What do university rankings mean?

University rankings - often called league tables - compare how universities perform in different areas. They can be useful when you’re deciding where the best place to study a specific course might be. However, it’s important to understand what they actually show, where they come from, and why the position of a university isn't always the same in every league table.

What do rankings show?

Rankings show how either students or independent reviewers rate us in specific areas of study or experience. Each ranking highlights something slightly different, but together they can give you a picture of how we perform. We often include rankings for our courses on the website. 

What is the National Student Survey?

The National Student Survey (NSS) is one of the main sources of information used in university rankings. Every year, it asks final-year students across the UK to rate their experiences of teaching, learning opportunities, assessment and feedback, academic support, learning resources, and overall satisfaction.

The results are published for each subject at every university and feed into most league tables, including the Guardian and Times/Sunday Times guides. They help to show how students rate the quality of their teaching and support compared with others on similar courses.

Universities also use the NSS internally to identify what’s working well and where improvements can be made. For example, if students say they need better access to study space, we can act on that information to make changes. Our library, for instance, now has 24/7 opening during exams.

Some of the NSS rankings you are likely to see are:

• Learning opportunities: how well your course helps you develop the knowledge and skills you'll need

• Teaching quality: how clearly and effectively lecturers explain concepts and support your learning

• Student support: the quality of academic and wellbeing help available when you need it

• Assessment and feedback: how fair marking is and how useful feedback is in helping you to improve

• Student voice: opportunities to give your own feedback, and whether this is valued by staff and acted on

When we share a result such as '1st in the UK for learning opportunities' on a course page, and show that it's from the NSS, it means our students rated their experience very highly compared with others studying the same subject at other universities across the country. Rankings like these are one way to show the quality of teaching and support you can expect here.

In general, we consistently perform well in NSS areas such as teaching, student satisfaction, and graduate success - areas that our students say matter the most to them. 

Other data sources used in rankings and league tables

You’ll also see other measures in league tables that come from national data sources, rather than directly from student opinion.

The main sources include:

• Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA): provides data on entry standards, continuation rates, degree results, and graduate outcomes.
• Research Excellence Framework (REF): evaluates the quality of research produced by universities
• Graduate outcomes survey: looks at graduate outcomes 15 months after students complete their course 

This data is used to create measures that focus on things like employability, student support, and research.

Some examples include:

• Graduate prospects: how successfully students move into skilled employment or further study after graduation
• Continuation: how many students actually do stay on to complete their degree
• Student-to-staff ratio: the average number of students per member of teaching staff (lower is usually considered to be better)
• Expenditure per student: how much a university invests in facilities, teaching, and learning support per student
• Value added: how much students' academic performance improves during their degree, compared with what would be expected based on their entry grades
• International outlook: how diverse and globally connected the university is, based on international students, staff, and partnerships (common in global rankings like QS and THE)
• Research quality: how much of a university’s research is classed as world-leading or internationally excellent

How are university league tables calculated?

Most UK league tables use data from sources such as HESA, REF, and the Graduate Outcomes Survey.  However, the ways in which they use these sources to calculate a university's position can differ.

Weighting of the data

Some league tables, like The Guardian University Guide, focus more on teaching quality and student experience, giving these areas a higher weighting. Others, such as The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide, give more weight to research and graduate prospects. 

The Complete University Guide focuses on academic performance and official data from HESA, including factors such as entry standards, student satisfaction, and graduate outcomes.

This means that the same university might appear in a different position in each table, depending on how much emphasis a particular guide places on teaching, research, or student experience.

Different subject structures

The other key difference between the league tables is that they don’t all use the same subject structure. This can affect the position of a course in the rankings. 

The Guardian, for instance, uses its own set of subject areas which is loosely based on UCAS categories, but is simplified. It merges smaller disciplines into broader fields. The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide follow HESA and UCAS, but may merge or even exclude subjects with too few entries.

This means that a course such as Environmental Science might appear under 'Earth and Environmental Sciences' in one table, 'Geography and Environmental Studies' in another, and might not appear at all in a smaller guide if the dataset is too small.

Advice for using league tables and rankings

When you compare universities:

• Be aware that small differences in scores between universities in the middle of a ranking can cause large shifts in position, so a small movement up or down doesn’t always mean a big change in quality.
• Check which subject heading your course appears under.
• Read each guide’s methodology page to see how they define subjects.
• Remember that if a course isn’t shown, it may just be grouped differently or have too few students for a separate score.
• Filter to your subject. Overall positions can hide big differences between subjects.
• Look at the indicators that matter to you. If you want a diverse, international community, check the international measures. If you care about employability, look at employer reputation (QS) and links with industry (THE).
• Use them as a starting point. Follow up by reading course pages, talking to students, and joining online events. Rankings are helpful, but they don’t replace your own research.

How important are university rankings?

Whilst a high position in a league table can definitely be a good sign, it’s not the only thing to consider. Rankings can’t measure the atmosphere of a campus or the sense of community you’ll feel as a student. Factors like location, cost of living, facilities, and wellbeing support can be just as important. If you combine the information from rankings with open days, student accounts, and your own priorities, they can help confirm whether a university like Dundee is right for you.