Is Trinity College properly "up there"

TSMGUY

I get the impression it's only seen as elite here in Ireland. Guys in the UK seem to rate it below Oxbridge (obviously), UCL, Imperial, King's College, Durham and even Warwick. How do you guys rank TCD?

Strong Life in Dublin

No one gives a crap about rankings in Ireland

Jawgap

Having been to both TCD (undergrad science) and Durham (masters) - I'd say that's about right.

I'd say depending on the area of interest TCD is catching up but it is still lowly ranked in international terms.

My own view is that it needs to figure out what it wants to be - a research driven or a teaching driven institution. very few universities can do both well, and even fewer of TCD's size.

TSMGUY

Strong Life in Dublin wrote: »

No one gives a crap about rankings in Ireland

I know, it seems silly that they don't given how competitive the points system is for so few places. Obviously within Ireland it seems

Trinity>UCD>Cork>The Rest>American College in Dublin (couldn't helpy myself from taking a dig at that "college")

Jawgap wrote: »

Having been to both TCD (undergrad science) and Durham (masters) - I'd say that's about right.

I'd say depending on the area of interest TCD is catching up but it is still lowly ranked in international terms.

My own view is that it needs to figure out what it wants to be - a research driven or a teaching driven institution. very few universities can do both well, and even fewer of TCD's size.

would you put TCD on par with Durham for say, English, it's highest ranking subject. Also, is it on par with Edinburgh?

Jawgap

TSMGUY wrote: »

would you put TCD on par with Durham for say, English, it's highest ranking subject. Also, is it on par with Edinburgh?

It wouldn't really be fair for me to comment as I didn't study English in either place.

In terms of research I found Durham to be better organised, much more rigorous and more 'outward' focused.

Strong Life in Dublin wrote: »

No one gives a crap about rankings in Ireland

Which is fine if you only intend to work in Ireland - some employers use it as a handy way to quickly assess the quality of your graduate and postgraduate education.

Hollister11

National College Of Ireland is as good as any, just doesn't have the rep.

Pickpocket

TSMGUY wrote: »

I get the impression it's only seen as elite here in Ireland. Guys in the UK seem to rate it below Oxbridge (obviously), UCL, Imperial, King's College, Durham and even Warwick. How do you guys rank TCD?

"Even Warwick..."

The Times Higher Education Rankings have TCD listed as 160th in the world, while Warwick is down as 80th. So you shouldn't be too surprised by what the "guys in the UK" think.

Durham is 70th, King's is 27th, UCL is 14th, Imperial is 8th, Cambridge is 4th and Oxford is 2nd. Trinity College Dublin is simply not on par with those institutions, as much as it might want to be.

When I started in TCD in 2010 it was ranked 77th, and since then it's plummeted steadily down the table (not my fault! :P)

There's various international rankings, but in all of them Trinity has taken a huge fall. However the criteria is based on everything from research and development to post-graduate achievements and employment rates, etc. So it's up to yourself how much importance you place on each index.

I enjoyed my time in Trinity, and it never felt like it only belonged to the 'elite'. Yes, the majority of the students are certainly from affluent backgrounds, but there were plenty of people who, like myself, came from poor backgrounds. I suspect if you have a chip on your shoulder about that type of thing then you might notice it, but I never treated people differently because of how posh they sounded, and thankfully I never felt like anyone treated me badly because of how posh I didn't sound. To be honest, a lot of people seemed stuck up their own arse when I was there, but as a mature student (mid-twenties at the time) I felt that about a lot of that age group, whether they were UCD, TCD or whatever.

There were times when I had to laugh at Trinity's golden reputation though. For example, walking around the campus of Ireland's 'best university' looking for a printer that wasn't broken. And then there's some of the lecturers who were just bloody awful. Highly-capable academic types but with no social skills whatsoever.

Anyway, if you do end up in Trinity please don't get roped into the mindless rivalry between TCD and UCD. It's depressingly boring.

Also, be prepared for the snobbery/rivalry/jealousy or whatever you want to call it. People will think you're a snob because you went to Trinity and likewise people who didn't go there will regularly try to question you on what it was like, was it that good, they heard it's overrated, etc.

