Thriving social life leads to high ranking for Harper Adams University

The university, near Newport, was also named 33rd in the UK, doing well in student surveys and the completion rate of those taking courses.

The university, which specialises in agricultural courses, came behind just Warwick and Birmingham in our region in the Sunday Times Good University Guide.

Harper Adams has a thriving social scene and more than 81 per cent of students gave their approval of the university in overall experience. More than nine in 10 completed their courses there. A total of 83.1 per cent of students also said they believed teaching to be of high quality, one of the highest rankings nationally.

Harper Adams University enjoys its second year as the highest-placed post-1992 university, this year jointly with the University of the Creative Arts in Farnham. It also holds a gold award in the Teaching Excellence Framework.

The university has been upgrading its teaching and research facilities and is one of a small number of locations where the government is funding centres for innovation as part of its national strategy for agricultural technologies. It specialises in the development of drone and robot technology in agriculture.

Staffordshire came seventh in the West Midlands and 57th across the country. Worcester was ninth and 91st nationally.

Profiles

Wolverhampton University, which has a large campus in Telford, came 11th regionally and 127th nationally. Figures showed that 30 per cent of its students dropped out before completing their degree.

The University of Warwick is the top-ranked university in the West Midlands, maintains its record of never having ranked outside of the elite UK top 10, despite a one place fall in its overall ranking.

The new edition of The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2019 includes profiles on 132 universities, making use of the latest data published in the past two months.

Elsewhere in the West Midlands, Coventry University, which was ranked fourth behind Harper Adams, has been made University of the Year for Student Experience. by The Times and The Sunday Times University Guide. Applications rose by eight per cent for courses starting this month, an impressive increase when compared against a downward national trend.

The University of Birmingham moves up from 15th to 14th in this year’s standings. Gaining a place at Birmingham has become increasingly difficult with only 330 more students admitted from 6,000 additional applications in 2018.

This was the fifth year in a row that applications had risen, initially helped by the university starting the trend for unconditional offers. Most subjects now operate the somewhat controversial scheme, which guarantees a place to students with high predicted grades holding one of the offers who place the university as their first choice. That place is honoured whatever the outcome of their A-levels.