Bristol ranked outside the top 20 UK unis in new guide

The Complete University Guide has released their 2017 rankings of all the universities in England, revealing that Bristol has slipped nine places into 24^th.

As we bow our heads in sadness at no longer being even the top 20 in the country; we have one thing with which to console ourselves: We beat UWE. Let’s be honest that’s all we cared about. At just 67^th place out of 127 ranking unis, we know where they can put their “student satisfaction”

However, past that point it’s not looking good. Exeter, our sporting rivals, who like to rub in our faces their pictures of days out to the beach and terrible nightlife, have come 13^th. That’s over ten places above us, a particular atrocity when we look at the fact that last year they only out-ranked us by five places.

Oxbridge and London dominate the top ten (who’s surprised), with the top 5 not even budging a single place. Worryingly, we’ve also been beaten by such obscure universities as Lancaster, East Anglia and Sussex.

The Complete University Guide has been compiling data released by Universities and publishing the results online to provide a clear system of ranking universities to prospective students since 2007. Although we may lament the fluctuation of a few places, the Guide is proud that their “rankings are robust and credible for young people seeking a university place” (Dr Bernard Kingston, principal author of CUG)

Those of us who ended up here but originally put Bristol as our second choice, with grand but crushed dreams of Durham cathedrals and Warwick job prospects still in their eyes, won’t be thrilled to hear that both universities remain in the top ten, with Durham in sixth and Warwick in eighth. Nottingham has leapfrogged over us, too.

However, don’t lose heart; these rankings are a holistic view of many different areas of student life. The Complete University Guide collates information from ten different categories: Student Satisfaction; Research Quality; Research Intensity; Entry Standards; Student: Staff Ratio; Spending on Academic Services; Spending on Student Facilities; Good Honours degrees achieved; Graduate Prospects and Completion

We’re still in the top 20% of the country but this is the first year since records began (well, since they were published online) that Bristol has slipped out the top twenty. We’re sad too.