Trinity students have a reputation as being arrogant about where they study, and perhaps there's some truth in that, but there's certainly an equal amount of people who have a chip on their shoulder because they didn't go there, and both groups are as bad as each other.

Gallagher1

TSMGUY wrote: »

I get the impression it's only seen as elite here in Ireland. Guys in the UK seem to rate it below Oxbridge (obviously), UCL, Imperial, King's College, Durham and even Warwick. How do you guys rank TCD?

To be honest if you classify Oxbridge/Ivy leagues as elite institutions, none of the Irish Universities including TCD are elite institutions. Those institutions are in a different league altogether and you would be codding yourself if you believed TCD even belonged in the same bracket as Imperial/UCL. TCD may be 400 years old, but it is not 'elite' when we compare to universities across the pond.

Pickpocket

Gallagher1 wrote: »

To be honest if you classify Oxbridge/Ivy leagues as elite institutions, none of the Irish Universities including TCD are elite institutions. Those institutions are in a different league altogether and you would be codding yourself if you believed TCD even belonged in the same bracket as Imperial/UCL.

Exactly. MIT and Oxford, for example, are just in completely different universes of education. Their respective alumni read like a who's who of the entirety of Western science and culture.

TSMGUY

Pickpocket wrote: »

"Even Warwick..."

The Times Higher Education Rankings have TCD listed as 160th in the world, while Warwick is down as 80th. So you shouldn't be too surprised by what the "guys in the UK" think.

Durham is 70th, King's is 27th, UCL is 14th, Imperial is 8th, Cambridge is 4th and Oxford is 2nd. Trinity College Dublin is simply not on par with those institutions, as much as it might want to be.

When I started in TCD in 2010 it was ranked 77th, and since then it's plummeted steadily down the table (not my fault! :P)

There's various international rankings, but in all of them Trinity has taken a huge fall. However the criteria is based on everything from research and development to post-graduate achievements and employment rates, etc. So it's up to yourself how much importance you place on each index.

I enjoyed my time in Trinity, and it never felt like it only belonged to the 'elite'. Yes, the majority of the students are certainly from affluent backgrounds, but there were plenty of people who, like myself, came from poor backgrounds. I suspect if you have a chip on your shoulder about that type of thing then you might notice it, but I never treated people differently because of how posh they sounded, and thankfully I never felt like anyone treated my badly because of how posh I didn't sound. To be honest, a lot of people seemed stuck up their own arse when I was there, but as a mature student (mid-twenties at the time) I felt that about a lot of that age group, whether they were UCD, TCD or whatever.

There were times when I had to laugh at Trinity's golden reputation though. For example, walking around the campus of Ireland's 'best university' looking for a printer that wasn't broken. And then there's some of the lecturers who were just bloody awful. Highly-capable academic types but with no social skills whatsoever.

Anyway, if you do end up in Trinity please don't get roped into the mindless rivalry between TCD and UCD. It's depressingly boring.

Also, be prepared for the snobbery/rivalry/jealousy or whatever you want to call it. People will think you're a snob because you went to Trinity and likewise people who didn't go there will regularly try to question you on what it was like, was it that good, they heard it's overrated, etc.

Trinity students have a reputation as being arrogant about where they study, and perhaps there's some truth in that, but there's certainly an equal amount of people who have a chip on there shoulder because they didn't go there, and both groups are as bad as each other.

Ah, well I'm working class AND a snob, I should be fine:D The times rankings are bollocks though, every other ranking system has cambridge ahead of oxford and oxford below harvard and stanford.

Gallagher1 wrote: »

To be honest if you classify Oxbridge/Ivy leagues as elite institutions, none of the Irish Universities including TCD are elite institutions. Those institutions are in a different league altogether and you would be codding yourself if you believed TCD even belonged in the same bracket as Imperial/UCL. TCD may be 400 years old, but it is not 'elite' when we compare to universities across the pond.

No, I agree totally, I'm actually from the UK and I'm set on Cambridge, just getting a general idea of how Trinity is seen by you guys. I feel like it's reputation is massively over-inflated.

