UCL ranks at 8th place in The Times’ Good University Guide, yet falls to 110th place for social inclusion

The Times released their Good University Guide and UCL has once again ranked in the top 10 UK Universities. Moving up from 9th to 8th place.

London Universities alongside UCL in the top 10 are, LSE (4th) and Imperial College (5th). Out of the 22 London based Universities, UCL has ranked 3rd. Unfortunately for King’s they’re slightly further down, in 30th place nationally and 5th place in London.

While we can celebrate our overall ranking, our social inclusion ranking has fallen once again, moving from 108th to 110th place. Leaving UCL in the lowest 10 UK Universities in this category, alongside Imperial (112th), Oxford (114th) and Cambridge (116th). 49.4% of UCL Students come from State/Non-Grammar Schools and only 3.7% of our students come from ‘deprived areas’. It is clear that students from minority or marginalised backgrounds still aren’t being given the same opportunities to advance in life.

Tab Writer, Sophie Parker, wrote a piece on UCL’s ranking at 108th place in 2019. Asking the question of whether UCL outreach schemes, including the Access UCL Scheme which launched last year, would be enough to create change. Unfortunately, such a change is yet to be seen.

The majority of low ranking Universities for social inclusion ranked highly in competition for places. UCL was placed at 9th, with a 9.2:1 application: places ratio. It’s clear that non-state schools give student’s an inherent advantage when applying to competitive Universities.

Top ranking Universities should be accessible to everyone. UCL ranked 9th place for Graduate Prospects. Being encouraged and enabled to apply to top ranking Universities can increase social mobility and improve lives.

It’s brilliant that UCL ranked 8th place in the UK (and 10th in the world rankings). However, we need to do better.