How many people get 2:1s/1sts?

[bob]

Yo all, just wondering what % of people get 1sts/2:1s for their degree classification? Loads of people I know got 1sts and was just wondering if anyone knew the %s!

[househunter]

Take it you're the exception.

[[James]]

Calculated from the St Andrews website. (I'm not sure which year this is for):

First Class - 163 - 13.6%
2:i - 667 - 55.5%
2:ii - 148 - 12.3%
Third Class - 17 - 1.4%
General & Special Degrees - 82 - 6.8%
General Degree in Medicine - 124 - 10.3%
Total - 1,201

Excluding general and special degrees:

First Class - 16.4%
2:i - 67%
2:ii - 14.9%
Third Class - 1.7%
Total - 995

[fran]

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/acad ... ble_62.pdf

St Andrews is not on there, but overall in the UK 10.3% get a First and 43.8% get a 2:1.
In Oxford 22.8% get a First, 62.9% get a 2:1, in Cambridge 22.5% get a First, 57.4% a 2:1, at Warwick 19.5% get a First, 56.9% a 2:1, LSE 18.8% First, 55.9% 2:1,
Bristol 18.0% get a First, 55.6% get a 2:1 and in Edinburgh 13.8% get a First and 49.3% a 2:1.

[David Bean]

Ah, but what happens if you redistribute the second preferences?

[hr]

Psalm 91:7

[rob 'f*ck off' wine boy]

2+1/2

[fran]

What is still missing now: How high is the percentage in the different departments? I'm sure there will be huge differences.

[[James]]

Quoting David Bean from 23:22, 7th Jun 2007
Ah, but what happens if you redistribute the second preferences?

Everyone loses interest, goes home and calls the whole thing a pointless waste of time. Or at least, that's how second preferences usually work...

[exnihilo]

They also, in "making every vote count", make it sometimes impossible to associate your own vote with the end result - which is good for democracy, especially if coupled with multi-candidate constituencies and centrally selected lists.

But that has nothing to do with this thread. Ahem.

[bob]

Well both my mean and median are above 16.50...so actually...I'm not the exception! Thanx for the info!

[bobsuncle]

Any statistician will tell you - these things follow a bell-shaped curve - it is the law.

Some will get 1st, most will get 2.1 and 2.2, some will get 3rds....

And others will fail or drop out...

[Paranoid]

Yeah in general 70% get 2:1's.

But in all honestly, if your out job seeking after an honours degree course, a 2:1 is all you need, and that just gets you in the door, its what you do outside of your studies that tends to matter more in the interview room.

Thats just in my experience though. It has been suggested that those with 1st's are actually given a harder time in interviews as they are seen as bookworms and nerds who do not hold any social skills which are increasingly more essential in todays economy.


Of course if you have both and have the strength of character to resist the above stereotyping then you don't have anything to worry about either way.

[hr]

..I've got this pain down all the diodes on my left side...

[Idealist]

If your sales pitch is good, I'm sure that you can convince any employer that your degree classification is actually the best...

For example..."Yeh I have a third because I spent most of my university career helping sick children and old people- which shows that I put the needs of others before myself!"

Any other ideas on how you would sell a non 2.1 to an employer...even more impressively, how you would sell a failed degree to an employer!

[hr]

[s]"You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time"[/s]

[David Bean]

Quoting [James] from 18:19, 8th Jun 2007
Everyone loses interest, goes home and calls the whole thing a pointless waste of time. Or at least, that's how second preferences usually work...

It's okay, though, because they're usually all wasted by that time anyway. Well, I am.

[hr]

Psalm 91:7

[David Bean]

Quoting Idealist from 23:40, 9th Jun 2007
Any other ideas on how you would sell a non 2.1 to an employer...even more impressively, how you would sell a failed degree to an employer!

Most employers will specify what class of degree they'll accept, so as long as you didn't try to apply somewhere that wouldn't take you anyway on the basis of the result, the issue probably wouldn't arise. My employer, the Co-operative Group, accepts applications from anyone with a 2.2 or above, because they've seen research suggesting that there's actually very little difference between the job performance of someone with a 2.2, 2.1 or 1st if they have a track record of involvement in the kind of extra-curricular activities that develop the ol' transferrable skills and behaviours they're looking for. That's why I spent most of last year banging on about volunteering: if you've done that, and especially if you've got something like an MV Award to prove it, employers will take notice.

Usually the degree class doesn't come into the application process at all, other than as a bar you have to get over: the only time my academic work might have come up in interviews was in my own answers to questions about where and when I'd demonstrated certain behaviours, but I generally tended to focus on the extra-curricular and work stuff then anyway, because they generally make for better (more 'live') examples.

[hr]

Psalm 91:7

[Bizarre Atheist]

Quoting David Bean from 00:12, 10th Jun 2007
That's why I spent most of last year banging on about volunteering: if you've done that, and especially if you've got something like an MV Award to prove it, employers will take notice.

Really? I'd kinda assumed that even my shiny 200 hour award would be skimmed over without so much as a disinterested 'mmhmm'.

[hr]

http://www.charities-campaign.org.uk

[fran]

Quoting David Bean from 00:12, 10th Jun 2007

Quoting Idealist from 23:40, 9th Jun 2007
Any other ideas on how you would sell a non 2.1 to an employer...even more impressively, how you would sell a failed degree to an employer!

Most employers will specify what class of degree they'll accept, so as long as you didn't try to apply somewhere that wouldn't take you anyway on the basis of the result, the issue probably wouldn't arise. My employer, the Co-operative Group, accepts applications from anyone with a 2.2 or above, because they've seen research suggesting that there's actually very little difference between the job performance of someone with a 2.2, 2.1 or 1st if they have a track record of involvement in the kind of extra-curricular activities that develop the ol' transferrable skills and behaviours they're looking for. That's why I spent most of last year banging on about volunteering: if you've done that, and especially if you've got something like an MV Award to prove it, employers will take notice.

Usually the degree class doesn't come into the application process at all, other than as a bar you have to get over: the only time my academic work might have come up in interviews was in my own answers to questions about where and when I'd demonstrated certain behaviours, but I generally tended to focus on the extra-curricular and work stuff then anyway, because they generally make for better (more 'live') examples.

[hr]

Psalm 91:7

Is it possible to get an MV award retrospectively? Until I just read this thread and then google'd it I had NO IDEA this thing existed and I totally qualify after what I read about it. but on the Union website it says "open DURING TERM TIME", so what do I do now?

[David Bean]

BA: well, obviously you have to tell them about it. I mean, most applications these days have questions that are, as they say, evidence-based: they'll put a scenario to you asking when you've demonstrated a certain kind of behaviour, and you'll answer with reference to your own experiences. That's all well and good, but if you can back it up by noting that you were given some kind of award, and you're prepared to explain what it entailed, they'll be impressed. No award or achievement sells itself in an application or interview context, but with a little sales job of your own, it's easy to make capital from them.

Fran: I guess the web site says that because the people who administer the MV awards basically aren't around during the summer, or at least, wouldn't be expected to be. But that doesn't mean that the individual people wouldn't necesarily be prepared to help you. My suggestion would be to contact Coral Dyer, the new SSC Volunteering Officer, and ask her whether there's anything her committee can do for you. I don't have her email address to hand, but you can find her on Facebook easily enough.

[hr]

Psalm 91:7