A group of York students has won the opportunity to have their very own I-phone application developed after winning The App Challenge final, held at the Ron Cooke Hub on Wednesday, January 18.
YUSU Welfare officer Bob Hughes has warned students to be vigilant after a student loans phishing scam has been revealed.
Her Majesty the Queen will be visiting York on Maundy Thursday, 5th April, as part of the 800th anniversary of York’s Charter for the traditional “Royal Maundy” ceremony.
A flood caused by a heating system “failure” forced the university IT services to shut down many essential systems on Sunday night, causing problems for many students on the eve of their exams and assignment due-dates.
The university was the highest ranked in the Yorkshire and Humber region, 12 places above the University of Sheffield. It was also ranked 15th for student satisfaction, ahead of Durham and Lancaster Universities.
In the guide’s profile of the university, The Independent noted that York has the highest average score for teaching quality in the British university sector. The guide also says that all the university’s departments have good research and teaching scores, and YUSU is described as a “strong” union.
In terms of subject tables, the university was ranked 12th overall, with 24 appearances in the subject tables. 13 of those subjects were ranked in the top ten.
Though the university was not ranked the best for any subjects, it did achieve second place for both Nursing and Social Work. Other highly ranked subjects included English, Psychology and Biology, which were placed fourth, fifth and sixth respectively. The Hull York Medical School was ranked 19th for Medicine.
Regarding The Complete University Guide, principal author Bernard Kingston said: "Competition for a university place is likely to be intense over the next year or so. It is essential that would-be students make the best choices in good time and on the best information available to them."
Kingston added: "The Complete University Guide allows would-be students to adapt the main table to their needs and explore the listings for individual subjects without charge and with confidence that the information is up to date and accurate."
For the complete guide, click here.
Yet again we've fared well but not as well as we should have. Bath are above us (firstly, what? That's blatantly not true) because of facility expenditure, job prospects and entry grades. THOSE DON'T DEFINE A GOOD UNIVERSITY. But out of Bath, St. Andrews, Warwick, Durham and York, we're 3rd for satisfaction, 2nd for research assessment, 2nd for staff-student ratio, second for academic services expenditure, 3rd for completion - and yet we come last of the five due to entry grades, facility expenditure, prospects and hons. So, blatantly, these are the things the university needs to improve on.
But I still don't see how us giving out less firsts makes us a WORSE university - it just means that our degrees are more difficult to obtain, surely? And our high postgraduate entry rate shows that we're often "better" than employment. It's a harsh, harsh ranking system for York, who should be up in 5th or 6th every year without fail... but one that is easily changed if the university wants to. And since these are the exact failures that we have year after year, I'd have thought that even the management would be able to spot that trend... We'll see, though! More hons, more post-grad employment support and a significant increase in facility expenditure would be extremely pleasant, please? 
I'm not sure UoY will be pandering to league tables. Expenditure is high. The Berrick Saul building is well on the way to completion, and Heslington East has cost a fair bit too!
High entry grades denote a strong work ethic, high standards and a preference for academically successful candidates. Probably hallmarks of a good university. An offer of AAA or an offer of BCC...which one's the better university?
The survey which we could do well in responding to is the student satisfaction survey. There are some areas there where we could easily improve scores without spending too much. Such as more contact time and support.
Apparently on this table, entry grades denotes the grades of all entry students, not the offers... and I would think that a university taking worse students and bringing them up to above other universities is *better*, surely?
The student satisfaction survey is pretty good for York. We need better assessment and feedback, which Charlie has already started addressing (and is Academic Officer for the next year and two months, don't forget!) so hopefully we can get stuff done. "More contact time and support" is only an issue for some departments so it's important that we get more cooperation between departments etc. There are other issues for each department too and those need to be focussed on but I don't think that we mark lowly on contact time etc. on national league tables (though I could be wrong).
Obviously Hes East costs money but the point is that it makes back its own money. The Berrick Saul etc., library improvements, bridges etc. *will* cost money and I suspect that if the bridges are done properly it'll bump up the scores. But many of the older buildings have a ton of problems that still need to be addressed.
But that's my point - I wouldn't say it makes the university worse. The fact that "York has the highest average score for teaching quality in the British university sector" would imply that we should be in the top three *every year* because, frankly, that's the most important thing for incoming students - teaching, research and the NSS should be the three key things. Gutted that they aren't!
Jason Rose: "*assumes that Jane Grenville will read this at some point!*"
Well whether or not she reads The Yorker I'm sure she will read the survey herself and make her own more informed opinions rather than relying on yours Jason.
I would hope so, and I would also hope that the university made moves to rectify their league table shortcomings as they have been doing on the subject of feedback etc. It was just an addendum to a comment; not exactly of major importance or worth reading deep into. More hons, more graduation employment support and more facility spending. Job done.
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