The Norrington Table is an annual ranking of the
college
A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offering ...
s of the
University of Oxford
, mottoeng = The Lord is my light
, established =
, endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019)
, budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20)
, chancellor ...
based on a score computed from the proportions of undergraduate students earning each of the various
degree classifications based on that year's
final examination
A final examination, annual, exam, final interview, or simply final, is a test given to students at the end of a course of study or training. Although the term can be used in the context of physical training, it most often occurs in the ac ...
s.
Overview
The rankings of each college in the Norrington Table are calculated by awarding 5 points for a student who receives a First
Class degree, 3 points for a 2:1, 2 for a 2:2 and 1 for a Third; the total is then divided by the maximum possible score (i.e. the number of finalists in that college multiplied by 5), and the result for each college is expressed as a percentage, rounded to 2 decimal places. Although the differences between the highest places on the table are usually slight, the top colleges remain very competitive about their rankings in the Table. Their competitiveness has been heightened in recent years by increased media attention towards the rankings.
Previously the university had refused to endorse an official table, leading to inaccuracies (see
Criticisms below), so the university finally published its own rankings using examination results from all final year undergraduates in 2005.
History
Contrary to popular belief, the Norrington Table was not created in 1962 by
Sir Arthur Norrington, who was then president of
Trinity College Trinity College may refer to:
Australia
* Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales
* Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...
. Norrington did not invent the idea of producing a table of the results of
Oxford colleges
The University of Oxford has thirty-nine colleges, and five permanent private halls (PPHs) of religious foundation. Colleges and PPHs are autonomous self-governing corporations within the university. These colleges are not only houses of residen ...
. Rather, he suggested a refinement to the weightings given to results in a existing table. Norrington's scoring system was suggested in 1963 and abandoned after 1985, owing to changes in the Oxford examination system.
On 5 September 1963, Norrington had a letter published in ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'', in which he objected to the table that their correspondent had published two days earlier (3 September 1963, p. 12). ''The Times'' had previously published a table of Oxford colleges' results in 1962 (29 August 1962, p. 5).
Norrington wrote: "Your Correspondent has analysed the final examination results this year and gives an order of merit, among the first colleges, based on the percentage of Firsts and Seconds. This, in effect, is the same as basing it on the percentage of Thirds, and gives it no extra credit for Firsts. College A, for example, that gets 20 Firsts, 60 Seconds, and 20 Thirds scores less by this method than College B that gets no Firsts, 81 Seconds and 19 Thirds, but surely A has, in reality, done much better than B. A better result, I submit, is obtained by a points system in which a First scores more than a second and a Second more than a Third. If you make the points 3, 2, and 1 respectively and calculate what percentage of its "possible" each college has secured, you will find that College A, with 200 points out of 300, has scored 66.67 per cent, and B, with 181, only 60 per cent. This method of calculation will be found to promote Magdalen and Merton, which come surprisingly low in your Correspondent's order." (5 September 1963, p. 13)
In 1986, when Oxford for the first time split Second Class honours into Upper Seconds and Lower Seconds, ''The Times'' unilaterally adopted the
Tompkins Table
The Tompkins Table is an annual ranking that lists the Colleges of the University of Cambridge in order of their undergraduate students' performances in that year's examinations. Two colleges— Darwin and Clare Hall—do not have undergraduat ...
, which gives more weight to a First class degree: five points for a First, three for a 2.1, two for a 2.2, and one for a Third. This system was devised in 1981 by Peter Tompkins, of
Birkenhead
Birkenhead (; cy, Penbedw) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England; historically, it was part of Cheshire until 1974. The town is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the south bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liver ...
, to classify the results of
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
colleges, and a table compiled by Tompkins on this basis was published on 28 August by ''The Times'' (28 Aug 1981, p. 10) alongside a table using the Norrington scoring system, which had been compiled by the ''
Cambridge Evening News
The ''Cambridge News'' (formerly the ''Cambridge Evening News'') is a British daily newspaper. Published each weekday and on Saturdays, it is distributed from its Waterbeach base. In the period December 2010 – June 2011 it had an average dail ...
''. The Tompkins Table became the preferred rating for
Cambridge colleges and has prevailed for Oxford colleges as well since 1986.
Recent rankings
Below is the Norrington Table for the
academic year
An academic year or school year is a period of time which schools, colleges and universities use to measure a quantity of study.
School holiday
School holidays (also referred to as vacations, breaks, and recess) are the periods during which sch ...
2019/20 along with mean values for the period 2006 to 2019.
Past rankings
Norrington Table rankings from 2006 to 2019 by college, ordered by mean rank, and omitting all PPHs since they take very few undergraduates, with the exception of
Regent's Park
Regent's Park (officially The Regent's Park) is one of the Royal Parks of London. It occupies of high ground in north-west Inner London, administratively split between the City of Westminster and the Borough of Camden (and historically betwee ...
:
Criticisms
The table is biased towards colleges with above average proportions of students in science subjects such as chemistry and mathematics, in which a higher proportion attain a first-class degree compared to humanities (in which more students attain a 2:1). The corresponding
Tompkins Table
The Tompkins Table is an annual ranking that lists the Colleges of the University of Cambridge in order of their undergraduate students' performances in that year's examinations. Two colleges— Darwin and Clare Hall—do not have undergraduat ...
at Cambridge makes an adjustment for this feature.
John Lucas, Fellow of
Merton, presented a critique of the Norrington Table in a 1980 article titled "Norrington Blues".
Other tables and debate over use of Norrington name
The Norrington Table has inspired other tables ranking the performance of
Oxford colleges
The University of Oxford has thirty-nine colleges, and five permanent private halls (PPHs) of religious foundation. Colleges and PPHs are autonomous self-governing corporations within the university. These colleges are not only houses of residen ...
, such as the “Vegetarian Norrington Table”, which was first published in 2016. A play on the original, the Vegetarian Norrington Table ranks the best and worst colleges in Oxford not for their undergraduate examination results, but for the quality of their
vegetarian
Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slaughter.
Vegetarianism m ...
and
vegan
Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal product—particularly in diet—and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. An individual who follows the diet or philosophy is known as a vegan. Di ...
food, using data collected from staff and students of the
University
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...
. The table caused some controversy, however, as a number of college
bursars argued that it bore no relation to the original and further questioned its metrics. The current top-ranked college in the Vegetarian Norrington Table is
Mansfield College, followed by
Worcester College
Worcester College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. The college was founded in 1714 by the benefaction of Sir Thomas Cookes, 2nd Baronet (1648–1701) of Norgrove, Worcestershire, whose coat of arms w ...
, with
Kellogg College
Kellogg College is a graduate-only constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1990 as Rewley House, Kellogg is the university's 36th college and the largest by number of students. It hosts research centres including ...
in third.
There have been attempts to rework the original Norrington Table, specifically in light of debates surrounding access and the equality of process. In 2018, one article used geographical data to rank colleges based on the percentage of undergraduate students from poorer backgrounds. In this same report, the Vice President of the
Oxford University Student Union
The Oxford University Student Union is the official students' union of the University of Oxford. It is better known in Oxford under the branding Oxford SU or by its previous name of OUSU. It exists to represent Oxford University students in t ...
announced work was underway on an “alternative Norrington Table” which would seek to measure
social mobility
Social mobility is the movement of individuals, families, households or other categories of people within or between social strata in a society. It is a change in social status relative to one's current social location within a given society ...
as well as academic success in colleges.
References
{{authority control
1963 establishments in England
Culture of the University of Oxford
History of the University of Oxford
University and college rankings
Universities in the United Kingdom