Pickpocket

Strong Life in Dublin wrote: »

No one gives a crap about rankings in Ireland

Perhaps, but if the OP is a Leaving Cert student then s/he's about to make a big decision and you have to hang your hat on something.

Gallagher1

TSMGUY wrote: »

No, I agree totally, I'm actually from the UK and I'm set on Cambridge, just getting a general idea of how Trinity is seen by you guys. I feel like it's reputation is massively over-inflated.

It is still a very reputable place to study but is massively overrated in this country. People over here think it is the dogs bollo*cks because a relatively small percent of our parents generation(40-60) went to third level, have no experience in what Higher Education is actually like and just see this 400 year old building in Dublin City Centre and naively think "That is whopper".

Pickpocket

TSMGUY wrote: »

just getting a general idea of how Trinity is seen by you guys. I feel like it's reputation is massively over-inflated.

It's still thought of as the best university in Ireland, rightly or wrongly, and that's unlikely to change any time soon, due to a whole host of historical and cultural reasons. Bullsh*t, basically.

In terms of the international rankings, such as the Times Higher Education and QS World Rankings, well they're very comprehensive and a lot of work goes into maintaining each index. There's a whole range of those databases and they all roughly align with each other.

So, for example, if Warwick is in the top 100 in most them you can be pretty certain that it's not a coincidence. The same goes for Trinity. It's almost always (if not actually always) listed as the 'best' in Ireland. So clearly it continues to be a high achiever when compared to its peers.

One thing that's clear is that it's international reputation (based on the rankings) is sliding down, bit by bit. Unfortunately for Ireland, so are all of its other universities. That might not mean much in the day-to-day of the average student, but it worries me as someone that enjoys hearing about Irish universities spearheading specific areas of research. I don't want the available pool of Irish research funds to become smaller and smaller.

riffmongous

If you have a clear idea of what you want to do, especially if you want to stay in academia, then how the universities rank in a subject area will be more important than the overall university reputation.

RianF2

IMO Trinity is way too overrated. UL is far superior in terms of industry ready student. Eight months of a work placement is really useful. I know other colleges have work experience but AFAIK the one in UL is the longest and best established. Also, on a side note, rents in Limerick are far cheaper than in the big shmoke. Averages out at 75 per week for houses in Castletroy.

Gallagher1

RianF2 wrote: »

IMO Trinity is way too overrated. UL is far superior in terms of industry ready student. Eight months of a work placement is really useful. I know other colleges have work experience but AFAIK the one in UL is the longest and best established. Also, on a side note, rents in Limerick are far cheaper than in the big shmoke. Averages out at 75 per week for houses in Castletroy.

So so so so many LC students fail to realise this.

RianF2

Gallagher1 wrote: »

So so so so many LC students fail to realise this.

I'm quite surprised really. Between guidance counsellors and the internet all this information is easily available. Thats what I did anyway. Although my guidance counsellor really was trying to push Trinity on me for some reason.

Gallagher1

Pickpocket wrote: »

It's still thought of as the best university in Ireland, rightly or wrongly, and that's unlikely to change any time soon, due to a whole host of historical and cultural reasons. Bullsh*t, basically.

In terms of the international rankings, such as the Times Higher Education and QS World Rankings, well they're very comprehensive and a lot of work goes into maintaining each index. There's a whole range of those databases and they all roughly align with each other.

So, for example, if Warwick is in the top 100 in most them you can be pretty certain that it's not a coincidence. The same goes for Trinity. It's almost always (if not actually always) listed as the 'best' in Ireland. So clearly it continues to be a high achiever when compared to its peers.

One thing that's clear is that it's international reputation (based on the rankings) is sliding down, bit by bit. Unfortunately for Ireland, so are all of its other universities. That might not mean much in the day-to-day of the average student, but it worries me as someone that enjoys hearing about Irish universities spearheading specific areas of research. I don't want the available pool of Irish research funds to become smaller and smaller.

NUIG was the only university to increase its ranking consistently over each of the last 3 years, yet people won't give them credit because it is Galway and not Trinity. If TCD increased 3 year on the bounce we would hear of Oxbridge comparisons straight away.

