Norrington Table
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The Norrington Table is an annual ranking that lists the colleges of the University of Oxford that have undergraduate students in order of the performance of their undergraduate students on that year's final examinations. It was created in 1962 by Sir Arthur Norrington, who was then president of Trinity College.

The Norrington Table is calculated by awarding 5 points for a student who receives a 1st Class degree, 3 points for a 2:1, 2 for a 2:2 and 1 for a 3rd, divided by the maximum possible score (i.e. the number of finalists in that college multiplied by 5), and expressed as a percentage (rounded to 2 decimal places) per college. Although the difference between the highest places on the table is usually very slight, the top colleges remain very competitive about their rankings on the Table. Their competitiveness has been heightened in recent years by increased media attention on 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.

Current Rankings

Below is the preliminary Norrington Table for the academic year 2007/08:¹

Past rankings

Norrington Table rankings since 2000²³

Criticisms

The table suggests a massive discrepancy between colleges. While this may not be true for middle-tier colleges, there may be a chasm dividing the very top colleges from the rest. Differences might not appear marked to an outsider.^{citation needed}

Having said that, the table does not account for success in postgraduate examinations, nor for distinctions awarded for Master's degrees. This criticism is underscored by the fact that several of the colleges that appear low on the Norrington Table have the best records of success with their graduate students.

Also, the table is biased towards colleges which have larger than average numbers of students in science subjects such as Chemistry and Mathematics where a higher proportion attain a 1st Class degree compared to arts degrees (where more students attain a 2.1), a feature in respect of which scores are adjusted in the corresponding Tompkins Table at Cambridge.

There is also a fear that competitive colleges could be unreasonable in demanding students who may miss a 2:1 to be "sent down" (expelled), or those who may miss out on a 1st to defer. There is general feeling amongst students that this happens frequently - it is being included in the campaign of at least one candidate in the 2008 OUSU elections.

Up until 2004, a key criticism was that students were allowed to withdraw their names from the public lists and were thus not counted — Trinity College President Sir Michael Beloff likened this to a Premiership final league table, only with several random results missing. In 2004, in response to this criticism, the University started issuing its own official Norrington Table, which accounted for all degrees issued, including those of people who opted out of the public lists. The rankings published since then, therefore, do not possess this weakness.

John Lucas, FBA, Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, presented a critique of the Norrington Table in a 1980 article.⁴

References

External links

• The official Norrington Table on the Oxford University website
• Norrington Table rankings 2000–2007