The Lemon Fool

Lootman wrote:

ursaminortaur wrote:The offers had little to do with how bad the university was but more to do with what your teachers had told the University about you.
I did a Mathematics degree at Manchester (Victoria) University which was quite well respected for mathematics in the early 1980s with an offer of 3 E's at A-level.

Unless my teachers told different things to different universities, which seems unlikely, then that does not explain the vast range of offers many of us received. And generally, the more esteemed the institution, the higher the required grades.

The only other offer I remember was from Southampton ( which although still good for mathematics wasn't considered to be as good as Manchester at the time and was also a much younger institution being founded in the 1950s) who offered a B and 2Cs but that seemed to be their standard offer to everyone.
Since I thought Manchester was better I put that down as my first choice and then had a fairly relaxing time doing my A-Levels without any pressure.

(It would probably also depend upon the person doing the evaluation at the University end as to how impressed they were by what your teachers had said.
I was doing four A-Levels ( pure mathematics, applied mathematics, physics and chemistry) and had applied to Oxford and sat the exam. I had been invited for interview at Oxford colleges but didn't get in but I'm not sure whether the offers were made before or after that.)

Lootman wrote:

ursaminortaur wrote:The offers had little to do with how bad the university was but more to do with what your teachers had told the University about you.
I did a Mathematics degree at Manchester (Victoria) University which was quite well respected for mathematics in the early 1980s with an offer of 3 E's at A-level.

Unless my teachers told different things to different universities, which seems unlikely, then that does not explain the vast range of offers many of us received. And generally, the more esteemed the institution, the higher the required grades.

It depends on a number of factors, including which others universities you have applied to.

I think Imperial College would be regarded as reasonably esteemed, but it gave me a 3 Es offer.

Basically during the open day they called over all the students who were also applying to Oxford and Cambridge and gave them 3 Es, they knew they weren't going to be our first choice, so wanted to guarantee being everyone's backup choice. People who weren't applying to Oxbridge got a normal offer.

murraypaul wrote:I think Imperial College would be regarded as reasonably esteemed, but it gave me a 3 Es offer.

Basically during the open day they called over all the students who were also applying to Oxford and Cambridge and gave them 3 Es, they knew they weren't going to be our first choice, so wanted to guarantee being everyone's backup choice. People who weren't applying to Oxbridge got a normal offer.

I didn't apply to Oxbridge & Imperial offered me one B.

(I did already have an A from the Lower 6th)

A picture that summarises the budget



and the general euphoria it instated on the streets



And they're the lucky ones, having the option of hot-dogs for dinner

Lootman wrote:... And generally, the more esteemed the institution, the higher the required grades.

You'd think so, wouldn't you.

However I worked at a Russell Group for a few years (when the Russell group was a bit smaller than it is now). My department would give much tougher offers to quality students, to convince them of the courses quality, while giving easy offers to your average Tom, Dick or Harriet to get expensive bums on seats.

Pretty disgusting, really.

murraypaul wrote:

Lootman wrote:Unless my teachers told different things to different universities, which seems unlikely, then that does not explain the vast range of offers many of us received. And generally, the more esteemed the institution, the higher the required grades.

It depends on a number of factors, including which others universities you have applied to.

I think Imperial College would be regarded as reasonably esteemed, but it gave me a 3 Es offer.

Basically during the open day they called over all the students who were also applying to Oxford and Cambridge and gave them 3 Es, they knew they weren't going to be our first choice, so wanted to guarantee being everyone's backup choice. People who weren't applying to Oxbridge got a normal offer.

Oxbridge too give "unconditional offers" (i.e. 3 Es or a couple of Ds) to students where they have already decided they are up to scratch.

By the mid-70s we had begun to ignore "university degrees" as a qualification.

1nvest wrote:A picture that summarises the budget



and the general euphoria it instated on the streets



And they're the lucky ones, having the option of hot-dogs for dinner

Two very 'staged' photos!

One with the cans of Special Brew well hidden, attempting to hide the drugs, fear, general malaise and appear as normal as possible.

The other seems to be some homeless people.

Steve

stockton wrote:By the mid-70s we had begun to ignore "university degrees" as a qualification.

That's interesting. My Dad used to say that too when he was something high up at a major-name engineering company.

He used to get really exercised about it saying those with engineering degrees generally had little in the way of engineering sensibility and no idea about how to make stuff, which is what the firm did.

Mike4 wrote:

stockton wrote:By the mid-70s we had begun to ignore "university degrees" as a qualification.

That's interesting. My Dad used to say that too when he was something high up at a major-name engineering company.

He used to get really exercised about it saying those with engineering degrees generally had little in the way of engineering sensibility and no idea about how to make stuff, which is what the firm did.