RianF2 wrote: »

I'm quite surprised really. Between guidance counsellors and the internet all this information is easily available. Thats what I did anyway. Although my guidance counsellor really was trying to push Trinity on me for some reason.

Guidance counsellors for the most part are absolutely awful when it comes to accurately pointing students in the right direction.

RianF2

Gallagher1 wrote: »

Guidance counsellors for the most part are absolutely awful when it comes to accurately pointing students in the right direction.

There must be some way of educating them about how to properly guide a student to what they like. They should also stop pushing students to do arts if they're undecided. That's my 2 cents anyway

Pickpocket

UL produces 'industry ready' students but Trinity students get the interview.

Seriously though, I was told by my employer that I was given an interview because I went to Trinity. He done his degree there and he clearly valued its students, or more specifically, the degree we both undertook. On the other hand, one of my colleagues went to UL and he was told by that same employer that it was his work placement that earned him the interview and ultimately the job.

I guess if there's a lesson here it's that employers can be very unpredictable!

Gallagher1 wrote: »

NUIG was the only university to increase its ranking consistently over each of the last 3 years, yet people won't give them credit because it is Galway and not Trinity. If TCD increased 3 year on the bounce we would hear of Oxbridge comparisons straight away.

It was my understanding that all Irish universities had been successively dropping down the table but I'm very happy to be told otherwise.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Jawgap

Pickpocket wrote: »

UL produces 'industry ready' students but Trinity students get the interview.

.......!

That's because their Daddies know each other

On a more serious, but related, note, TCD probably has the most develope alumni network of the Irish unis, which, joking aside, can help with landing jobs or just getting a foot in the door.

That said, even TCD's alumni network pales in comparison to Oxbridge, and even Durham......plenty of times I've gone to pitch a client while wearing a Durham tie and spent more time discussing the university and the city than the job being sought!

randylonghorn

Pickpocket wrote: »

It was my understanding that all Irish universities had been successively dropping down the table but I'm very happy to be told otherwise.

Just to be clear for everyone reading, the main reason the Irish universities have been dropping down the tables is the severe cutbacks in funding over the last few years in the aftermath of the Diseased Celtic Kitten. Funding itself is one of the criteria measured in the assessment for the rankings, plus it obviously also has a major impact on such areas as staff:student ratio, facilities, etc. which are also a part of the rating system.

Also, just a word of caution re: those rankings: they tend to be heavily weighted towards research and research funding ... legitimately enough, given that we're talking about universities. But it doesn't automatically follow that universities who excel at research and are ranked high in the tables as a result automatically excel also at teaching, especially at undergraduate level.

Just to be very clear: I'm not suggesting for a moment that a university can't excel at both, simply that one doesn't automatically follow the other. If anything, as someone alluded to above, it is quite difficult to excel at both, as the best academic researchers are often not the best teachers, especially at undergraduate level, and, on the other hand, a heavy focus on teaching tends to eat into academics' research time.

The easiest way to ensure both, in fact, is to provide or attract enough funding and, in turn, staffing so that good researchers who are not natural teachers or not interested in teaching can concentrate mainly on their research, and do what teaching they do do at postgraduate level, which they tend to find easier as these students already have a good background in the discipline, and the researcher-type academic therefore does not have to spend as much time explaining what are (to them) basic concepts, something they often find both frustrating and difficult to do.

It's also important for prospective students to remember (as someone pointed out above) that high or low overall rankings do not necessarily mean that every department / subject area in the institution is at the same level. A university can excel in the humanities without necessarily reaching the same standard in the sciences, or vice versa; for that matter, a university could have an excellent reputation for history yet a poor one for languages.

Always check out the subject area you are interested in, not just the overall rep of the institution.

TSMGUY

A lot of very well balanced and nuanced conversation on here, as opposed to the student room where the convo goes something like this:

OP: How do you guys rank Trinity College Dublin?
Snarky Bas**rd No.1: LMAO! Not even up there with Manchester, absolute kip!
Snarky Bas**rd No.2: LOL, not even Oxbridge rejects who go to Durham would rate TCD.
Snarky Bas**rd No.3: Never heard of it!

