“Isn’t that where Kate met William?” used to be the go-to response when I told people I went to the University of St Andrews. However, in the past few years, something began to change. Instead of the inquisitive single eyebrow raise, I am now met with the honour of both – curiosity turned congratulatory. Suddenly, people were clapping me on the back and wiping tears from their eyes. But with a history that dates back to 1413, the one thing I’m certain of is that the university hasn’t changed much. When St Andrews has been nothing less than stable – a sure bet – why is it that suddenly we’re all the cream of the crop?
It is, unfortunately, human nature to rank things. Best friend lists on Snapchat, your pinned conversations on iMessage, the order and the subsequent substitute in case they’ve run out when your friend orders your food; we all have our favourites. And there are usually reasons for it. It might be memories, anecdotes, the place or location – many factors make up why we keep choosing the same thing over and over again. But in the age of social media, personal opinions seem a thing of the past. We no longer trust ourselves, nor do we trust one or two of our parents’ friends; we need statistics. We need something we can put a number to, something we can gamble on, something that makes our parents nod and say “that seems like the right choice.”
So when it comes to the second biggest decision of a 17-year-old (the first, of course, being whether to get a bob), relying on research is the tried-and-tested method we all swear by. When the UCAS page looms on our laptop screen and our parents perch over our shoulders, the anecdotes from your older sister’s friend at a Uni you thought you liked the campus of are no longer up to par.
We, as St Andrews students, almost all fell into that fear headfirst. We searched our degree department rankings, where St Andrews sat pretty happily near the top of the UK’s rankings. So the mirage of a parent’s pride became somewhat more opaque, and we crawled our way through the destitution of the Uni application process. And so we placed St Andrews as our second choice.
The question I want to answer first is: why is this auld grey town suddenly sitting almost atop The Times’ and The Guardian’s University League Tables? “Student Satisfaction” claims both. But what, exactly, is student satisfaction, and how can it be measured?
The answer, inconveniently, is not very much. Surveys love a number, and satisfaction is a number you can sell. But a student’s sense of fulfillment is not a neat, quantifiable thing; it’s a messy mix of expectation, privilege, and perspective. It’s influenced by everything from how polite your tutor is to how many friends you made during Freshers’ Week. And when universities start treating satisfaction scores like scripture, the results are often performative rather than substantive – more about marketing metrics than meaningful change.
Student satisfaction, at least in my vantage, is a newspaper’s excuse to rank universities however they want. Rightfully tired of the Oxbridge duopoly, the leagues were itching for a change, but employers weren’t listening, so the many arguably “valid” factors of the league tables weren’t budging. They had to change something, and a nice little subjectivity offers the unprovable opportunity to do so.
I find it entirely odd that we consider student satisfaction to the nth degree in university considerations. My only theory is that we are satisfied because we know what we are getting. A quick Google search, and the red gowns cover your screen; pictures of shaving-cream-adorned students crowd the corners, and an Overheard pops up where someone threatens they’re going to sleep with their academic dad. We’re not blindsided when we arrive; we’re stepping into a pre-written script. It’s hard, then, to be dissatisfied with an experience you already know the plot of. The mental arithmetic of measuring your own success in such a small, soggy town is already done by the time you add St Andrews to your choices – let alone move in. I suppose we’re here because we want to be.
Other universities are not so lucky. There’s a certain homogeneity to the St Andrews experience. Still, in universities that offer more than just three streets, seventeen coffee shops, and so many seagulls, it isn’t such a guarantee. Whether you fail and falter, or you strive and succeed, are possibilities where the student experience isn’t already presented to you by a Google Maps search and a look to your friend in disbelief at its size and location. Others have diverse students and diverse experiences; we’re still struggling with the former.
There is a certain charm to the fact we’re all going to the same lecture theatre and all our bums have sat in the same seats – that the rule of six degrees is simply a distant dream, and that yes, that definitely is the person your friend snogged last night at the union walking past your flat. We all, at one point, have struggled over the same ball ticket or finding a red gown on Facebook marketplace, because even a 10% saving will help cover DRA rent. But to put such an experience to a number would be an impossible feat – and that’s why this whole “student satisfaction” thing still twitches an eyelid.
The second question I’d like to pose is that, if student satisfaction really is all that, why do we find ourselves ranked 2nd nationally, yet ranked an embarrassing sub-100 number I’d rather not research globally? Why is it still the home of golf to the foreign, and yet posited as the “third Oxbridge” by the familiar?
Perhaps because “satisfaction” and “success” aren’t the same thing. St Andrews has mastered the art of self-containment – a university small enough to feel personal, old enough to feel historic, and remote enough to feel special. Satisfaction thrives in a bubble. But beyond our cobblestone comfort, prestige is still dictated by money, research, and power (which is, according to QS, the number of citations per faculty) – things no amount of quaintness can replicate.
Maybe that’s the sacrilegious truth of student satisfaction: that it measures how happy we are within our own illusion. The illusion that we’ve escaped Oxbridge’s shadow, that our little town’s warmth outweighs its isolation, that we’ve somehow won the academic game.
Because if there’s one thing St Andrews should teach us, it’s that being top of the table doesn’t necessarily mean being on top of the world.