership.”

The rankings differ in how they collect data too. QS’s rankings are reputation-driven, with 50 per cent of an institution’s score derived from surveys. And while THE does some reputation surveying, sending invitation-only questionnaires to a limited number of institutions around the world, QS opts for quantity to achieve reliability, mass-mailing some 46,000 academics before weighting the results to preclude regional bias.

Similarly, while QS canvasses academics' opinions on research but not teaching quality – reasoning that academics aren’t qualified to comment on the level of the latter at rival institutions – THE has five different measures of teaching quality. Indeed, teaching quality makes up a third of an institution’s THE score.

“Rankings are a useful source of information that wouldn’t otherwise be available – but they don’t make your decision for you,” says QS’s Byrne. “It’s about knowing what they do, and applying them intelligently. More is more.”

[size=18pt]Moody’s: Elite universities dominate philanthropic fundraising[/size]

Elite UK universities receive a greater share of philanthropic donations than their peers in the US, a new report has revealed.

The report, from credit rating agency Moody’s, found that the result was likely to be an “increasing disparity of wealth”, as donations are focused on the top-ranked institutions.

The study – ‘UK universities increasingly tapping fundraising’ – found that, in 2012, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge received around 45% of all UK universities’ philanthropic income.

By contrast, Harvard and Stanford – the two most successful fundraisers in the US private university sector – received just 15% of donations to that sector. Meanwhile, the universities of California and Texas topped the public sector league table, receiving 18% of donations.

The report also found that, since 2005, philanthropic income has grown much faster in the UK than in the US, although this is from a much lower base.

In 2012, UK universities grew gift revenue to a record £774 million, up from £676 million in 2011.

Moody’s analyst Pranav Sharma said: “Universities with less private support and smaller endowments will be challenged to keep pace with their wealthier counterparts.”

He added the donations will become an “even more critical component of funding” for universities’ financial aid, academic programmes, research efforts and capital projects.

[size=18pt]Why Oxford University Couldn't Survive Without Philanthropy[/size]

You shouldn’t need a first in maths from Oxford to figure out that your ancient, inadequately subsidised alma mater urgently requires the support of private donors — and that your money is as good as (almost) anyone’s, says Josh Spero

It started with the Led Zeppelin concert.’ Unlikelier sentences have been spoken, but probably not in Oxford.

Professor Nick Rawlins is sitting in his office overlooking Wellington Square talking about the recently announced £26 million gift to the university by Mica Ertegun, the widow of Ahmet Ertegun, Atlantic Records founder and promoter of the Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin and the Zep. The money will endow 35 scholarships for humanities graduates at a time when the sciences, seen as more practical or valuable, receive more philanthropic funding.

£1 million from the concert at the O2 was donated to Oxford by the band and ‘that got Mica Ertegun thinking she’d like to come to Oxford. She came to Oxford and she fell in love, not just with the buildings but with the people.’ It must be rare for donors to walk through the door. ‘There are several days when no multimillionaire comes to ask me if they can help,’ he laughs.

If the multimillionaires aren’t coming to Oxford, then Oxford has to go to them. With income which doesn’t nearly meet its expenditure on teaching and research, with capital funding decapitated, with medieval buildings and 21st-century challenges, philanthropy is not just desirable but also essential. Take undergraduate education: it costs £16,000 a year for a student in the tutorial system of one-on-two classes, but fees and government support only cover £8,000. The new fees of £9,000 barely replace the teaching grants removed, and Oxford and its colleges have pledged to expand their already generous student support programmes. There is a shortfall in the undergraduate current account of £77 million this year.

Not to be too gloomy, Oxford Thinking, the university’s major fundraising campaign, has reached £1.3 billion in eight years, £50 million over target. Still, ‘without philanthropy, we would be in truly dire straits,’ Professor Rawlins says.

Across the city, Sean Rainey, head of the development office at Magdalen College, takes a longer perspective but reaches the same conclusion: ‘Philanthropy is the reason we’re here. Everything about this college is the result of philanthropy. Everything we do from having students here, having fellows teaching, the buildings we sit in, is a direct result of philanthropy. Philanthropy is all-pervasive in this institution. It’s the reason it exists and without we would struggle to survive. That’s not wishing to be melodramatic — it’s the truth.’ Like many colleges, Magdalen was founded by benefaction, in its case the gift of William of Waynflete, bishop of Winchester, in 1458.

It has to be said that it’s hard to believe Magdalen could be in quite such danger as we sit in the State Room, where members of the Senior Common Room can retire for coffee. From our finely embroidered wingback armchairs, past walls hung with French tapestries, frames holding First World War medals and a vivid Sassoferrato Virgin, we can see Magdalen’s front quad and, beyond, the quiet quad I lived off for three years, with its kempt lawn and unruly gargoyles. The reason it’s all so pretty, Rainey says, is that to keep the college — heritage site that it is — in good repair costs £1.8 million each year, over a tenth of its expenditure. It faces making losses over the next few years without a greater endowment (already one of Oxford’s biggest).

Perception is a problem, says Kirsty MacDonald, head of the development office at Wadham College. While wealthy alumni tend to be well-disposed to their old universities, ‘the downside to being Oxford or Cambridge is that people think you’ve got lots of money and the reality is that most colleges don’t.’ Wadham’s endowment provides a quarter of its turnover every year. ‘We wouldn’t survive without it,’ adds MacDonald.