Hopefully I get Cambridge and I can go to college with aforementioned snarky bastards As for subject rankings
English at Cambridge: 1st in the world
English at TCD: 32 in the world

Pickpocket

TSMGUY wrote: »

A lot of very well balanced and nuanced conversation on here, as opposed to the student room where the convo goes something like this:

OP: How do you guys rank Trinity College Dublin?
Snarky Bas**rd No.1: LMAO! Not even up there with Manchester, absolute kip!
Snarky Bas**rd No.2: LOL, not even Oxbridge rejects who go to Durham would rate TCD.
Snarky Bas**rd No.3: Never heard of it!

Hopefully I get Cambridge and I can go to college with aforementioned snarky bastards As for subject rankings
English at Cambridge: 1st in the world
English at TCD: 32 in the world

Yeah, but in Cambridge you won't be able to sit outside Hodges Figgis and reading Joyce with a tortured look on your face.

TSMGUY

Pickpocket wrote: »

Yeah, but in Cambridge you won't be able to sit outside Hodges Figgis and reading Joyce with a tortured look on your face.

LOL. I'm reading Joyce at home with a bored look on my face. Ulysses wasn't very enjoyable for all its allusions and playful language, Finnegan's Wake is absolute garbage and Dubliners is alright at best. Joyce really is overrated. Maybe I'll enjoy Portrait of An Artist as A Young Man.....

Pickpocket

TSMGUY wrote: »

LOL. I'm reading Joyce at home with a bored look on my face. Ulysses wasn't very enjoyable for all its allusions and playful language, Finnegan's Wake is absolute garbage and Dubliners is alright at best. Joyce really is overrated. Maybe I'll enjoy Portrait of An Artist as A Young Man.....

He's good when read alongside a critical guide that highlights everything that's of interest or unique to his writing. I feel the same about the films of Robert Bresson. Very interesting with a DVD commentary but otherwise unwatchable.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Pickpocket

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Double ouch.

TSMGUY

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

I didn't know enjoying Joyce was a pre-requisite for studying English?

P.S: There should be a "." between "P" and "S", let's not start with the grammar Nazism. It's very tiring.

Pickpocket wrote: »

Double ouch.

LOL, you must hang around some very sensitive people if that's a "double ouch". In fact it's absolutely contrary to the spirit of literary study to insist dislike of one author disqualifies you from the enjoyment of literature in general. Many, many prominent writers absolutely hated Ulysses and Joyce in general. To be completely honest, Joyce's scat-themed sex letters to Nora Barnacle are more interesting than that pile of ****e Finnegan's Wake.

randylonghorn

TSMGUY wrote: »

Snarky Bas**rd No.2: LOL, not even Oxbridge rejects who go to Durham ...

Sez it all tbh! :rolleyes:

TSMGUY wrote: »

Hopefully I get Cambridge and I can go to college with aforementioned snarky bastards As for subject rankings
English at Cambridge: 1st in the world
English at TCD: 32 in the world

Just out of curiosity, I went and did some googling!

In 2015-16, Cambridge had 580 undergraduate students of English.

Linked here is the list of academic staff for the Faculty of English at Cambridge. There's over 100 listed.

How likely is it that any university in Ireland will ever see that kind of staff:student ratio? For that matter, most universities in the UK and around the world would probably offer human sacrifice to Mammon if they thought it would result in that level of funding / staffing.

And we're not even talking about a STEM subject or one which is a buzzword for governments / employers, and those tend to attract additional funding.


And this is a lot of the reason why the universities at the top of the rankings tend to stay there, and why it is very difficult to break into that elite.

That level of staffing will generate huge levels of research.
That level of staffing allows for and supports both excellence in research and in teaching.
That level of staffing / funding and the consequent reputation of the university attracts the very best staff to apply for posts.
The quantity and quality of research generated; the "big names" attracted to the university; the consequent reputation of the university; etc. ... all this in turn will attract huge amounts of research funding.
And this funding in turn allows the cycle to continue.