Exeter named top university in the South West
Exeter has been named the top university in the Southwest according to The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2015 after reaching a new high in the national rankings.
The supplement provides the most comprehensive guide to higher education in Britain in print and digital formats across The Times and The Sunday Times.
The newspaper content will be published over the course of a week, beginning with a 56-page supplement published in The Sunday Times this weekend (September 21). A fully searchable website with full university profiles and 66 subject tables will be published here.
High levels of student satisfaction, a low dropout rate and good research grades are making the University of Exeter a fixture in the top 10 of The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide league table.
Exeter, which was The Sunday Times University of the Year in 2012-13, has seen a 29% growth in applications and the demand for places and looks set to keep on growing.
The main Streatham campus, close to the centre of Exeter, is one of the most attractive settings of any university and has benefited from investment in student residences.
The jewel in the crown of the new developments is the Forum, which features an extended library, a new student services centre and technology-rich learning spaces.
The university’s other base is the £100 million Penryn campus in Cornwall. Shared with Falmouth University, it offers degrees in biosciences, geography, geology, clean energy, English, history, politics and mining engineering.
A £30 million Environment and Sustainability Institute has opened on the campus and a new £5.5 million facility will enable the Business School to expand into Cornwall in 2015.
Bath remains in the national top 10 despite dropping three places this year and ceding the regional top spot to Exeter.
It has seen a 12% rise in applications in 2014, repeating the previous year’s increase and far outpacing the national average. Those who win places at The Sunday Times’ University of the Year for 2011-12 generally do not regret it: Bath had the top score in the 2013 National Student Survey (NSS), and this year ranks joint second in the UK under The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide’s analysis of the NSS outcomes.
The modern campus on the edge of Bath has outstanding sports facilities and this summer’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow saw 27 athletes who train or have links with Bath land medals — five golds, 14 silvers and eight bronze. Had the university been a country, it would have ranked 13th in the final medals table.
Falmouth made its debut in the league table of The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide last year. There are 4,700 students taking a range of subjects such as architecture, digital media and creative writing, as well as the art and craft courses that were its exclusive territory for so long. This year, the university records one of the biggest rises in our league table – 26 places, lifting it to 51 in the UK and third among modern universities (those created since 1992).
Alacrity Falmouth, launched in May this year, is a graduate entrepreneurship programme with a focus on digital games, including a new degree in the subject, which will benefit from the university’s recent European Research Area chair in digital games technology.
The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2015 provides students and their parents with an invaluable first reference point on the path to finding a university place. It contains full profiles of all universities and the leading colleges of higher education. The league table is drawn up from criteria including student satisfaction, research quality, graduate prospects, entrance qualifications held by new students, degree results achieved, student/staff ratios, service and facilities spend, and university dropout rates.