I thought that was because engineers don't make stuff. They design stuff for others to make. They use a slide rule or calculator rather than a hammer or lathe.

If there is a prejudice against engineering graduates isn't it that they know how to do one thing very well, but have no breadth of knowledge.

Lootman wrote:

Mike4 wrote:I thought that was because engineers don't make stuff. They design stuff for others to make. They use a slide rule or calculator rather than a hammer or lathe.
they know how to do one thing very well, but have no breadth of knowledge.

Drifting off topic here but, whilst I take your point, Engineers don't simply 'design stuff' or indeed have 'no knowledge depth'(!). What gets Engineer's goats is Technicians or skilled workmen being described or describing themselves as Engineers. In the UK If you're a corporate member of an Engineering Institution i.e. a 'Chartered' Engineer then u are most def an 'Engineer' but that's not exclusibely the case.

Lootman wrote:

Mike4 wrote:That's interesting. My Dad used to say that too when he was something high up at a major-name engineering company.

He used to get really exercised about it saying those with engineering degrees generally had little in the way of engineering sensibility and no idea about how to make stuff, which is what the firm did.

I thought that was because engineers don't make stuff. They design stuff for others to make. They use a slide rule or calculator rather than a hammer or lathe.

If there is a prejudice against engineering graduates isn't it that they know how to do one thing very well, but have no breadth of knowledge.

Engineering firms make loads of stuff. I'm surprised you didn't know this.

Mike4 wrote:

Lootman wrote:I thought that was because engineers don't make stuff. They design stuff for others to make. They use a slide rule or calculator rather than a hammer or lathe.

If there is a prejudice against engineering graduates isn't it that they know how to do one thing very well, but have no breadth of knowledge.

Engineering firms make loads of stuff. I'm surprised you didn't know this.

They do. I was talking about engineers as individuals.

I spent 6 months in an engineering company once. They made complex production-line machinery. They were made by fabricators and skilled mechanics. The engineers were in a separate building and spent all day doing calculations.

Again, a good friend of mine designs undercarriages for British Aerospace. Clever guy but his hands never get dirty.

Britain’s economy is expected to perform the worst of any G20 nations apart from Russia both this year and next, the OECD warned on Friday https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/blow- ... 53267.html

Lootman wrote:Again, a good friend of mine designs undercarriages for British Aerospace. Clever guy but his hands never get dirty.

But I would trust him to run the economy far better than the present shower of PPE graduates.

People face biggest fall in spending power for 70 years

The government's independent forecaster said that household incomes - once rising prices were taken into account - would drop by 6% this year and next.

AiY(D)

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:People face biggest fall in spending power for 70 years

The government's independent forecaster said that household incomes - once rising prices were taken into account - would drop by 6% this year and next.

AiY(D)

But there's probably no technical recession - so why complain?

servodude wrote:

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:People face biggest fall in spending power for 70 years

The government's independent forecaster said that household incomes - once rising prices were taken into account - would drop by 6% this year and next.

AiY(D)

But there's probably no technical recession - so why complain?

Sorry did it seem like I was complaining .

I thought I was merely drawing attention to the Chancellor's fallacious inference that as we haven't had a technical recession (two consecutive quarters of decline in output) we should all heave a huge sigh of relief and praise government for protecting us from the misery and consequences of a recession. What a wonderful job they have done over the last 13 years. Bless 'em . Where would we be without them? . They have done wonders for the entertainment industry, which as many are aware, includes the newspapers.

Fawlty Towers move over

AiY(D)

Nimrod103 wrote:

Lootman wrote:Again, a good friend of mine designs undercarriages for British Aerospace. Clever guy but his hands never get dirty.

But I would trust him to run the economy far better than the present shower of PPE graduates.

Be fair. Even Diane Abbot could have made a better job of the Budget than Hunt. Or even her inclination to misplaced decimal points might have lost the UK taxpayers less than Sunak.

LT/KK has the right design, just massively poorly implemented.

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:

servodude wrote:But there's probably no technical recession - so why complain?

Sorry did it seem like I was complaining .

I thought I was merely drawing attention to the Chancellor's fallacious inference that as we haven't had a technical recession (two consecutive quarters of decline in output) we should all heave a huge sigh of relief and praise government for protecting us from the misery and consequences of a recession. What a wonderful job they have done over the last 13 years. Bless 'em . Where would we be without them? . They have done wonders for the entertainment industry, which as many are aware, includes the newspapers.

Fawlty Towers move over

AiY(D)

What's wrong with a bit of misdirection?
Jeremy Hunt playing Debbie McGee beside Sunak's Paul Daniels.. a pair for the times!
And a bit better than Truss and Kwarteng's "Russ Abbott and Bella Emberg" performance