I've been notified that the forthcoming Virgin Alternative Guide (sic!) to
Universities 2001 is going to be really alternative this year -  and will
have a league table of all institutions in it!  Just what we all wanted -
another one!  How alternative can you get?

According to the Blackwells bookshop database, it is not being published
until 8 June, but I have a sneak preview list of the rankings.  If anyone
wants it, e-mail me a fax number I'll fax it back to you.

There are five categories each worth 20% of the score:
SCENE - social scene on campus/town
UNION - no. of clubs and societies and success in sporting (BUSA) and
drama/media awards
TEACH - percentage excellents in TQA and proportion of firsts/upper seconds
JOBS - First destination scores
SATIS - "drop out rates (non-mature) students and our very own view ...
informed by current students and visits to each university"

So, only two and a bit categories (c.50%) based on something vaguely
resembling a performance indicator.  The rest of the score is the 'feel'
factor measured by the yoof culture vultures at Virgin publishing.

So, it's interesting to see how different the rankings are to those league
tables supposedly made up of real statistics and Gordon Brown definitions of
top universities ...

'Top'universities according to Virgin are the civics - 1 Sheffield, 2 Leeds,
3 Manchester, 4 Edinburgh, 5 Bristol, 6 Nottingham, 7 Birmingham all scoring
highly for SCENE  (but Birmingham scores 20 compared to Bristol on 18 - what
social planet are these people on, Bristol is far better ... Birmingham is
my home city, so I've just insulted all my friends from there ...)

Then followed by 8= Cambridge, 8= Warwick, 10 Imperial, 11 Oxford, 12 UCL.
The London institutions get 18 for SCENE but Oxford and Cambridge
(appropriately) only get 12 and Warwick 16 - can't say I disagree with that
...

Highest ranking post-1992 Univ is Brighton in 30th place (predictable enough
- certainly a swinging place), followed by 34 Nott Trent and 36 Man Met
(which gets a maximum 20 for SCENE, which is fair enough for city centre
Manchester - where I boogied away to the Music Live event last night,
somehow missing the top attraction well know student-friendly band Steps -
but I'm not quite sure this score extends to the Crewe campus where
trainspotting is the highlight of the social calendar ...)  Oops lost all my
friends at MMU there - sorry!  Didn't have any friends to lose in Crewe -
who does?

Somewhat bizarrely to me, Oxford B(rookes) gets a 14 for SCENE compared to
12 for Oxford A  (you know, the one the state kids don't go to - oh sorry,
that's Oxford B as well) ... the nightlife in Headington must have improved
a lot since I lived there all those years ago ... oops running out of
friends in Oxford now ...

Bottom in reverse order are 96 Paisley, 95 Lincs & Humber, 94 Anglia, 93
Thames Valley, 92 Abertay, 91 Napier, 90 Robert Gordon, and in 89th place
that social hotspot of Wales - Lampeter.

Lowest ranked for SCENE are Cranfield and Hertfordshire with 8 (84th and
83rd overall).  Oh well, they're all engineers and don't know how to have a
good time anyway ... (now minus all friends at Cranfield/Herts and all
engineers ...)

Of course, <serious voice and boring rant tone turned on> Central Lancs 73rd
place doesn't reflect our position at top of the 'growth in applications'
league table where (as I'm sure you're all aware) our applications are up by
50% for next year ... or in teaching quality assessment scores,  where we
have three scores of maximum 24 points and in the last five visits we have
not scored less than a 22, including a 24 for 2000 ftes worth of nursing and
midwifery ... but what really insults us in this latest table is that we
only get a 12 for SCENE when those upstarts up the M6 Lancaster get 16, when
everyone knows Preston is the swingingest town in Lancashire, if not to
mention the universe ...<boring rant tone off>

Oops sorry got a bit carried away ... now I only have friends left in
Preston ...

Seriously, file this one only under T - for Trivia.  Coming from the people
who can't even run the trains on time, this is obviously a joke and any
moment now Richard Branson will jump out and say 'gotcha!' ... or should it
be Noel Edmunds ...

But if you are a real league tables' anorak and desperately want this one to
complete your set - a bit like Pokemon cards, and just as unintelligible! -
send me your fax number and I'll send you the full list of scores by return.


Mike Milne-Picken
Head of Planning & Performance Review
University of Central Lancashire
[log in to unmask]


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